by David Cooper
Craven looked horrified. It had never occurred to him that his decision to break the news of his disability would need to go beyond the litigation partners and the HR officers.
“An announcement?”
Squire took a deep breath. His exasperation had come back sooner than he could ever have anticipated.
“Well, yes, of course. If you’re expecting everyone in the firm to be nicer to you, they’ll need to know why.” Squire could have been speaking to a child, but Craven was none the wiser. “Let me give you an example. Nearly a year ago, someone in another firm in the city decided to change sex. Just an assistant, male to female. We partners have a duty in situations like that. On that occasion, the partners in the other firm put a discreet announcement around, and the problem was solved. No repercussions either side. Just the high jump for anyone making her new life a misery!”
The familiar braying laugh was back. It only served to exacerbate Squire’s insensitive choice of comparison. Craven was beginning to feel desperate to leave Squire’s office, wondering why he had ever chosen to share his secret.
“Er…I thought that people in the department could just be told privately about my disability, as and when they needed to know.”
“That’s not the way things like this can possibly work in the real world, I’m afraid. But if you’d rather we took more of a low key approach, I’m sure we could strike a balance.” A touch of irritation had crept back into Squire’s voice. Thankfully for him, the door opened, to reveal Sheila Driver.
“Tony Wagstaff needs to speak to you urgently. Can I put him through?”
Squire nodded and waited for the phone to ring again. Not knowing whether to stay or leave, Craven remained seated, hoping for a lead from Squire.
“Yes, Tony?... No, nothing important, just… Has she now. No idea when to give up… They’ve disclosed what?” Squire listened carefully for the best part of a minute. “Yes, of course, let’s bring it forward. I’ll come right over.”
Squire replaced the phone and stood up.
“I need to head over to Edgbaston right now. Working lunch with Tony. Let’s pick up on this later. No, come to think of it, there’s probably nothing else we need to discuss. Leave it with me.”
It was evident from Squire’s tone that the conversation was over. He switched on a false smile in the hope of proving the point beyond doubt. Craven finally realised that his presence was no longer required, mumbled an almost inaudible ‘thank you’, and left, closing Squire’s door behind him. Squire took advantage by uttering a loud obscenity that was thankfully too muffled to echo any further. Seizing his jacket, he strode out.
Ten minutes later, Sheila Driver entered Squire’s office to tackle her filing backlog. Craven’s memo was still exactly where Squire had left it, in the centre of his desk. The ‘Private and Confidential’ heading proved no deterrent to the curious secretary. Although the memo itself remained in place on the desk once she had completed her task and left the office, its contents had already found a wider audience. The fact that she would be catching up later that day with the firm’s secretarial supervisor Judith Sandford, with whom Craven had clashed two weeks previously when hoping for an earlier train home, was a most unkind twist to the consequences of Craven’s decision to share his deepest personal secret with his head of department.
* * * * *
“How the bloody hell did she get hold of that?”
Squire had almost finished glancing through the set of copy documents that Lennie had disclosed on Karen’s behalf, in anticipation of agreeing the trial bundle. He contented himself with the occasional sneer at some of the more unusual items, such as the copy of the card that had been attached to the flowers delivered for Dawn, and the text message exchanges between Avery and Dawn over the weekend preceding Avery’s decision to leave Ripple. When he reached the copies of Avery’s desk diary entries, including the ‘PC Bastards’ entry in the week before he left, he asked Wagstaff if Avery had a convincing explanation, and was assured that this was the case.
But once he found himself looking at the copy of the Bastables internal email that warned of every meeting room being off limits on the day of the firm’s pre-merger computer systems induction, he could hold his temper no longer.
“No idea, Rufus. Must have been off a candidate. I wonder if it might have been that nasty little bitch Gemma Gabriel?” Wagstaff had never been one to forgive employees who chose to hand in their notice, particularly those who caused him more than simply routine inconvenience in the process of doing so.
