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time would set aside a day or a few days when they would allow any subject a private audience for the purpose of offering evidence that someone entrusted with the property of the crown was stealing.  “Who comes” before the king?
    Today qui tam litigation is often initiated by an employee who becomes aware that her employer, a defense contractor, or a pharmaceutical company, or a healthcare provider, is violating federal law, or is overcharging the Department of Defense or Medicare.  Such lawsuits have gained in popularity among plaintiffs’ lawyers as tort reform legislation and rulings in federal courts have shrunk the envelope of viable class action litigation.
    Qui tam complaints are filed under seal to protect the identity of the plaintiff, who is called the relator.  After the complaint is filed, the government agency alleged to be cheated by the defendant is notified and provided the opportunity to take over the litigation.
    The relator receives fifteen per cent of any funds the government collects.
    The eleven pages of notes included information about numerous small operators of oil and gas companies, employees of those entities, and state employees.
    The notes also set out dates and times when representatives of these entities had meetings scheduled in the state capital with two lobbyists and with the attorney general and governor of Alabama.
    No wonder these notes were maintained in a sealed file.  If the information in the notes were true, the relator here might be eligible for the federal witness protection program.
     
     
     
    The Birmingham Public Library, a modern glass building of seven stories, stood directly across Richard Arrington Boulevard from the hotel.  After sifting through files for six hours, I needed a break.
    Before leaving the room, I placed the eleven pages of handwritten notes back in their folder, and, on an impulse, placed them in the room safe.  The information could be valuable or even dangerous, and someone had taken the precaution of sealing the envelope.  A little security seemed reasonable.
    I took the stairs down to the hotel lobby, crossed the street, entered the library through the glass doors, and weaved my way past the bums and winos pretending to be respectable street people hanging out in the atrium.
    The library’s escalator carried me to the reference room on the third floor.
    The librarian at the desk, a tall, skinny guy with granny glasses and a ponytail going gray, fetched volume 1 of the current Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory out of a back room.  I gave him my driver’s license, signed a card, and carried the three-pound book to the nearest table.
    Martindale-Hubbell , in its many volumes, lists lawyers in the United States and most other countries by name, date of birth, college and law school attended, location, law firm, and type of practice.  The information in the book was available online, but I’d spent enough time in the hotel room, and no one hacks into eyes on paper.
    For the law firms that buy subscriptions – most of them -- Martindale includes a description of the law firm’s practice and a mini-resumé for each lawyer in the firm.
    Other volumes contain precise and detailed descriptions of the law of each listed jurisdiction – contracts, corporations, procedure, criminal law.  Compiling the outlines is a prestigious assignment for a law firm.
    Volume 1 contained listings for Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, and Arkansas.
    Kramer’s law firm kept its offices downtown at Park Plaza, a glass and concrete office tower overlooking Linn Park, Birmingham’s courthouse square.  The firm’s entry listed around fifty lawyers.  William Francis Woolf was the managing partner.
    Woolf was fifty-five, a Tulane Law School graduate.  The Woolf in the firm’s name appeared to be William’s father, one of the founders of the firm, now retired or deceased.
    The office building was only two blocks away.  I could walk down there tomorrow and drop in