The Justice Game

by Randy Singer

  “Too bad the real prosecutors didn’t use your playbook.”

  Jason thought about his “playbook,” including the hair dye stunt. He had used another product after the trial to regain his natural brown hue. “They played it safe. Prosecutors always play it safe.”

  Sherwood frowned at the thought and nodded. “You know what makes our system work?”

  “Sir?”

  “Do you know what makes our criminal justice system work? What allows juries to get it right most of the time?”

  Jason could think of a thousand things—the presumption of innocence, the right to confront one’s accusers, a jury of one’s peers—but he wasn’t sure where Sherwood was headed. “I haven’t really thought about it in those terms,” Jason admitted.

  “The adversarial nature of it,” Sherwood responded, as if the answer was obvious to any idiot. “When two equally matched and well-prepared advocates zealously represent their clients in front of an unbiased decision maker, the truth generally wins out.”

  He rotated the envelope in his hands, zeroing in on Jason. “Now, what screws the system up? When does it not work?”

  “When lazy or incompetent lawyers get involved. When the juries or judges are biased.”

  “Right,” Sherwood said. “There’s an old adage about the definition of a jury. It’s twelve men and women from the local community who come together to decide which client hired the better lawyer. When exceptional lawyers with enormous resources outwork and outsmart their adversaries, they win. But in the process, justice loses.”

  Three years of law school and two years of practicing law, and Jason had never heard it expressed quite that way. Sherwood had a reputation for cutting to the core issues.

  “That’s what happened in the Van Wyck mock trial,” Sherwood continued. “You out-lawyered Austin Lockhart. You pulled out a conviction when the evidence demanded an acquittal. You cost a few hedge fund managers millions of dollars.”

  Jason didn’t quite know what to say. It felt like he was being accused and congratulated at the same time.

  “I think you’re giving me too much credit,” he managed.

  “That’s what Andrew Lassiter said. And I listened. It cost me a lot of credibility, Jason. It cost my clients a lot of money.”

  Jason squelched the desire to apologize. What had he done wrong?

  “It’s not your fault,” Sherwood said, as if reading Jason’s mind. “We told you on day one that we wanted your best efforts in every case. The only way this works is when both lawyers go all out.” Sherwood flashed a quick smile, almost a wink. “Unfortunately, your best efforts are too good.

  “I’ve never fired anyone for being too good at their job, Jason. But there’s always a first time.”

  Sherwood twisted his neck back and forth, casually stretching his neck muscles as if he fired someone every day.

  Am I hearing this right?

  The CEO put down the envelope and stood, his bulky frame hovering over the table. He walked to his credenza and pulled out a box of cigars. He held them toward Jason, a surreal gesture that made Jason realize this moment would become part of Justice Inc. folklore. His friends wouldn’t believe this! He was getting fired for doing his job too well—and then offered a celebratory cigar as if he and Sherwood had just won the NBA championship.

  “No, thanks,” Jason said.

  Sherwood set the box on the table and unwrapped one for himself. He bit off the end and spit it into a trash can. He placed the cigar in his mouth without lighting it and chewed on it as he talked.

  “I’ll pay you for the remainder of your two-year contract,” he said, sliding the envelope toward Jason. “I would probably pay you a bonus for exceptional performance if you hadn’t set the company back a year or two by winning a case you should have lost.”

  Jason bit his tongue and eyed the big man curiously. It was hard to know whether Sherwood was being sarcastic or serious.

  Sherwood shrugged and gave Jason a knowing smile. “I know this sounds stupid. But it’s like a college football player declaring early for the draft. You’re better prepared to try a big case than 90 percent of the litigation partners at the largest law firms in this city.” He chewed a little more on his cigar. “You’ve got a knack, Jason. And I want to help you land at the right place.”