“Who knows? Anyway, Tony, what’s to be done?” Squire skimmed through Lennie’s covering letter and read the relevant passage.
‘Accordingly, we are not minded to accept that the letter offering Mr Craven the job at BLH is decisive, so far as its date is concerned. This is not to be taken as any suggestion that the letter itself is anything other than authentic. However, the issue of whether Mr Craven’s introduction involved Mr Avery wrongfully diverting a Ripple business opportunity is still very much alive. We would further remind you that our position is reserved in relation to the propriety of your firm’s ongoing conduct of this action on behalf of Mr Avery…’
“Let me tell you what I think, Rufus.” Wagstaff pointed to the section that Squire had just finished reading. “We’ve got quite a few issues converging here. This memo. Those texts. That letter. So why don’t we just show exactly how strong we’re proclaiming our Chinese wall to be, nudge, nudge?”
Wagstaff deliberately touched his nose and explained what he had been considering before Squire had turned up.
“Very ingenious.” Squire replied. “I must say I’d been wondering to myself if we could get away with that. What about Grant Collins, though? Won’t he ask questions?”
“Don’t worry about him.” Wagstaff answered. Squire quickly realised that Wagstaff had already been weighing up how his trial advocate would react to the proposed new course of action. “He knows me and I know him. He’s keen on the work, and he likes winning in court.”
“Assuming, of course, that the bloody Rutherford woman doesn’t finally bottle it when she realises what might come out at trial!” Squire brayed his delight.
“Yes, Rufus, your desire for revenge knows no bounds!” Wagstaff shared in Squire’s laughter. “Mind you, she might chuck it in earlier. I’ve just given them the brush off over this phone records lark. Not much they can do, now that I’ve spelt it out that they no longer exist, or never existed in the first place. And Wayne’s really convincing when it comes to sticking to the party line about erasing his tapes.”
They continued to discuss the litigation until there was a tap at the boardroom door. A young secretary with a streak of crimson hair and a sullen expression entered on Wagstaff’s command, carrying a tray of sandwiches.
“Just put them down there, Shannon, there’s a good girl.” The secretary did as she was told and left without speaking, unaware that Squire’s roving eyes were tracking every step she took on the way out. Wagstaff noticed and sensed that a brief explanation was called for.
“Only my junior PA, I hasten to add. One of the casualties of the merger. Redundant in a couple of weeks’ time ahead of the office move. Can’t allow myself two PAs once there’s all this technology in place. Won’t be sorry to see her go, anyway, not with her attitude. Hasn’t got it up top either.”
“I wouldn’t say that!” Squire brayed once more, cupping his hands. “Nice arse too. My Sheila’s like the back end of a bus! Anyway, thinking of bolshie staff, you’ll never guess what I had sprung on me this morning.”
“Go on.”
Squire gave Wagstaff a rapid summary of what Craven had told him and the tricky discussion that had followed. He saved particular scorn for the phrase ‘reasonable adjustments’.
“Unbelievable. What are you going to do?” It was evident that Wagstaff’s reaction was devoid of even the slightest sympathy for Craven. But Squire was not looking for any.
“In t
he short term, we’re stuck.” Squire’s attitude was plainly no different to Wagstaff’s. “We could never have foreseen that three candidates were going to turn us down. We’re snowed under with work. In the medium term, we’d better start again. I’m almost tempted to put Wayne back on the search right now…”
“Fair point, but maybe we’d better try to get shot of this claim first. Give Wayne some good reason to go the extra mile for us. Then get shot of Craven. There surely must be some half decent candidates around who haven’t got a screw loose.”
Squire nodded as Wagstaff peeled the cling film from the sandwich tray. It never once occurred to him to tell Wagstaff how well Craven had performed against his first month’s billing targets.
