I don’t even need to look at the document Noah’s just dumped on my desk. I already know what it is—it’s fastened with two staples across the top, like all discovery requests, with a “blue back” attached, which, as the name implies, is a blue piece of paper secured to the back of a document that folds over the top of the first page by one inch. The fancier law firms use that one inch where blue back folds over the top to announce, in bold-faced type, the name of their law firm. I don’t even have to look to see what this familiar blue back says:
Gilson, Hecht and Trattner
425 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10022
Jack has served me with a discovery request. A document request, to be specific.
I immediately pick up the telephone. “I’ve just been served,” I say to Vanessa.
Oh, please. As if your first order of business after being served wouldn’t be to call your best friend?
“Served? Like in that movie?” Vanessa asks. “Has someone challenged you to a dance off?”
“This is not funny!” I say. “Jack has just served me with a document request! And he’s requesting a lot of documents here!”
“Just get the junior associate to do it,” Vanessa says. “Why are you panicking? It’s not like you’re going to be the one reviewing all of those documents. You’re just going to supervise the darn thing, so don’t be so dramatic.”
“I’m the only person on the case,” I say, twirling the phone cord around my index finger.
“Oh, that is not funny,” Vanessa says.
“I know,” I say, now twirling the cord around my whole hand. My engagement ring peeks out from in between the cord, all sparkles and fire, and I unwind my hand from the cord.
“What types of documents is he requesting?” Vanessa asks, and for a moment I consider faxing the document request to her to get her opinion on the case. But then I remember that she, too, works at Gilson, Hecht and could turn to the dark side just as quickly as Jack had.
“Tons and tons of things,” I say, flipping through the request. “And it’s due in two weeks.”
“No,” Vanessa says, “in the Southern District of New York all discovery requests get thirty days for response.”
“We’re fast-tracked,” I say. “I agreed to turn around discovery requests in two weeks.”
“Well, that was stupid,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Unless you did it so that he can’t spend as much time with Miranda Foxley, man stealer to the stars.”
“Man stealer to the stars? She’s slept with celebrities?” I ask, my ears perking up at the thought of such delicious gossip. Even in the face of hours and hours of work, a girl’s still got time for some juicy celebrity gossip. “Who has she slept with that I would know?”
“Oh, no,” Vanessa says, “she hasn’t slept with any actual celebrities.”
“Why’d you call her man stealer to the stars then?” I say.
“Everything just sounds better when you say ‘to the stars,’ doncha think?” she says.
“Let’s see, tailor to the stars, chef to the stars, yoga instructor to the stars…. Yes, actually it does,” I say. “But it’s making Miranda sound more fabulous than she is. Let’s just call her ‘man stealer extraordinaire.’”
“Done,” Vanessa says. “But my point is the same. Is that why you got the case fast tracked?”
“I didn’t think he was actually going to serve me with discovery,” I say. “This is a dissolution of partnership, for God’s sake! We shouldn’t even be litigating!”
“Just request an extension,” Vanessa says. “Judges love it when parties play nice. You can ask Jack for an extension of a week or two. That way you won’t have to miss all of your wedding dress appointments and you’ll also get in good with the judge when he sees that you and Jack are being professional.”
My wedding dress appointments. I still don’t have a wedding dress. I still don’t have a wedding dress!
“That would mean that Jack wins,” I say, twirling the cord once again.
“Now you’re being ridiculous. It’s not about winning or losing,” she says as I hear her slam the door to her office shut. “It’s about the wedding dress! Get your priorities straight, for God’s sake, woman.”
“Anyway, you can’t ask for extensions on a fast-tracked case, especially when it was your own motion that requested the fast-track,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “The judge will realize that you don’t actually need the case to go fast and think that you’re just trying to manipulate his court calendar.”
“I wish your judge was a woman,” Vanessa says. “A woman would totally understand that you need an extension to go wedding dress shopping.”
“So true,” I say as Vanessa begins to tell me the horror of her latest first date. We’d been so excited about this one, since he had tickets to see The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway, which Vanessa and I were both dying to see. We got even more excited when he asked her to go to dinner beforehand. The only thing, he said, was that he got the tickets with another couple, and would she mind it much if they went on a double date as their first date? Well, the theater is the theater, so Vanessa told him that she wouldn’t mind one bit and then put on her cutest skirt and cropped jacket to go on the date.
Imagine her surprise when she gets to the restaurant to meet her date and finds out that their dinner companions are her date’s parents. Who would also be accompanying them to the show.
“Ironic,” I say, “considering you were going to see The Drowsy Chaperone.”
“Are you mocking me?” Vanessa says, and I can’t help but giggle. And I do feel badly that I’m laughing at Vanessa, but come on! A double date with the guy’s parents?
And then I take a peek at document request number thirteen and immediately stop laughing. Document request thirteen is a request for all e-mails sent by Monique that relate to the partnership she had with her husband. Requests that ask for e-mails are always a nightmare—it means that the lawyer reviewing them will have to go through each and every one of their client’s e-mails one by one to analyze them for relevancy, just like you would a normal document. But they usually take three times longer to review than regular documents, since e-mails are generally single-spaced. And God forbid there be an attachment.
