“Thanks. I respected her work,” Roger said dispassionately as he reviewed his notes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to work with her.” Sophia tweaked Roger again by playing the sincerity card.
He glanced up quizzically at Sophia and then wrote off her comment as a naive absurdity and Sophia as the same. His cell phone sitting next to him on his desk rang. He picked it up, looked at the number, and declined the call
“Dante Septer and Carlisle Sanderson want you to drop by as well. They are adding you to a couple of dormant cases that should heat up in a few months after the holidays. And, of course, you are on call 24/7 for anything.”
Having concluded his business, Roger stood with his immense height to cue this naive non-entity’s exit.
Sophia obediently got to her feet. “How do I get to Frank Cumming’s office from here?”
“Next floor up, turn right off the elevators, southwest corner office. There’s a map insert in your handbook, which I see you don’t have with you either. I want you to bill one hour to the firm’s administration billing number for our meeting. Shut the door on your way out.”
Roger’s cell rang, again.
“Marvin? Hold on a sec.”
He glared at Sophia, who hadn’t moved quickly enough for him.
Sophia hesitated and then left. She knew she had only been with him ten minutes, not one hour. But she knew their hours had to be in sync for credibility, no matter how false, and would obey. It was an internal administrative billing number anyway, not something that would be charged to a client.
⌘
Chapter 23
Assignments of the Times
Roger’s abbreviated but sufficient directions got Sophia to Frank’s office. His assistant was transcribing at lightning speed with an earpiece on.
“Is Mr. Cummings available?”
“Oh, you must be Sophia. I’m Vera,” She looked up and offered her hand. “He said to expect you.”
“Nice to meet you.” Sophia smiled, shaking hands gently with this surprisingly friendly sixty-ish woman.
“His meeting’s almost over. It’s been nearly an hour and it’s not billable!”
“Ah,” Sophia understood the significance of “not billable,” which apparently dominated senior partners’ lives as well. “I’m just getting an assignment.”
“Well, that’s billable.” Vera’s crow’s feet accordioned as she smiled and considered Sophia with efficient but tired eyes. “I see you have your pad and pen. Good. Nothing irritates him more than tardiness and being unprepared. You’ll have to excuse me. I have to get this last letter done.”
Vera went back to transcribing and Sophia admired her proficiency. Sophia also admired attorneys who could dictate structurally sound, grammatically correct documents, short or long. Sophia had failed at even short dictations at Bode, despite having outlines and templates. She also didn’t bother to dictate changes to documents that just needed her own tweaking in the computer because it was a waste of time.
As Vera had predicted, in a few minutes Frank’s door cracked open. Sophia studied the backside of a man in an unkempt navy suit as he stood in the door, talking. He was not tall and had neat sandy hair.
“High heels! Bull. Women are weaned on those damned things,” the man paused and then chuckled. “They’re incredible though, aren’t they?”
“What?” Frank barked.
“Those high spikey heels, I mean . . . on a woman. They do incredible things to a man.”
“We appreciate your taking this on.” Frank dismissed the man and his lascivious, open-door editorializing.
“Well, I know the players after the Henning case. It’ll speed things up. If it was foul play, we’ll know.”
“Foul play,” Sophia mouthed inaudibly.
“We ordered an autopsy and forensics is doing the stairwell. I’ll be back for the access-card data.”
“Contact Vera,” Frank said.
The detective stepped out, shut the door, and turned just in time to see Sophia’s jaw drop involuntarily and momentarily. It dropped, not at what she heard about Judith’s death, but because the man before her was rugged, tan, and stone cold handsome.
“Hell-ooo,” the detective crooned, stepping toward Sophia.
His dark blue eyes laughed at Sophia and his smile burst with perfect white teeth. He was a lady-killer. And he knew it.
Sophia shut her mouth and started writing anything on her note pad with her Thorne & Chase pen to look occupied.
“This is Sophia Christopoulos, detective. Our newest associate.” Vera had the glint of a matchmaker in her eyes. “Sophia . . . Detective Steve Rutger.”
Vera printed her last letter and removed her earphones.
“I’ll tell Frank you’re here, Sophia.”
Vera took all the letters from her printer into Frank’s office for signature, leaving the two alone.
The detective perched himself on the corner of Vera’s desk, facing Sophia.
“Sophia Christopoulos. Greek?”
“Yes.” Sophia looked up from her nonsensical note writing.
“You can cook then?”
“I can.” Sophia stood and rehabilitated herself with defensive aggressiveness. “Can you, Detective Rutger?”
“Steve.” He reached out to shake Sophia’s hand.
Sophia acquiesced to the ritual.
“Well, Steve, can you?”
Sophia felt an unmistakable tingle go up her arm when she grasped his tan, weatherworn hand. Her mind began to extrapolate on the sensual, electric tingle and she withdrew her hand quickly, uncomfortable at what was in her mind.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I can. Meat and potatoes. With all the fixings.”
“That’s not cooking. That’s getting by.”
Vera emerged with the letters bearing scrawled blue-ink signatures. Attorneys used blue ink so that originals could be quickly sorted from the all-black copies.
