In law school our career resources counselor told us that a corporate associate position at a Biglaw firm was the most difficult spot to obtain. Of those lucky enough to land a summer associate position, only a handful would be asked to join the corporate department. It was the epitome of success for the eternal striver in me. When F&D offered me a spot, it felt like a huge achievement, assurance that I’d chosen a career path that I was good at. But most important, it quelled the worries in my head that Margaret was the only winner in the family. Which was why it really got under my skin when Sarah implied that I was at the office late at night for any reason other than work.
“Seriously? Unprofessional? That’s what she called you?” Kim’s voice cut through my brief fantasy about yanking on Sarah’s pony tail until she cried “uncle.”
“Yup.” I nodded, stifling a yawn. The mandate from Maxwell last night that the merger sign before the markets opened meant that I’d pulled an all-nighter, but it was worth it because as of seven thirty this morning two companies were joined in holy matrimony. The best thing about signing up a deal early in the day was that it meant you could actually leave the office at the same time as the majority of the population. It was a rare occurrence to be out of the office while it was still light outside, one that had to be seized. So, despite my sleep-deprived state, here I was having dinner on a sidewalk patio with my best friend, Kim, filling her in on my run-in with my Ice Queen mentor.
“Oh, and apparently I’m in grave danger of putting the women’s movement back decades.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize you had that kind of power, Mac. Impressive.” Kim ripped off a piece of bread and swirled it around in the plate of olive oil. “Remind me to blame you when they take away my right to vote.”
I laughed. Other than my unpleasant run-in with Sarah last night, I had a lot to celebrate. The deal had signed on time, meaning my press release hit the wires just before the markets opened. News of the merger resulted in the stock nearly doubling in value, leaving our client overjoyed. Even Stay Puft had been jovial during the congratulatory handshakes around the conference room. “Good work, Mackenzie,” he’d boomed while clapping me on the shoulder. “You’re a real up-and-comer around here.” As he shook my hand I felt a swell of pride. It was definitely a booster shot to my ego to get a compliment from Maxwell. Biglaw partners had a knack for giving just enough praise to make your all-nighters feel worthwhile. Yes, being an up-and-comer in the eyes of a four corner partner was definitely cause for a toast.
I raised my glass. “To the women’s movement—may it be solid enough to survive my intra-office dating.”
“Hear, hear.” Kim smiled, clinking my glass.
I took a swig of Chianti, recommended by our waiter as the perfect accompaniment to our dinner selections. It was a far cry from the suburban Olive Garden back home. “Mmm … this is good. What’s it called again?”
“Wine,” Kim answered, smiling wickedly. Despite Kim’s well-off upbringing, or maybe because of it, she always rebuffed anything that sounded even slightly haughty.
“Ha, ha.” I deadpanned. “Whatever it’s called, I may crawl into that bottle.”
“Well, I think your maniac mentor story trumps any maniac four-year old encounter I’ve had lately, so I’ll forgive you if you drink the bulk of it.”
Kim loved to mock her job as a teacher at an Upper East Side preschool, sarcastically announcing she was “shaping our future,” but I knew her job was probably the one thing she took seriously. When Kim was four her parents went through a messy divorce, each using Kim as a pawn in their dysfunctional relationship. With a complicated custody schedule in place, she’d often been left at school long past the 2 P.M. dismissal time, as her parents fought about whose turn it was to pick her up. Thankfully, a kind teacher took Kim under her wing, reading or doing special art projects long past the final bell, and always explaining away her parents’ absence. “Stuck in traffic. That’s what she would always say,” Kim scoffed when she would recount the memory. “I thought Greenwich was the most congested town on earth until I was about ten.” Although she would never admit it, I knew Kim’s career choice was formed in her preschool classroom.
I peered at my BlackBerry, placed visibly on the table, as it was at every meal. Seeing it blinking, I picked it up and did a quick check.
To: Mackenzie Corbett
From: Mom
Hi Honey!
I heard you had dinner with Uncle Nigel last week. He mentioned anytime you’re out there you’re always welcome to spend the night so you don’t have to take the train back to the city late at night. Take him up on it next time—you know how your old mom worries!!
xo Mom
P.S. Make sure you and Kim get your flu shots!! Tis the season …
Kim raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Just my mom checking in.” I tossed my BlackBerry back on the table.
“I’m still amazed your mom even lets you live in this city all by yourself,” Kim teased.
“Please,” I scoffed. “The only reason she’s not consumed with worry on a daily basis is that Uncle Nigel lives close enough to put out any emergencies.”
Kim snickered.
My parents were the complete opposite of Kim’s—they’d been married thirty years, worked jobs that meant something to them, but didn’t provide a windfall (Dad was a principal and Mom was an ER nurse), and while they bickered over small things, they rarely fought. They centered their lives around their children, proudly drinking their morning coffee out of their “World’s Best Mom/Dad” mugs, and would love nothing more than to have me living closer to their safe suburb just outside of Boston.
As my best friend, Kim was under Mom’s worry umbrella too. And although Kim never mentioned it, she loved having a parent actually be concerned about her wellbeing.