Tuesday 14 th May
Lennie carefully read the latest communication from Wagstaff and found that he had simply batted aside Lennie’s criticism of how superficially Avery had addressed his duty to disclose relevant documents. Wagstaff had refused outright to initiate a request for copy phone records from Avery’s service provider, in the face of Avery professing to have none in his possession. Lennie wondered whether Wagstaff sincerely believed that right was on his side.
Lennie looked once more through the material voluntarily disclosed on Avery’s behalf. He focused again on an exchange of text messages between Avery and Craven that had been incongruously preserved via the photocopying of Avery’s phone screen.
‘Congrats on job offer. Rufus has just confirmed. Letter imminent. Well done!’
‘Thank you, Wayne. I am so glad that I got back in touch with you. Paul.’
There was no clue to their date, save for the entry in Avery’s list of documents asserting that the two texts had been exchanged on 24th March. Lennie was well aware that this was three days after Avery had unexpectedly left Ripple. The phone screen, however, bore no date on either photocopy, only the word ‘Today’ above each message. To Lennie’s mind, there was no reason either to take Avery’s word for the date, or to concede that the second of the two messages meant that Craven had taken the initiative to engage Avery. It was not beyond the realms of probability, he thought, that Craven had been induced into sending his message, and it would remain one of many issues for Avery’s cross-examination at trial.
“But why keep those two and nothing else?” Lennie addressed thin air. In marked contrast, Avery had disclosed no documents whatsoever covering the communication that he must have had with the three paralegals who had all deserted Ripple and switched their allegiance to Wave Recruitment in rapid succession. He found it hard to accept, in the face of the concerted emails from the paralegals to Karen, that Avery would either have deleted every pertinent email or text that he had exchanged with them, or conducted the whole campaign by phone without putting anything in writing.
But there was still a useful court rules weapon that was ideally suited to anomalies of that nature. Lennie emailed Karen to let her know that he would be asking the judge, via another preliminary hearing, to make an order for specific disclosure. He explained that the aim was to force Avery either to disclose particular documents that he had failed to provide so far, or to submit a formal explanation of what had happened to them. Failure to do so, in the face of such an order, would leave Avery vulnerable in turn to a request for his Defence to be struck out.
Lennie then settled down to the task of drafting the application. He was soon able to report back to Karen with further promising news.
“There’s a free slot in the judge’s diary next Friday at two o’clock. That’s fine for Soraya. The other side will have to lump it.”
“That’s great.”
“While I’m on, Karen, can I interest you in a wine tasting at the firm tomorrow night? I’ve just had someone drop out on me.”
“Hang on a moment…yes, that’s OK for me. What time?”
“Half five. One of these hideous name badge events, I have to admit, all in the name of networking. At least there’ll be enough to drink!”
“Sounds good. I’d better leave my car at home.”
Lennie turned back to the court application. Tempting as it might have been to spring it on Wagstaff with as little notice as possible, he knew that this would be contrary to the standard of professional ethics that the modern court rules required. It crossed his mind that this would be a suitable opportunity to put down a marker about the next formal stage in the case timetable, namely the duty for both sides to exchange their factual witness statements. Only three weeks remained before the deadline for this exercise, with the trial scheduled for two weeks later.
‘As you will no doubt have inferred from the contents of our clients’ disclosure, it is our intention to tender factual evidence not only from Dawn Vallance, but also from Gemma Gabriel, an individual who is clearly independent of our clients and thereby all the more credible. The logical and sensible inference to draw from their joint recollection is that your clients’ version of events in relation to Mr Craven is unlikely to be accepted. No doubt you will advise your clients that any change in their standpoint ought sensibly to be confirmed sooner rather than later, before further substantial costs are incurred.’
For Lennie to have taken such a bold stance in correspondence, and not to have foreseen that he might be unable to achieve it, was a rare lapse. But he could never have predicted exactly how he would find himself faced with the need to eat his own words.
* * * * *
Craven returned to his office and closed the door behind him, eager to begin reading into the file that Squire had just handed over.
