There was a slightly awkward moment where Alan and April had to pretend they already knew each other, despite the fact that they clearly hadn’t met before. April thought on her feet and greeted Alan the way a summer associate would treat a senior partner—friendly, but with respect.
“Here’s my card,” Jacob said, handing his business card to April.
“Thanks. I don’t have any cards yet. I’m just a summer associate.”
I cringed. So much for pretending April was an actual lawyer and not just a law student. It was my fault, I should have mentioned it before the meeting.
“Oh,” Jacob replied, his mood immediately turning sour. “Well, I hope I’m not paying for this training experience.”
“No, of course not,” Alan said immediately. As always, he caved to the client’s demands, no matter how unreasonable.
“Actually Alan,” I said calmly, “we are billing for April’s time here today. I asked her to be in the meeting because she wrote the memo we’re here to discuss.”
“You’ve dragged me all the way in here to discuss a memo written by a student?” Jacob asked.
“What Foster means,” Alan said, “is that April provided some research assistance, but that he actually wrote the memo.”
April fidgeted nervously in her seat, and her hand swept some loose strands of hair behind her ears. I didn’t want her to hear this, but the worst thing I could do right now was ask her to leave.
“That’s not what I meant,” I insisted. “April wrote the memo, and it’s a damn good one. I’ve reviewed it and I made a few tweaks to the language, but she knows it better than I do. That’s why she’s here.”
“I’m not being billed for her time,” Jacob repeated. “Train people on your own dime.”
“In that case, you don’t get the memo and I suggest we call an end to this meeting.”
April cleared her throat, and spoke quietly. “Perhaps I should leave. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”
“Yes, dear,” Alan said. “Please leave us men to it.”
April’s face went from nervous to angry and I knew why. Alan was a sexist pig. That’s why he wasn’t allowed to interview new associates anymore. April opened her mouth to speak, but decided against it and stood up ready to leave.
“Sit down please, April,” I said gently. “I would like you to stay.”
“Foster, I want a word with you,” Alan said sternly. “Outside. Now.”
“No,” I replied.
Alan looked at me incredulous. It wasn’t the first time I’d fallen out with him, but it was the first time it had happened in front of a client. Mom would give me an earful for this later.
Jacob sat back with a smile on his face. He was loving all this.
Alan took a deep breath and composed himself enough to speak. “Jacob is my client, Foster, so I will decide—”
“Jacob,” I said interrupting Alan. “Who would you rather have serving as your legal counsel? Would you like to deal with Alan, whose main area of expertise is the Securities Act of 1933, largely because he was alive when they wrote it, or would you rather deal with me? The person who’s been providing you with sound legal advice for the last five years.”
“I would delegate the work,” Alan said meekly. “It’s not like I’d try to do it myself.”
“I’m the best lawyer in the firm, Jacob. You want to take the risk with whoever Alan can find to work with him?”
Jacob looked at Alan who already looked defeated. I didn’t usually take pleasure from showing up an old man, but the guy should have retired years ago. My paralegal had been in my office a week ago telling me all about the things he said to her. It was fucking disgusting and hugely inappropriate for a law firm.
“Alright,” Jacob conceded. “But I’m still not happy about being billed for a trainee.”
“She charges a lot less than I do,” I said.
“If I may,” April said timidly, before clearing her throat again. “I could go through the memo with you, and then you could decide whether it’s worth paying for.”
“Interesting,” Jacob said, eying up April with what I hoped was just curiosity. “Okay, that’s fine with me.”
“I can agree to that,” I said. April knew the contents of that memo better than I knew the contours of her chest.
“Me too,” Alan said, although by that point we had all forgotten he was there.
April looked at her copy of the memo, but I suspected she was just taking a few moments to compose herself before speaking. How could this be the same woman who had shouted at me to fuck her? She’d not been lost for words when we were in bed together, but outside of the bedroom she was often timid and shy.
Most women were the other way around. All mouth until I got them in the sack, and then they suddenly didn’t know what to do. Or worse, they thought they knew what they were doing but didn’t have a clue. I still had no idea how some girls got the idea that they should clamp on to my dick with their teeth instead of lips. I shivered, as I had an unfortunate flashback to the last girl I’d had to educate on proper blow job technique.
April didn’t have what I would call ‘blowjob lips’ but I didn’t doubt her abilities. She’d kissed me firmly, with a decent amount of tongue. Not too much, but she didn’t hold it back either. She’d know how to suck dick, and if she didn’t, I would be a patient teacher.
I looked down at my own copy of the memo to fight the eagerness growing in my pants. The last thing I needed was to get hard in front of the client. Knowing Jacob, he’d think it was because of him.
“You asked what needed to be included in the disclosure to shareholders,” April began. Her voice shook slightly as she spoke, but that didn’t matter as long as the words made sense. “However, the better question is whether you need to make the disclosure at all.”
“That’s not the question,” Jacob said. “I know that I need to make the disclosure.”