I could object to the request on the grounds that it is overly broad—it could take me months to go through all of Monique’s e-mails—but chances are that the judge will tell me that it’s relevant to Monique’s husband’s countersuit. Which is true. There’s only one thing I can do here. Besides throwing myself on the floor and crying like a baby, that is. Or calling my fiancé to yell at him. Or my mother. Or my therapist.
No, there is one thing that I really must do here: I need to get myself to Monique’s computer as soon as humanly possible.
“Van,” I say, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.”
Column Five
Just asking…
WHAT prominent French businessman, married to a former model turned fashion designer, took a quiet jaunt to the Cayman Islands for the weekend?
His friends say he was just in desperate need of a tan, but sources tell us he’s hiding his funds in anticipation of his impending megadivorce. Sources say when this one hits, it’ll be bigger than the Loni/Burt, Alec/Kim and Charles/Denise splits…combined.
12
“Where were you?” my mother says, bursting through the door to my office. I’m shocked to see her there for two reasons: the first is that my mother never visited me at work. The second is it’s 8:00 p.m. that night.
“What are you doing here, Mom?” I say, getting up from my desk to give her a kiss hello.
“We had a 7:00 p.m. appointment at Amsale,” she says.
“I totally forgot,” I say, trying to figure out what day it is. “I’m so sorry.”
“You forgot?” she says, “about shopping for your own wedding dress?” And with that, she puts the back of her hand to my forehead. And then her other hand to her
own forehead.
“What are you doing?” I say, swatting her hand away.
“You must be ill,” she says, “I’m testing to see if you have a temperature.”
“I feel fine,” I say, walking back behind my desk and sitting down, “Why would you think that I’m sick?”
“Well, you would have to be deathly ill,” my mother explains, as she sits down on one of the visitor’s chairs in my office, “to forget about shopping. Wedding dress shopping, no less.”
“I’m not ill,” I say, “I’m just insanely busy at work is all.”
“I have never known you, in your thirty years on planet Earth, to choose work over shopping,” she says, reaching over my desk to feel my forehead again. “Surely, you must be delirious.”
“I’m not delirious,” I say leaning back in my chair out of reach of her arm, “I’m just very busy at work. And I didn’t choose work over shopping. I really had no choice in the matter.” I toss the document requests over to her to prove my point.
“What is this?” she asks, picking up the document request with two fingers as if it was a dirty turtle I’d found in our backyard. “Is this piece of paper supposed to validate the fact that you missed our appointment at Amsale?”
“I’m just showing you how busy I am,” I say, taking the document request back.
“Yes, I know all about it,” she says, “it’s what you told me last night when you missed our appointment at Vera Wang.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” I say, looking back down at the documents I was reviewing when my mother first walked in.
“That was your excuse on Monday, when you missed our appointment at Reem Acra,” she says, grabbing the documents I’m reviewing and throwing them down on the floor behind her.
“What are you doing?” I say, getting up from my chair to retrieve the documents.
“What are you doing is the better question here, BB,” she says, grabbing my arm as I pass her. She stands up from her chair and we are face to face. “What are you thinking? Don’t you want to get a wedding dress?”
“Of course I want to get a wedding dress, Mom,” I say, “it’s just that I have all of this work to do.”
“When you were at Gilson, Hecht you were never this diligent about work,” she says. “I remember meeting you on many an occasion at Saks when you’d snuck out of work for the afternoon. And now, when you really have something that you need to shop for, you don’t have time?”
“I need to prove myself here, Mom,” I say, “you just don’t understand.”
And of course my mother wouldn’t understand. The longest job she ever held was working at the Five and Dime when she was sixteen years old. And that was just an after school job. She had the luxury of meeting my father in college and being married by the time she was nineteen. Pregnant with me at twenty-two.
“What I do understand is that I’m trying to get my only daughter—my only child—married here,” she says. “What’s important is life, not work. You’ve finally found Mr. Right. Don’t you want to celebrate that?”
“While I was waiting around for 30 years for Mr. Right to come around, Mom, I got a career and a life. I still have to honor my commitments. You’re the one who taught me that.”
“But, BB, now you’ve found Mr. Right, so you can relax a little. I’m not telling you to quit your job. I’m not telling you to drop your big case. I’m just saying to give yourself a little time off so that you can look gorgeous when you walk down the aisle to go join Mr. Right in holy matrimony.”
“This is the last night I work this late, Mom, I promise,” I say, as she releases me from her grip and I bend down to retrieve the documents she’s thrown on the floor. “Once I get done with this document production, it’s back to wedding dress shopping full force.”
“And all things wedding?” she asks, her right eyebrow arching upwards.
“All things wedding,” I say, “I promise.” My mother smiles and I know that it is because she thinks that she has won. But the truth is, the documents are due at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. I couldn’t work on them any longer if I wanted to. So, after I have these documents sent over to Jack’s office, I can finally rest and get back to planning my wedding.