  Sherwood paused, as if he was spontaneously thinking this up. But Jason knew better. “You’re licensed in Virginia, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And don’t call me ‘sir.’ We went over this before.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ve got some friends at a few of the larger D.C. firms. Starting salaries are about one-fifty.” Sherwood went to his desk and grabbed two manila folders and plunked them on the table in front of Jason. “I’ve already made a few calls if you’re interested.”

  Jason looked at the names on the folders—two prestigious K Street firms. Not bad for a guy who graduated from the University of Georgia Law School.

  “I appreciate it,” Jason said. He pulled the folders toward him and stacked them neatly together. “But I’ve actually thought about starting my own practice. Criminal defense. Plaintiff’s contingency fee work. I’m not sure I’d be happy working at a big firm where I’d spend my first five years in the library.”

  Sherwood chewed on his cigar, studying Jason as if he were some kind of lab experiment.

  “I’m a courtroom lawyer, Mr. Sherwood, not a desk jockey.”

  “It’s Robert. And I knew that.” He grinned. He walked to his phone and hit the speaker button, summoning Olivia into his office. “Can you get Jason the contact information for Dr. Rivers?” he asked. “And bring me the Jacobsen and Bakke files.”

  He turned back to Jason after Olivia left. “Dr. Rivers just retired as the chief toxicologist for the Commonwealth of Virginia. She’s setting up a consulting firm in Richmond, Virginia, to work the defense side of the aisle. She knows all the skeletons in the closets, Jason, all the places the bodies are buried, so to speak. But she’s just an expert. She needs to team up with a really good trial lawyer.”

  Richmond, Jason thought. Far enough from Atlanta to escape the past. Big enough to make a name for himself.

  “I’ve already talked to Rivers about you,” Sherwood said. “She’s working two major criminal cases right now that will hinge on hair testing evidence. Maybe you move to Richmond. Maybe you and Rivers become the go-to team for cases involving hair evidence.”

  It sounded good to Jason, almost too good. But things were moving pretty fast. From New York to Richmond. From mock trials at Justice Inc. to real cases with lives on the line. Was he really ready to try a major criminal case just two years out of law school?

  Of course you are, he said to himself. He had watched a lot of mediocre lawyers on the actual cases that Justice Inc. had been tracking. They were afraid to take risks. How could he do any worse? After all, he’d just been fired for being too good.

  Sherwood gave Jason that look that said he knew exactly what Jason was thinking. “Make sure you get sizable retainers up front,” Sherwood advised. “That’s the first and most important rule for criminal defense attorneys.”

  His own practice. Two new clients. A top expert witness as a partner.

  Jason cast a disdainful look at the blue chair. “Maybe I will have a cigar,” he said.

  10

  Jason spent nearly an hour in Sherwood’s office, by far the longest amount of time he had ever spent with the CEO of Justice Inc. He learned that Sherwood had served nearly ten years as managing partner of a large New York law firm, and Jason soaked in law management tips, at one point even asking to borrow a legal pad and pen so he could get it all down. The conference ended only after Olivia interrupted again, reminding Sherwood of his next appointment.

  “Okay,” Sherwood said, “we’re wrapping it up.”

  When Olivia left, he turned back to Jason. “You’ve heard me say it a hundred times before, but I want it to be the last thing y
ou hear from me. You’re going to make an obscene amount of money in your life. But there will always be someone making more, and it will never feel like quite enough.”

  Sherwood’s dark eyes burned with an intensity he reserved for this issue alone. “We’ve given you better training than most elite lawyers will ever receive. Like other Justice Inc. alums, I’ll stay in touch and help you however I can. I only ask for one thing in return. Do your part to alleviate suffering in a third world country. We give 10 percent of our gross profits to such causes. I’d ask you to think about doing the same.”

  Jason nodded and took the unlit cigar out of his mouth. It suddenly seemed a little pretentious.

  “I’m going to turn you over to our HR department now,” Sherwood said. He stood and Jason followed suit. “We’ve got some severance documents for you to consider and some draconian security processes in place, but don’t take it personally. There are millions of dollars at risk on every case, and we’ve got to be careful.”

