Personal Jurisdiction

by Minot, Diana

  Personal Jurisdiction

  A Novel

  By Diana Minot

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Similarities to actual people or events are entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Diana Minot. All rights reserved.

  Cover Art:

  Natalia Zakharova/Bigstock.com

  Nosnibor137/Bigstock.com

  Dedication

  For the LM Study Group. Thank you for seeing me through the toughest days of 1L. I’m forever grateful.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Whitney Morris used her right index finger to trace the pattern of oddly shaped leaves on her Styrofoam coffee cup, willing the caffeine it held to do its job. The coffee here was never strong enough to get her past the inevitable 3 p.m. slump. These business meetings were intolerable: she and her colleagues, all staring glassy-eyed at their boss, Roger, as he went on and on about the latest profits-per-call statistics. Whitney had been excited to receive a promotion to a management position at the call center where she worked, but she was not sure if dealing with these unnecessarily long meetings was any better than fielding calls from angry customers all day.

  Whitney squinted as Roger flipped to the next screen of his PowerPoint. He was famous for overusing PowerPoint presentations, and even more famous for using color combinations that were unreadable on the conference room’s oversized projector screen. This latest slide was a combination of neon pink and orange. Whitney hit a key on her laptop to wake it up, trying to see whether the version on her smaller screen was easier to decipher. Roger was proud of his PowerPoints, and always emailed a copy of them to the management team in advance of their meetings. Whitney usually just tried her best to follow along on the projector, though. Once she started following along on her laptop, it became a slippery slope to checking email, and then Facebook, and then spending the whole meeting zoned out looking at two hundred pictures from a trip to the lake taken by someone she had not talked to since high school. Whitney tried to remain professional and focus on work while at work. Some days were more successful than others.

  When Whitney had graduated from the University of Texas three years ago with an English degree, the job market had been on a definite downswing. Many of her classmates with similar degrees had found themselves with a sizeable chunk of student loan debt and no job options. Whitney soon found that her near-perfect 3.8 GPA did not guarantee employment. Working in a call center was not exactly what she had pictured for her post-college career. But Whitney had moved back to Dallas, where she had grown up, feeling lucky to at least have a job. Her parents were thrilled that she was close to home, and, after a year, she had been promoted to her current position. Although the money was slightly better, the work was not. She felt trapped, like she was squandering time and squandering her education, while all the meetings full of badly formatted PowerPoints began to run together in an endless streak of neon colors and call statistics. She comforted herself by scheduling frequent coffee date bitch sessions with her best friend Rachel, and with the fact that her boyfriend of eighteen months was sure to be proposing any day. While her professional life was going nowhere, at least her personal life was in order.

  That all changed the day her boyfriend announced, with no preamble, that he had met someone else. He said he hoped they would remain friends, but Whitney had not spoken to him since that awful April day. She had fallen into the predictable breakup spiral, wearing fluffy pink sweatpants and eating whole pints of ice-cream in one sitting. Rachel, the dutiful best friend, tried her best to pull Whitney out of this funk, but Whitney insisted on watching an endless loop of romantic comedies. She only put on a brave face for work. (After all, breakup or no breakup, those student loans were not paying themselves off).

  After two months, Whitney emerged from her post-breakup haze and took a long, hard look at her current situation. She was angry at herself for allowing so much of her identity to become wrapped up in a man. She had seen so many of her friends sink into depression when they found themselves on the other side of twenty-five with no serious romantic prospects. Haughtily, she swore she would never be one of those girls. Yet, here she was, just twenty-five years old herself, spending her days at a dead end job and her evenings pining for a lost relationship. Things had to change. One Saturday afternoon, when she allowed herself to splurge on a latte at a busy Starbucks, they did.

  Whitney had grown up in a lower middle class household, and it was not unheard of for her mother to scrounge around in the couch cushions searching for enough spare change to buy a loaf of bread. Whitney never wanted to end up in this situation, and so spent too much of her time obsessing over budgeting. Although she was a self-proclaimed coffee addict, she almost always made her own coffee at home. When she did venture out to a coffee shop—usually for a coffee date with Rachel—she opted for plain brewed coffee over a pricier latte. On that particular June day, however, Whitney was feeling extraordinarily sorry for herself, and succumbed to her craving for an iced vanilla latte. As she waited at the bar for her drink, a tall, dark-haired stranger made small talk with her.

  “This heat is brutal! I can’t believe it’s not even July and we’ve already had over fifteen days of hundred degree weather!” he said. Counting days of triple digit temperatures was a favorite summer pastime for many Texans.

  “I know! I couldn’t resist getting an iced latte to cool down, although goodness knows I shouldn’t be spending money on this. I’m in so much debt thanks to my useless English degree, and the job market is going nowhere!” Whitney said. Somehow, blurting out a confession to someone that she was spending too much money always made her feel better about her splurges. Usually, that someone would just nod sympathetically and agree that sometimes overspending was just inevitable. Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome, however, had a different answer.