“It’ll be just a minute, dear, he’s making a call.” Vera went back to work.
“Anything else, Detective?” Sophia asked, rhetorically and comfortably, conscious the bantering was over now their chaperone was back.
“No, not now.”
The detective left without another word or even a glance. Sophia watched him, mesmerized as he walked down the hall smoothly like a cat, a big cat, a lion hunting for prey.
“Vera, why does the detective need the access-card data?”
“Just checking. Poor Judith. Insurance issues. I think,” Vera muttered, focused on her transcribing.
Vera had clammed up. Sophia knew, from her summer at Bode, that long-time senior partners’ secretaries knew everything their bosses did. All the confidential firm business went through their desks and confidential conversations leaked into their ears.
As she waited, she forgot Detective Rutger’s good looks and focused on why he must be there: possible foul play in the stairwell.
⌘
Chapter 24
Frankly Speaking, and Billing
After a long fifteen minutes, Frank came out and put a tape on Vera’s desk.
“Sophia. Come on in.”
Sophia jumped to attention.
“Got your pad and pen, I see. Good. Bill to my client, Crondall Properties. The Gant Food, Inc. lease matter.” Frank marched his trooper, Sophia, into his office.
He regurgitated a five-minute precise, practiced overview of the case. Sophia penned notes in outline form as she did during her three years of law school. The only difference was that in law school, she input the notes on her laptop.
“But isn’t the lease term clear?” Sophia sat in the chair she had occupied at her interview only yesterday.
“Yes, good observation. At the time it made economic sense for Gant to break the lease. It’s called an ‘economic breach’.” Frank sat behind his desk.
“They owe the money then. Why don’t they just settle?”
“Gant doesn’t like our settlement figure. They
want to make hay out of the fact that my client may not have acted as diligently as it should have in advertising the space to mitigate their damages by getting a lessee in there. But it did. They just won’t acknowledge simple facts and won’t budge, so we are turning up the heat . . . document productions, depositions, real billables,” Frank preened. “We tried our damnedest to settle and do you know why?”
“To save the client money,” Sophia volunteered.
Frank smiled. “Yes, that too, of course, but practically speaking, we also had to as a matter of tactics. Given the attorneys’ fee clause in the lease, the loser has to reimburse the winner for their legal fees later. And if you make a detailed record of your good faith settlement efforts for the judge, you will get all your fees.”
“Doesn’t Gant know that? Why doesn’t Gant settle if they have a bad case?”
“Gant has a small-time lawyer who looks at this case as his meal ticket for the next two years. I think the client either doesn’t know what’s going on or can’t control the bloodsucker. Either way, he loses bigger.”
“What’s the billing number?” Sophia asked, embracing billables as the bottom line of her day.
“It’s on the file,” Frank replied with a look of approval.
“Great.”
Frank thought for a minute.
“And why don’t you come with me and Roger to San Francisco Tuesday? We’re taking two depositions in the case. You can prepare the questions for mine and observe. You’ll learn a lot. It’s short, but important. We’re deposing the head manager of the store. Draft some general questions about the monthly cash flow and polish up my series of questions in the file.”
“Glad to.”
Sophia covered her self-doubts, feelings of inadequacy about the deposition assignment, and her dread of going anywhere with Roger, San Francisco or otherwise.
“Get everything to me by Monday. We’ll see how you do. You’ll learn a lot in the depo Tuesday. Hell, if you think of something during the depo, you can slip me a note. Then, when we get your Bar results and you’re a full-fledged lawyer, you can do depositions on your own.”
“I look forward to it.” Sophia spoke calmly, as the words “your own depositions” bulleted both excitement and panic through her soul.
Technically, she could not represent clients until she got her passing bar results in two months and was sworn in. She was thankful for the two-month reprieve, allowing her to work behind the scenes and get her footing.
“Vera has the file. Any questions?”
“No.” Sophia thought of Tricia’s failure with Frank and began panicking inside.
She didn’t know the case, the legal issues, or anything about taking depositions. She thought she could make a good showing or at least an adequate one if she applied herself arduously and didn’t sleep from now until Tuesday. That was Sophia’s gift, the ability to focus and, despite sleep deprivation, grind through anything.
Even though Frank did not stand for the “exit cue,” he ended the meeting with the finality of silence.
“I’ll get started.” Sophia stood with no hesitation.
“Judith’s funeral is Monday morning,” Frank added.
“Yes, I was told.” Sophia kicked herself for not mentioning Judith’s death sooner. “And may I express my condolences to you. I am sure she will be missed.”
She was satisfied with her recovery. The cardinal rule at any law firm was never look unprepared.
“She worked hard. She would have been a good role-model for you.” Frank sized Sophia up and then opined further that she might be a fledgling Judith.
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Sophia knew there was nothing of Judith as “role-model” that she wanted other than the amazing suits she wore and the obvious wealth.
“But as far as the funeral goes, the work comes first. Get the file from Vera. Get the librarian to send you the depo info. Bill an hour and a half for this meeting.”
“Yes, I will.”
On her legal pad with her Thorne & Chase gold lettered black pen, Sophia jotted down the bloated hour and a half for this scant max fifteen-minute meeting. She was seeing why Thorne & Case was inscribed in gold on everything.