“I disagree,” April replied. “There’s an exception in the Delaware Corporate Code for this situation when one hundred percent of the directors vote in favor of the resolution.”
“But not all the directors are voting in favor,” Jacob said. “If you’d have read my emails, you’d know that one of the directors is abstaining. He’s against the whole thing.”
“I read the emails,” April continued. “He’s not going to be at the meeting and he’s not voting by proxy. You don’t need every director to vote in favor; you need every director present at the meeting to vote in favor.”
Jacob stared at April for a few seconds and then broke out into a big grin. God, I wanted to smack him one sometimes.
“I think I’m going to like working with you,” Jacob said. “Keep going.”
April went through the rest of the memo, and answered Jacob’s questions the few times he interrupted. I might as well not have been there until the end when we discussed strategy and the next steps.
“Impressive, April,” Jacob said as the meeting ended. “If you don’t want to work here after you pass the bar exam give me a call. I’m sure I can find something for you to do in my office.”
Ugh. He might as well have licked his lips, his desire for her was so obvious. Was I that creepy? April didn’t seem to mind. She thanked him for the offer and shook his hand.
“I don’t need to tell you how brilliant you were in there,” I said to April as we sat down in my office for a post-meeting debrief. “You knocked it out of the park.”
“Yeah, I know,” April replied, letting a confident smile spread across her face. She’d earned it. “I think Jacob took a liking to me as well.”
“Uh, yeah, I think he did.”
“He’s a good looking bloke.”
“If you say so,” I grumbled.
“It’s a shame I can’t date clients.”
“Well you’re not a lawyer yet and he’s not technically… actually you’re probably right. You shouldn’t date him.”
“Jealous?” April teased.
“You’ve sure come out of your shell,” I joked, to avoid answering her question. “Am I going to regret letting you into that meeting?”
“You like it when I’m more confident,” April replied. “Is there anything we should discuss?”
“No, I suppose not.”
April smiled and stood up to leave. She’d be walking on air for the rest of the day. Not every client meeting would go that well, so I wanted her to savor this moment.
She stopped at the door and turned back to me. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For what you said.”
I nodded. “You’re welcome. Oh, April?”
“Yeah?”
“You can’t sleep with clients, but there’s nothing in the ethics guidelines about sleeping with other lawyers. Don’t forget that.”
She smiled and walked out the door. What just happened? I’d gotten jealous. Worst of all, she’d spotted it. That wasn’t how this was supposed to play out. Women got jealous after I’d fucked them, not the other way around.
This was uncharted territory. As a lawyer, I didn’t like the unknown. I watched April as she chatted to Paul while making a cup of coffee. She had a glow about her. A freshness that no one else in this office ever had. Even Paul was smiling, and he never looked happy at work. That’s what she did to people. That’s what she did to me.
I was in trouble.
I didn’t get anything done for the rest of the morning. Endorphins had flooded my body during the meeting, and I found it impossible to concentrate on work. Maybe I would enjoy being a corporate lawyer after all.
The memo had been fun to write, but I’d expected Foster to make loads of changes. He’d barely touched it. There were a few minor edits where he’d toned down my overly confident language, and he’d picked up a rather embarrassing typo of the word ‘public’ with an unfortunate letter missing, but that was it.
Foster had boosted my confidence to no end. He knew how to do that. Nine months ago, he had transformed a nervous law student into a sexually confident woman for the night, and now he had helped me be a real lawyer.
I preferred it when he was a complete jackass; at least then I knew where I stood. I knew enough about office politics to know that he had risked a lot by speaking to Alan like that. Alan might be a dinosaur, better suited to another century, but he was a senior partner. Alan would no doubt mention the incident to Kathleen and then he would be in the shit.
I considered emailing Kathleen and explaining what had happened, but Foster would hit the roof if I stuck up for him like that. Besides, we were all trying to keep things professional, and if Kathleen weren’t soon to be family there was no way I would have emailed her, so I shouldn’t do so now.
Foster’s attitude towards the PorTupe case still bugged the crap out me, though. After finishing off the last memo, I’d had some free time, so I’d dug through PorTupe’s client files. I didn’t have to look far before I found more evidence that the three directors running the company were complete shits.
A lot of the sexism was subtle, but it was there, even in the correspondence between the client and attorneys at the firm. Emails to male attorneys were professional and serious, whereas any email from a female attorney was quickly responded to with a request for confirmation from another attorney who just so happened to be male. That could just be because the male attorney in question was more senior, but given what I knew about this client already I was inclined to believe the worst.
Arrington & Hedges hadn’t helped PorTupe with the Department of Labor matter, but we had handled many employment disputes. Allegations of harassment against the directors were rife, but it looked like all the cases ended up settling. Foster hadn’t handled those issues, but he still turned a blind eye to them when I tried to convince him that the client wasn’t one we wanted on our books.
Foster insisted that no client was perfect and we couldn’t pick and choose. He was right, but that just made me more frustrated with the whole thing.