  “I used to feel that way, too. But then I decided to do something about it and went to law school. Now I’m working for a law firm and pulling in six figures. You should consider going back to school,” he said. His blue eyes were earnest as he spoke. Whitney was a sucker for dark hair and blue eyes. She wondered if this guy was single, then mentally kicked herself for thinking that way. She had promised herself she was not going to keep seeing every man she came across as a potential boyfriend.

  “Ha, you sound like an infomercial! And I don’t think the solution is to add even more to my pile of student loans,” Whitney said. “Besides, I’ve been out of school for three years. I’m a grown-ass woman. I’m not interested in living the student life again.”

  “Sweetheart, if you’re worried about paying for a latte, then you are still living the student life
. And although some people will never grow up, law school isn’t exactly like undergrad. I went to Northwestern Law, in Chicago. It’s a great school, if you can cut it. And if you can handle the winters.” The man chuckled as if Chicago winters were some kind of inside joke that Whitney would not understand. “They specifically look for applicants who have post-undergrad work experience, so most people there know what it’s like to be a working professional. I’m just saying, there are better options out there than feeling stuck in a generic liberal-arts-degree-job. If you’re going to have student loans anyways, you might as well have a job you can be proud of while paying them off.”

  Whitney collected her iced latte and laughed him off, but the seed had been planted. That afternoon, she spent several hours researching law schools and the legal field. By the time she closed her laptop to make dinner, she was convinced. There were too many lawyers out there and not enough jobs, so spending the money on law school was a gamble. If you did not get a good firm job, you would probably not make enough money to pay back your outrageous student loans. But Northwestern was one of the nation’s top law schools, and would give her great odds at landing a high-paying firm job. The only problem was that Northwestern was very selective in its admissions process. Whitney had a great GPA from undergrad, and she had the post-undergrad work experience Northwestern wanted. All she had to do now was ace the LSAT, the Law School Admissions Test.

  So began Operation Law School. If Rachel had been worried about Whitney before, she was doubly so now. Whitney spent all her free time taking practice LSATs. The fluffy sweatpants and pints of ice-cream stayed, but the romantic comedies were replaced with piles of study guides and answer keys. For over two months, Whitney only left her apartment to go to work or restock on groceries. Rachel breathed a huge sigh of relief the day Whitney finally took the test. Whitney, on the other hand, felt like she would not be able to breathe at all until results came out, which would take several weeks.

  Her boss’s palm slammed on the conference room table and brought Whitney abruptly back to the present. Startled, Whitney scrolled ahead to the next slide of the PowerPoint, admiring the lime green and orange color combination. She was struggling to focus this week, since official results for the LSAT were due to be emailed any day. Whitney had been compulsively checking her email all morning. So far, she had received nothing except a reminder from her dentist that she was due for a cleaning this month, and a few junk emails announcing autumn sales promotions. She tapped her fingernail on her laptop’s keyboard, then paused to admire her deep red nail polish. Although Whitney was a bit of a tightwad, she did love all things fashion and beauty. She was always trying to find inexpensive ways to freshen up her look, and one thing she insisted on was keeping her fingernails and toenails perfectly manicured. She considered a fresh coat of polish on her nails akin to a fresh coat of paint on a wall—an easy, inexpensive way to brighten up or change a look. It was not unheard of for her to repaint her nails a different color every night of the week, especially when she suspected a boy she was interested in might be around. Rachel always told Whitney she was crazy, and that men do not pay attention to what color your nail polish is. Whitney knew Rachel was probably right about that, but fresh nail polish made her feel more confident. Surely, men noticed that?

  Whitney smiled at Roger encouragingly, like she was paying attention to whatever he was saying about his lime green and orange creation. She felt a pang of guilt at her inattentiveness, and made a mental note to review the PowerPoint later. Even though she hated her job and felt her stomach twist up in knots when her weekday morning alarm went off, she did make an effort to work hard. Today, all her efforts at actually working were failing. Whitney twirled a strand of her chestnut brown hair around her red fingernail, admiring the way the two colors complemented each other, then squirmed uneasily in her seat as her thoughts turned back to her LSAT score.

  This meeting was dragging on endlessly, and she was itching to check her email again. She was afraid that if she found out her score was not good enough for a shot at Northwestern, she would not be able to hold it together. She had been spiraling deeper into despair over her life’s state of stagnation, and she desperately needed a change. She had allowed herself to daydream about having her own office in a big law firm, with her prestigious law diploma hanging proudly on the wall. Never again would she have to endure the sympathetic looks she always received when she answered “call center manager” in response to the “so what do you do” question. Never again would she have to worry about having enough money to make her student loan payments. Never again would she have to sit through one of Roger’s neon colored presentations.