My mother hugs and kisses me before she walks out the door and I immediately get back to work. The documents themselves are out being photocopied and numbered, so all that’s left to do now is draft a privilege log and reread the request to make sure that I’ve given Jack all of the documents he’s requested.
I open a Word document to begin drafting the privilege log, but first indulge in a little activity I always find myself doing to procrastinate when I’m at work. I click open an Internet browser and then type in the familiar Web site of my old law firm: www.gilsonhecht.com. First I type in my own name, and wait for the search screen to come up, telling me that no result was found. Then, I type in Vanessa’s name and look at her profile:
Vanessa Taylor, Esq.
–Howard University
–New York University Law
• Member of the NYU Law Review
–Admitted to practice in the State of New York, Southern District of New York, and Eastern
District of New York
[email protected]
She looks absolutely adorable in a fitted black Theory suit which she’s paired with a pale pink cowl-neck top. Since she wears her hair so short, she’s always wearing beautiful earrings to complement her look. In the picture, she’s got on long gold drop earrings that have tiny pink stones dangling from them.
Next, I go to the S section of the “Our Attorneys” page where I pull up Jack’s profile:
Jack M. Solomon, Esq.
–University of Michigan, magna cum laude
• President, Drama Society
–Harvard Law School, summa cum laude
• Articles Editor of the Harvard Law Review
• Moot Court
• President, Student Bar Association
–Admitted to practice in the State of New York, State of Pennsylvania, Southern District of New York, Eastern District of New York, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Second Circuit, Third Circuit.
[email protected]
Just seeing his firm photo smiling back at me is always enough to make me smile myself. And I figure that it’s okay to procrastinate by doing this, since when I worked at Gilson, Hecht, I’d go and visit Vanessa and Jack in their offices to procrastinate. Since I’m at a new firm, it’s only fair that I still get to procrastinate with them.
Before turning back to my work, curiosity gets the best of me and I pull up Miranda Foxley’s profile:
Miranda Foxley, Esq.
–University of Texas
–Emory Law School
–Admitted to practice in the State of New York, Southern District of New York, and Eastern District of New York
[email protected]
I absolutely cannot get over how slutty she manages to look in her attorney portrait. Even in a suit, with a background of a bookshelf filled with legal treatises behind her, she still manages to look like she’s in the mood to have sex. Red hair blazing, completely unkempt and out of control, there’s a seductive look on her heavily made-up face and a camisole under her suit jacket that is a little too lacey and way too low-cut for a traditional office photo; there should be one of those cartoon captions over her head that says, “Hey baby, wanna wrestle?”
“Are you still here?” a voice says to me, and I instinctively sit up a bit straighter in my chair and then click off of Miranda’s firm photo as quickly as a thirteen-year-old boy caught with a dirty magazine. I look up from my computer screen to find Rosalyn Ford leaning in the door frame of my office with a smile.
“Rosalyn,” I say, almost out of breath. “Hi.”
“Burning the midnight oil,” she says, “I’m impressed.”
“It’s not like I really have a choice,” I say, lifting up the discovery request to demonstrate my
point, and attempting a lame smile. “These privilege logs don’t exactly write themselves.”
“Well,” she says, “you always have a choice. You know that. But, you look busy. So, I’ll just leave you to your work.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I don’t mean to be so cranky. It’s just that I’m a bit stressed out right now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “We’ve all been there. You’ll figure it out. How about I take you to lunch tomorrow?”
I want to tell Rosalyn no, that I have too much work to take a lunch break tomorrow, but it’s never a good idea to say no to a partner. Especially one like Rosalyn, who’s consistently been supportive of my work and my career here at SGR.
“Great,” I say. “Thanks.” I try to keep smiling, but I can’t help but think about what my mother would say about taking a lunch, but making no time for dress shopping.
“Have a good night,” Rosalyn says as she walks out. I draft a quick e-mail to my assistant to tell her that if my mother calls tomorrow between the hours of twelve noon and 2:00 o’clock, she should be told that I am in a meeting. Then I get back to my work.
Four hours later, I’ve got my documents back in my office and boxed up, my privilege log drafted and everything proofread. With my head so heavy, it’s about to hit the keyboard, I quickly draft a cover letter, print it and sign it. As I place the letter in the box of documents, I feel like something is missing. I pick the letter back up and walk with it over to my desk.
My mother is right. What’s important is life, not work. So, I should be focusing on my life. But I am such a woman of the millennium that I can inject a little bit of life into my work. I open my desk drawer and rifle around a bit. Finding the loudest, most obnoxious shade of red lipstick that I’ve got, I quickly put it on my lips. I pull the letter out of the box and put it onto my desk. Once I’ve smacked my lips together a few times to make sure that I’m even, I then lean down to the letter and plant a big kiss right on the letter, next to my signature line.
Jack With a Twist bm-2 Page 10