On his arrival that morning, a quarter of an hour late due to a train delay, he failed to notice the secretaries’ curious glances in his direction. He would never know that the contents of his confidential memo to Squire had by then been spread far and wide across the department, thanks to the snowball effect of Sheila Driver finding it on Squire’s desk after he had left in a hurry for his meeting with Wagstaff.
Squire’s latest summons had given him no idea of what he might be in for. He feared further repercussions from the previous morning’s conversation. But it turned out that Squire simply wanted to delegate a file.
“Take this one off me for the next steps, Paul. It’s down for a meeting on Monday morning with the other side. Our clients are up against a speculative claim. One of Caroline’s matters, for a corporate department client. Dawley Vale Projects. Building dispute. Just reared its ugly head again.”
“What do I need to do?”
“Go into the meeting with the client and help him argue that it’s all nonsense. Go through their claim and shred it, line by line. I was down to deal with it myself, but I’m double booked.” Squire saw no need to add that he had had second thoughts, after arranging the meeting, about dirtying his own hands with a dispute that looked to be more of a complicated mess than he had first assumed.
“OK.” Craven took the file politely but without enthusiasm. He would have preferred to read into it first and then make his mind up about what ought to be done next. Meeting the opponents so soon might not have been his choice. He realised after a few moments that Squire had turned back to his computer screen and was not going to say anything else.
“Er…”
“Yes, what is it?” Squire struggled to keep his exasperation under control.
“I just wondered what you had decided to do about what I told you yesterday, about my disability issues.”
“Oh, that…” Squire paused. Late on the previous afternoon, following his return from his meeting with Wagstaff, Roger Blake had called in to discuss his ideas for a departmental summer social event. During their conversation Squire had mentioned what Craven had told him, thinking it would come as a near revelation, only for Blake to respond in all innocence that he had already heard ‘something along those lines’. Realising that it may have been a result of his own failure to keep Craven’s memo private, Squire had hurriedly changed the subject.
“I’m in the process of mentioning it to the partner
s and senior associates, and of course I’ll have to tell HR.” Squire thought for a moment. “I’ll just say something else to you for now. You really need to try to help yourself too. Every big professional firm in this city will have a gossip network. News like this will soon be on the grapevine, whether you like it or not. You ought to think about telling some tried and trusted people in confidence. Take your own initiative.”
Squire gestured to the door, indicating that he considered the discussion over. Forcing a smile when he realised Craven was still standing there, Squire suggested he should leave him in peace and start reading into the file that he had just handed over, and was finally rewarded when Craven left. He clapped a hand to his forehead and turned back to his monitor.
Two hours passed by as Craven read his way into the file. It left him with a deeper sense of unease. To his mind, the clients’ main argument, which involved an ambiguous clause in the contract that plainly set out to limit their liability for any breach, was an issue that should have been tested first. The dispute cried out for a preliminary trial, limited in scope to the interpretation of the clause. The meeting scheduled for the following Monday would be unlikely to serve any useful purpose in changing either side’s mind on what the clause meant.
This left the claim itself, and exactly how and why the clients had been accused of carrying out an installation process that the customer had described as ‘slipshod, incomplete and miles behind schedule’. Craven found himself more in sympathy with the customer’s arguments than the clients’ response. He could only conclude that the meeting was going to leave him trying to defend the indefensible.
He wondered whether there might be any benefit in contacting the client’s finance director, Ralph Stuermer, to explain his concerns, but soon realised that this would be a waste of time. The recent correspondence had portrayed Stuermer as unwilling either to give an inch or to listen to reason. And Craven knew that any step in that direction would be outside the boundaries of what Squire had told him to do. He asked himself in turn whether Squire might be persuaded that the meeting was a bad idea after all, but reluctantly concluded that he would only cause himself even more trouble if he questioned Squire’s judgment. He put the file on one side and cursed the fact that he had ever been asked to deal with it.