I shouldn’t have been surprised by Foster’s attitude. Large corporate law firms didn’t exactly have glowing reputations as protectors of individual liberties and basic human rights. These expensive offices in D.C. weren’t paid for with the fees from poor clients.
Unlike Foster, Mom hadn’t been driven entirely by money. She’d done plenty of pro bono work, so even if she did collect her paychecks from large corporations, she at least canceled that out by making a positive contribution to the community. Couldn’t I do the same?
I went back through all the introductory emails that had landed in my inbox on the first day, most of which were still unread, and went through them until I found what I was looking for. The firm had a pro bono program, and all employees were allowed to participate. The hours worked on pro bono cases even counted towards billable hours requirements, so I wouldn’t have to do it all in my spare time. Perfect.
I requested a meeting with the partner in charge of the program, and looked at the type of projects the firm worked on. I didn’t lack for choice, but I also didn’t appear to be suitable for any of them. I couldn’t help with tenant disputes, because my knowledge of real property law was appalling. I only got a B+ in that class and I would be perfectly happy never touching that subject again.
Defending people on death row certainly sounded exciting, but I knew nothing about criminal procedure other than what I’d seen on television. Unless one of the cops hadn’t read the defendant his Miranda rights I was basically out of ideas.
Then I found it. The perfect program for me to help with. The notes clearly stated that no prior knowledge was required, and it was certainly something I was passionate about given my family history.
I could make a positive contribution to people’s lives while I was at the firm. That might not cancel out the harm I was doing by ignoring a fraud happening right in front of my eyes, but it would help me sleep better at night.
-*-
“You want to help with elder law?” Simon asked. He was the partner in charge of the pro bono program, and he’d been delighted to see I was interested in being a part of it. By the sounds of it, far too many of the attorneys here were like Foster and ignored their pro bono responsibilities in favor of billing more hours and earning fees.
“Yes please,” I said. “I’ve had two grandparents who ended up in nursing homes near the end of their lives. I know how vulnerable people can be at that stage of their lives, and I’d like to help.”
“It’s not one of the sexier areas of law,” Simon said. “But it’s important. You’re right about these people being vulnerable. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen. Kids trying to steal from their parents when they get older is surprisingly common unfortunately.”
“I believe you.”
I’d seen it happen. When I used to visit my grandmother, I saw kids practically forcing their elderly parents to write checks for large amounts when they clearly didn’t understand what was going on. It was disgusting.
“Unfortunately, elder law also requires a lot of court appearances. Nothing difficult from a civil procedure perspective, but it does require an attorney.”
“A law student isn’t enough?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I would still love for you to do this, but you would need to find an attorney to work with. One who wouldn’t mind doing pro bono work instead of pushing through the latest M&A deal for our illustrious clientèle. Good luck with that.”
Simon gave me a puzzled look as my mouth stretched into a smile that covered most of my face.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I know an attorney who would love to help.”
I’d never been so enthusiastic to review the work of a law student before. Usually any work prepared by a junior attorney went right to the bottom of the pile, to remain there untouched until the issue became urgent.
Projects from April got my immediate attention. The quicker I looked at her work and made my edits, the quicker I could call her back into my office a late-night review session.
Those never went according to plan.
I imagined her coming into my office late in the evening, where we would chat and flirt, until she opened a button on her blouse and told me to stop talking and fuck her.
April had grown in confidence ever since the meeting with Jacob, but I still knew such an upfront demand was a long way off.
That didn’t stop me from getting hard every time she walked into my office. My cock knew what it wanted, and no amount of sensible thinking on my part could convince it otherwise.
I’d stand a much better chance of getting her bent over my desk, if I could stop insulting her father, but every time we met, he would somehow end up in the conversation and I couldn’t resist calling him out for chasing after Mom’s money.
Even now, they were both off at some lodge for the week, and you didn’t have to be a genius to guess who was paying for that.
Money-grubbing bastard.
None of this was April’s fault, and I didn’t directly blame her, but she clearly didn’t like me talking shit about her father. She’d need to develop a thicker skin if she was to become an attorney. No one sugarcoated anything in this profession. If you fucked up, you paid the price. Fortunately, I never fucked up.
At least Mom’s mini vacation meant she hadn’t had the opportunity to lay into me for the way I’d treated Alan at the client meeting. I’d ignored all her calls until she finally sent an email tearing me a new one, but emails were easy to ignore, and that’s exactly what I did.
I pinged April an email telling her to come to my office. She’d be along as soon as she’d gathered up her trusty pen and paper, so I used the minute of free time to scan my unread emails.
I didn’t like what I saw.
The first was an invitation to a networking event at April’s law school. The school wanted lawyers to show up and talk about their careers. I’d been to plenty of those before. It was just a bullshit excuse for law students to network with lawyers in the faint hope we might offer them a job after graduation.
Revenge: A Bad Boy Romance Page 29