  “I understand,” Jason said. He shook Sherwood’s hand, threw his cigar in the trash can, and gathered up the envelope that contained his severance check along with the legal pad on which he had jotted three full pages of notes. He thanked Sherwood for the amazing experience of working with Justice Inc. and then followed Olivia to the office of Michael Ortberg, Justice Inc.’s director of Human Resources.

  There, Jason filled out a small mountain of paperwork—a severance agreement, health insurance elections, a non-compete and confidentiality agreement, and other similar documents. He reluctantly surrendered his firm-issued BlackBerry, thinking about how many personal e-mails and voice mails the device contained. The blow was lessened somewhat when Ortberg explained that Mr. Sherwood had authorized Justice Inc. to provide a replacement BlackBerry with the first year’s service agreement paid in full. As a convenience, Ortberg said the company would transfer Jason’s contact list to the new device, though they couldn’t do the same with the e-mail.

  “I’m sorry,” Ortberg said. “Company policy. That e-mail address belongs to Justice Inc., and we have to maintain complete control over it.”

  Ortberg explained that Jason could transfer his e-mails from his firm computer to a flash drive before he turned in his computer. “We’ll also erase all your personal data on the hard drive before we reissue it,” Ortberg said.

  “Do you want me to bring the computer in tomorrow?” Jason asked.

  “Actually, we have a policy about that too. We’ll have one of our folks follow you home and bring everything back to the office. It’s not that we don’t trust you. But some of our attorneys and employees are released on less than favorable terms and we have to apply the policy the same way for everyone who leaves.”

  “I understand,” said Jason, though he actually didn’t. What happened to all the trust the CEO of the company had expressed just an hour or so earlier? “I’ll need to delete some passwords for my bank accounts and other personal things before you take the computer back.”

  “Rafael can handle that.”

  Rafael Johansen showed up a few minutes later. Jason decided the man must have arrived fresh from the studio lot of Hollywood’s latest action flick. Dark-skinned and buff, Johansen was wearing a short-sleeved, button-down shirt and white slacks. The shirt was loose, hiding the man’s biceps, but his forearms had the bulging veins and rock-hard look of a steroid abuser. Rafael had thin hair and a trim beard that followed a granite jawline, and he wore a Bluetooth earpiece and dark sunglasses even though the forecast called for more rain.

  Jason tried to begin a conversation during the taxi ride to his apartment, but Rafael apparently specialized in one-word grunts. They rode most of the way in silence.

  Once inside Jason’s apartment, Rafael produced a checklist of items he needed according to the contract Jason had signed when he first started work for Justice Inc. They started with Jason’s laptop. Jason downloaded his personal items to a flash drive and deleted those same files from the hard drive. Rafael watched over Jason’s shoulder the entire time.

  Next, Jason gave up all the flash drives, CDs, and paper files he had produced while at Justice Inc. His contract called everything a “work for hire” and specified in no uncertain terms that it all reverted back to the company. Rafael called somebody on the phone and spoke to them in Spanish. Twenty minutes later, two men appeared at Jason’s apartment and started loading everything into boxes.

  They reached a point of impasse when Rafael insisted on personally inspecting Jason’s desk drawers and the drawers of his filing cabinet for additional Justice Inc. materials. Jason refused, challenging Rafael to point out contractual language that entitled him to invade Jason’s privacy.

  “I am just ensuring that you’ve complied with your contract,” Rafael insisted. “This is for your own protection. If proprietary information gets leaked, I’ll be able to certify that it didn’t come from you.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Jason said.

  Rafael stared at Jason for a moment. He had slipped his sunglasses on top of his head an hour earlier, revealing emotionless dark eyes that he now used to try to bully Jason.

  Instead of intimidating Jason, it only made him mad.

  “I’ll have to make a phone call,” Rafael said.