  Whitney took a deep breath and navigated to her Gmail account. Her stomach flip-flopped when she saw the email. All she had to do was open it, and she would know whether her dreams had a chance of coming true. She knew she should not look at it in the middle of this meeting, but she could not hold back. She had to know. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and then clicked open.

  She felt her stomach drop and then leap as her score appeared on the screen. The conference room faded into a blur, and her eyes glazed over as she saw the phrase “99th Percentile” in black and white on her computer screen. She could not believe it. She had actually done it! She bit her bottom lip to keep from squealing and clenched her fingers into two tight fists. With all her concern over not acting devastated if she discovered a disappointing score, she had not planned for the possibility of concealing her elation at discovering an exceptional score. She sucked in her breath in a confused mixture of joy and disbelief.

  “Ms. Morris, are you still with us?” The sound of her boss’s voice caused Whitney to peel her eyes away from the laptop screen. She slowly focused on Roger’s expectant face, and then on the slightly amused faces of her coworkers.

  “Well?”

  “I-I…I’m sorry. I have to go.” Whitney closed her laptop, tossed her Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee into the waste bin, and walked out of the conference room from hell.

  Her life was about to change. She just had no idea how much.

  Chapter Two

  Whitney fidgeted in her seat as the bus headed north on Lake Shore Drive. Downtown Chicago loomed large in front of her. It had been almost a year since she received her LSAT score, and this was it—day one of orientation at Northwestern Law. When the acceptance letter had arrived, Whitney had danced around her small apartment for a solid hour, making phone call after phone call to share the good news. Her Texas born-and-bred parents did not understand why she wanted to go to law school in a liberal city like Chicago. They spat out the word “liberal” quickly, as if it might poison them if they let it sit on their tongues for too long. Rachel thought that Whitney had lost her mind and was going through a quarter-life crisis. Everyone told her she had no idea what she was getting into. Whitney had not cared about the Debbie Downer responses she received. They did not understand what an amazing opportunity this was.

  Now, however, as she was minutes away from meeting her new classmates, Whitney struggled to keep the negative voices out of her head. Was she smart enough to succeed at such an elite school? Would her classmates like her? Would she be one of the unlucky ones who did not land a firm job, leaving her with an even bigger mountain of debt than she already had, and no chance of ever paying it off? Was her outfit today appropriate?

  Whitney furrowed her brow, knowing that many would consider her concern over her outfit ridiculous. But, physical appearance is a large part of what kind of first impression you make, and there were going to be a lot of first impressions today. Whitney had spent almost an hour with a flat-iron that morning, taming her wavy tresses until they fell perfectly sleek and straight around her shoulders. She spent at least another twenty minutes scrutinizing her closet, with no idea what she was hoping to find. Whitney felt like her outfit was boring, but, honestly, what did one wear to law school orientation? The schedule she received said business casual, so she opt
ed for a classic black sheath dress, the only one she owned. A beige cardigan was thrown in her black tote, but it was too hot and muggy to wear it outside. She finished the ensemble with a pair of nude pumps, gold-toned hoop earrings, and a gold-toned bangle on her wrist. She glanced down at her fingernails, which she had painted a demure, creamy color for the occasion. She bought the polish, as she often did, because she liked the color name: Cappuccino. It came pretty close to matching the color of her shoes.

  Whitney stepped off the bus and walked the few blocks to Northwestern Law’s campus. She had already made this trip twice last week. After moving into her apartment in Lakeview, a neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, she practiced the commute a few times to make sure she knew what she was doing. Her nervousness over getting around on public transportation made her feel a bit childish, but she told herself that since Texas had almost no public transportation, she had an excuse for feeling that way. She knew that most of the law students were living right next to the campus in a neighborhood named Streeterville, but when she saw those apartment prices she nearly had a heart attack. The city of Chicago is made up of several distinct neighborhoods, and the apartment finder who helped her find her cheaper apartment a few miles away assured her that Lakeview was a “way cooler” neighborhood, anyways. Having lived her whole life in the suburbs of Dallas, Whitney was excited to experience life in such a big city, and was sure that any neighborhood she chose here would be “way cooler” than suburbia.

  Whitney walked through the front doors of the law school into the large, open atrium. Several people milled around holding purple folders. Some looked bored, some looked excited, and some looked as nervous as Whitney felt. Whitney checked in at a table near the entrance and was given her own purple folder. The girl who checked her in had the hugest smile Whitney had ever seen, and told her that the Dean would be giving a welcome speech in thirty minutes to kick off orientation. Whitney knew she should try to be friendly and introduce herself to some of the other students, but she felt suddenly overwhelmed. She opted to go find the auditorium and wait for the Dean’s speech.