I first met Kim orientation day of freshman year at Princeton. She was sitting on an unmade bed in our dorm room painting her toenails when I arrived, Mom and Dad in tow, schlepping labeled Tupperware storage containers I’d spent weeks organizing. “Mackenzie!” she’d sung, hopping off the bed, duck walking to avoid smudging her freshly painted toes, and embracing me the same way you would an old friend. “I’ve been waiting for you to get here. Welcome to Chez KimMac.” She’d gestured grandly around the tiny dorm room. “Or MacKim, whatever.” Something about the way she confidently assumed we’d be friends charmed me, melting away my usual new person shyness. Mom and Dad had set to work unpacking my clothes into contact paper-lined drawers, putting up shelves, and making both beds. “My mom dropped me off, but she had to go,” Kim explained as Mom spread Kim’s flowered comforter over her bed. “Something about staying in Jersey not being good for your skin.” She’d rolled her eyes, but I noticed the tiniest blush when she said it. When Mom finished her long, tearful goodbye, and Dad, the emotional opposite of Mom, had simply reminded me of the dangers of overloading the outlet with too many electronics, they finally closed the door behind them. Kim turned to me, eyes glinting with freedom and possibility, and said, “So what should we do tonight?” We’d been inseparable through the rest of college, talked daily when I was in law school, and blessedly ended up in the same city together, which wasn’t really an accident. We’d spent countless nights lying on our beds talking about our plans to live in New York City. We complemented each other well. She’d been my anchor when academic pressures threatened to push me off the deep end and I’d kept her safely moored through her multiple tumultuous relationships.
“So where’s Jason tonight?” Kim inquired, changing the subject.
“At the Rangers game with Alex. I doubt Alex will get to stay for the whole game, though. He’s still working with Saul, so he’ll probably get the usual ‘get your ass back to the office’ email.” I shrugged.
“Is Saul the really crazy one?” Kim asked, drawing out the word “really.”
“Yup, Saul’s the really crazy one,” I affirmed, nodding. The partners in the corporate department a
ll used intimidation and public humiliation as teaching tools. Frankly, each of them was really crazy in his own way. But Saul Siever had something extra—he was a sadist. He actually derived real pleasure from the torture he inflicted. Rumor had it that the only time Saul could be seen with a smile on his face was after he yelled at someone. Particularly if he brought them to tears. It was well-established firm lore that he once threw a stapler at the cleaning lady for moving his beloved ficus plant while vacuuming. It hit her in the back of the head and drew blood. Apparently after the settlement the partnership requested that he be put on medication. Whatever medication he was taking didn’t seem to stifle his ongoing atrocities against associates, though. “They can’t make a medication strong enough to give that monster an empathy gene,” I remembered an associate slurring after one too many margaritas at a Cinco-de-Mayo party. He had a client list that rivaled those of the top partners in the city, and because of it, the firm ignored all the ways in which he was a severe liability.
“How does Alex manage to survive working for that nut?” Kim shook her head in disbelief.
I shrugged. “You know Alex, everything rolls off his back.” Which unfortunately was not a trait I possessed. Lucky for me, I’d so far managed to avoid being staffed on one of Saul’s deals. In my mind, Saul had chosen his favorite associates to abuse and, thankfully, I wasn’t one of them.
Kim sighed dramatically. “I wish I was the one rolling around with Alex’s back.”
“Kim!” I laughed.
She clinked her wineglass against mine. “Don’t claim you aren’t aware of how incredibly sexy he is.”
Alex possessed a distinct “just rolled out of bed” sexiness that clearly appealed to Kim, but he and I had always been close friends—platonic work spouses. I’d thought about setting Kim up with Alex at one point, but quickly came to my senses—Alex went through girlfriends the way a bad golfer goes through balls. If he made my best friend his next mulligan, I would have to kill him.
“Nothing wrong with looking,” she added, holding her hands up in surrender. “With my record I need to have a back-up.”
I squinted one eye in a mock reproachful look. It was true that Kim didn’t have the best track record. Her fondness for relationship-phobic men meant her boyfriends typically stuck around about a month, just short enough to not actually be categorized as a “relationship.” But her current boyfriend, Quinn, was different. For starters he actually had a source of income, something none of her previous boyfriends had. I’d initially been suspicious of the dubious occupation of “bar owner,” so I’d run a title search confirming that (a) the bar “Cordova” did in fact exist and (b) Quinn did in fact own it. Yes, I did due diligence on my friend’s boyfriend. I may have inherited Mom’s tendency to worry.
“You don’t need to have a back-up when you’ve found the perfect guy for you.”
“Mac, don’t jinx it!”
It was true, though. If I had to design a guy specifically for Kim, Quinn would be it. He was attractive, but not intimidatingly so. His nose was just a tad too big, but his endearingly wide smile compensated for that. He was effortlessly cool in the “hipster without even trying” way. He was funny, but never made jokes at her expense. On their second date he cooked her lasagna because it was her favorite, and later confided to me that he’d watched a YouTube instructional video eleven times to learn how to make it. Most importantly, unlike her other beaux, he hadn’t run in the opposite direction when she referred to him as her boyfriend.
“How are things going with Quinn anyway?” I asked.