  He called Michael Ortberg, who asked to talk with Jason and played the role of good cop on the phone. It was nothing personal, Ortberg said. He acknowledged that Rafael had no contractual right to look in the drawers but he urged Jason to let Rafael look anyway. “I know you’ve got nothing to hide,” Ortberg said. “So if you could just humor him on this, it would make things a lot easier.”

  “What’s next, my sock and underwear drawer?”

  When Jason’s sarcastic comment was met with momentary silence, he became even more agitated. “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m kidding,” Ortberg said. “Let me talk to Rafael.”

  Rafael took the phone and walked into another room. When he returned, he told his men to make sure they had everything boxed up and labeled. He removed a form from a folder and asked Jason to sign it.

  While the men taped and labeled the boxes, Jason studied the form. It was a certification that he had returned everything—every piece of data and information he had ever generated or collected while at Justice Inc., whether stored electronically or contained on paper or in any other manner. Jason read the form, opened his desk drawer, and handed another flash drive to Rafael, then signed the form.

  Rafael took the form, then handed Jason a plain white envelope with Jason’s name on it. “Mr. Sherwood wanted you to have this,” Rafael said.

  After Rafael and his men left, Jason sat down at his desk and opened the envelope. Any warm fuzzies he’d had about his time at Justice Inc. had largely disappeared. Rafael had made Jason feel like a convicted felon trying to steal the company’s proprietary secrets.

  The envelope contained a letter from Robert Sherwood, expressing his gratitude for a job well done. I’ve never terminated anyone for being too good, the letter said. Seems like that might merit a small bonus.

  Enclosed was another check for $75,000—half a year’s salary. It made his total severance $150,000.

  Though it still seemed like a strange way to leave a company, Jason no longer felt underappreciated.

  He sat for a few minutes in silence, contemplating how quickly his life had changed. It was times like this when he most longed to pick up the phone and call his mom—a remarkable woman who had lost a six-month struggle with cancer when Jason was in junior high. Until she died, Jason had always been his mother’s son, soaking up the attention and unconditional love that came as natural to her as breathing. She died after the cancer metastasized from her colon to her liver. Fourteen years later, Jason still teared up just thinking about her.

  At the time, people simply shook their heads. “She was so young,” they’d said.

  His mother’s death left Jason with his father—a strict disciplinarian who never rema
rried. Jason now felt obligated to call his father and let him know about these recent developments. His father had grudgingly accepted Jason’s going to work for Justice Inc. but had always dreamed of Jason becoming a prosecutor. Instead, Jason would have to tell his dad about his plans to become a criminal defense lawyer, joining the “dark side.”

  His father would curse and let Jason know he was disappointed. He would remind Jason, as he had many times before, that Jason would be serving time behind bars if not for the fraternity of the men in blue—the way they looked out for each other’s families. He would do everything within his power to send Jason on another guilt trip.

  But it would only backfire, reminding Jason of the reason he had chosen this path in the first place. If other cops were as willing to work outside the law as the ones Jason knew, all kinds of innocent people would need good defense lawyers.

  His father would never understand that. He would accuse Jason of being a sellout.

  But Jason knew the truth.

  It was his father who had sold out. The system had already purchased his father’s soul.

  * * *

  Robert Sherwood looked up at a knock on his office door.

  “Come in.”

  The door swung open, and Rafael Johansen stepped in. “We’re all set,” he said.

  “Do you think he’s got copies of the software?” Sherwood asked.

  “Maybe. He wouldn’t give us access to his desk drawers and filing cabinets.”

  Sherwood thought about this for a moment. Given the enormous sums at risk, Justice Inc. had always been obsessed with protecting its proprietary information.

  “I think he’s a straight shooter,” Sherwood said. “But let’s put surveillance on him for a year or so just to play it safe.”

  11

  It took Jason three days to call.

  The first two days, he pulled up his father’s contact information a half-dozen times and scrolled the BlackBerry wheel until it shaded his father’s phone number. But he couldn’t bring himself to place the call.