Frank stared at the array of files on his desk. He did not ravenously read them like yesterday at the end of Sophia’s interview. Instead, he looked blankly at them, not moving.
In an unfamiliar, hollow monotone Frank murmured, “Shut the door on your way out.”
Sophia stopped at Vera’s desk for the Crondall file.
“Come back. I’ll have it for you, Hon, but right now Mr. Apel wants to see you before he leaves for court. Down two floors, and to the right off the elevator. I’ll have the file here after.”
“Thanks, Vera.” Sophia hoped the forensic team would still be in the stairwell after her meeting with Chet.
⌘
Chapter 25
Cast of Thousands
Sophia arrived in no time at Chet’s office with Vera’s directions.
“Just the person I wanted to see. Have a seat.” Chet put his last stack of papers in his briefcase, closed it, and sat at his desk. “I’m sorry you had to be involved with last night’s tragedy after such a celebratory dinner.”
“I am just sorry it happened.” Sophia took the prompt to express her sorrow. “You have my condolences. Judith seemed wonderful.”
“Oh, yes. Stellar in every way.” Chet paused for a requisite somber moment and then proceeded. “I understand you witnessed the incident.”
“No.” Sophia noted Chet’s lawyer-like phrasing. “I was just in the lobby when they took Judith’s body out.”
“I must have gotten the wrong information.” Chet paused. “Well, no matter. It is a shame you won’t get a chance to learn from her. She was a great litigator.”
“I am disappointed. I know I just met Judith, but she said we would work well together and I was looking forward to it.”
Sophia’s forked tongue spoke the words as reverently as she could, considering the fact that she was jumping for joy that she would now never have to lunch with or work for Judith. Sophia worried that if she lied any more her nose would grow until it tripped her in the stairwell.
“It seems your news conference went well. No reporters in the lobby,” Sophia said.
“I noticed, but they’ll call. You’ll see.”
“Ah.”
“Just hang up. And if they start on your cell, you’ll start to recognize the numbers. Just block them.”
“Good advice.”
“To business.” Chet changed gears. “I have a lovely corporate client, a vacuum cleaner manufacturer and wholesale distributor, Super Vacuum. They are just a hoot and give us a lot of meat and potatoes work. I’d like you get up to speed on the three cases we have in federal district court: one here in California, one in Virginia, and one in Mississippi. We won’t be doing anything until the next month or so, but I want you ready to go, off the starting block so to speak, when the time comes. So spend about thirty to forty hours on each case familiarizing yourself with the files and conferencing with the other attorneys you’ll see mentioned in the files for clarifications.”
“Thirty to forty hours on each case?”
“Yes. There’s a lot there. It could take longer. Learn the files, the local district court rules, and review the relevant federal procedural posture the case is in.”
“All right.” Sophia knew the subtext here was that she could dump hours on this client who had deemed Chet’s services and protection were worth it.
“Be ready for emergencies. Every once in a while, those nasty little lawyers on the other side decide they need to make some money so they file some useless, time-consuming motion,” Chet chuckled.
“There’s nothing to be done about that.”
“No, there isn’t. And it’s all billable. Fortunately, there are several associates on board with you who are sharp and fun to work with. They can help you get going. There’s Paul Viola, James
Tang, Anne Whitfield, Tricia Manning, oh, and one young partner, Taylor Meston. Taylor goes to Mississippi for us. Sean Peters and Adam Schneider have been with him. Maybe we can get you some hands on experience there.”
“That would be wonderful.” Sophia had a snapshot run through her mind of herself and Taylor flying first class to Mississippi.
“I have good staffing on these cases. The client pays for wins and, so far, we have delivered just that—wins on motions, trials, you name it. They’re happy. We have saved them millions over the years.”
“That’s impressive.” Sophia decided she’d ask Paul if it was true. “I’m pleased to be a part of it.”
“Good. My secretary will send the files over. Don’t be shy about talking to your colleagues and billing for it. Get up to speed and don’t forget to bill those meetings accurately. Minimum thirty minutes plus your prep time for each meeting. You’re worth money now.”
Sophia beamed as she stood to leave, thinking of her first big fat paycheck in two weeks. She was happy to join the cast of thousands manning Chet’s cases to make the world safe for vacuum cleaners.
“Bill every minute, and bill one hour for this meeting.” Chet scratched 1.0 down on a piece of paper.
“I . . . will.” Sophia hesitated.
Chet glanced up at her response. “Any questions?”
“No . . . no, sir.”
She remembered that Frank had caught her hesitancy, and knew Chet had just caught it, also. She had to get a better game-face. Despite her misgivings at being told for a second time to put down more time than she had actually spent, she did it. Sophia decided she could rationalize converting this ten-minute meeting to an hour by committing herself to giving the client the extra fifty minutes later.
Chet looked her right in the eye. “Sophia, we are the finest law firm in the country. Our time is worth more than that of inferior lawyers, and we ‘value bill’ for that. We put down an appropriate amount of time to reflect that value. With your outstanding credentials, you certainly see the validity of that, don’t you?”
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