Just hearing his name, Kim’s face brightened. “Welllll … He wants me to meet his family.” She drummed the table in delight.
“What?” I squealed.
Kim nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s huge!”
“I know, right?” She picked up her wineglass and took a long, wistful gulp. “Remember that guy I dated in college who I thought wanted me to meet his family and it turned out he just wanted me to babysit his kids?”
“Yeah, you’ve come a long way from dating that gem.”
“Who’da thunk it?”
Our waiter suddenly materialized, balancing the plates on his arms. “Just put them all in the middle,” Kim instructed. He set down the caprese salad, brown butter gnocchi, and beef ravioli in the center of the table and an empty plate in front of each of us.
I speared a piece of gnocchi with my fork, grateful for Kim’s indiscriminate ordering. It melted in my mouth in a ball of yummy, buttery goodness. Nights like tonight made me feel beyond lucky that the paths Kim and I had taken had led us both to New York.
“So, if you and Quinn get married and have babies, do you realize how cute they’d be?” I pointed my fork at her. “You two owe it the world to procreate.”
She snorted. Never one to look too far into the future, she quickly changed gears. “Hey, do you think you’ll be free tomorrow night? Every Friday is 90’s movies trivia night at Quinn’s bar—winner gets a $100 tab.”
“Oh, we could so win that!” I raced through my mental checklist of work to-dos. With Stay Puft’s deal now done, I planned on laying low for a while and enjoying a social life again. Lately it felt like I was taking up residence at F&D, but now I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I’m in.” I grinned.
Kim clapped excitedly.
But I must have had one too many glasses of wine because I had momentarily forgotten the one truth, the biggest truth I’d learned: In Biglaw, the light at the end of the tunnel is always—always—an oncoming train.
3
“MACKENZIE,” RITA’S VOICE BURST out of my speaker phone. “Ben Girardi needs to see you in his aw-fice.”
“Did he say what it was relating to?” I asked, silently praying it wasn’t a new deal. I didn’t want to be smoked out of my hole a mere twenty-four hours after the merger was announced.
“No, but it bett-ah be about givin’ you a raise for all the haw-d work you’ve been puttin’ in lately.”
Sadir let out a laugh from the other side of the partition. “Not likely,” he scoffed.
It used to bother me that Sadir was privy to nearly everything that happened in my life on a daily basis. He could hear one side of every personal conversation, knew that I sometimes snored in my sleep, and could rattle off my schedule better than I could. But after he witnessed my attempt to discretely shave my legs at my desk one morning, I came to grips with the fact that there were never going to be any secrets between us.
“Have you heard anything about a deal Ben would be staffing?” If anyone would be in the know, it would be Sadir.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe you’ve been picked for the associates committee.”
The newest thing in Biglaw propaganda was to have an “associates committee” that supposedly dealt with associate satisfaction issues. In reality, the committee would meet with the partners once a month and suck up to them by telling them they were all doing a bang-up job and the associates were blissfully happy. What associate would risk saying anything to the contrary? No one. Then the committee would institute something like “Jamba Juice Fridays,” and somehow this was supposed to miraculously increase morale. Like a free Jamba Juice made up for our indentured servitude.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” I responded sarcastically, grabbing my notepad and heading out the door. But inside I was secretly hoping that Sadir was right. Ben was a partner who had many roles in the department. I could see him being the one responsible for staffing the associates committee. Or it could be any number of things—he wants to know how the CLEs are going? Suggestions for the next department lunch? My opinion about the success of Jamba Juice Fridays?
I reached Ben’s office and noticed two first year associates were already sitting on the couch off to the side of Ben’s desk, legal pads perched on their laps. Ben was in a large leather chair behind his desk, his greying temples framing what anywhere else would be considered
an average looking face, but in a law firm was considered handsome. I felt as if I was walking the plank as I took a few slow steps from the door to the seat across from Ben’s desk. Patrick O’Shea, another first year associate, entered the office last and took the last spot on the nubby maroon couch. Ben continued to scan his email, ignoring us, while we waited to hear our fate.
I’d never worked for Ben before, but had attended a dinner at his house when I was summer associate. Every summer the partners with the nicest houses hosted a dinner for the summer associates. A sort of “this could be yours” party. Personally, I think the plan backfires because you end up getting a rather unfortunate glimpse into their lives. Of course, Ben’s house was amazing—a huge old brick colonial home on a large piece of land in Scarsdale with a pool, tennis court, and a circular driveway that took visitors to the private parking lot behind the house. Inside, there was a grand staircase ascending down into the foyer—wide enough that a car could probably drive down it. From the foyer, double French doors led to a large room where the furniture had been cleared out to accommodate the party. It was clear from the food and drink that the dinner had a Mexican theme—waiters holding silver trays with sangria and pomegranate margaritas greeted everyone at the door and tiny empanadas and spicy shrimp were being offered by waitresses circulating through the crowd. Ben had done his best to portray the “laid back fun partner” look, wearing a cream colored linen shirt rolled up to the elbows and matching linen pants. To me it ended up looking more like a pair of oversized pajamas Hugh Hefner might wear.
Big Law Page 3