In Firm Pursuit (10 page)

A
t eight o'clock on Monday morning, Porter picked up the telephone but did not immediately dial a number. He hated having to report to Jim O'Reilly like he was some lowly associate. But as the Managing Partner of the firm, O'Reilly had to be updated on the Micronics situation.

Having a client as important as Micronics unhappy with the firm's services was not just Porter's problem, it was the firm's problem. O'Reilly & Finney handled Micronics's employment litigation, as well as their corporate deals, intellectual property matters and business litigation. If Micronics fired the firm, it would mean the loss of millions of dollars in legal fees.

Porter grudgingly dialed O'Reilly's number.

“Good morning, Mr. Porter,” O'Reilly's secretary chirped.

The woman's excessively cheerful voice had always irked him. Porter asked to speak with O'Reilly.

“I'll see if he's available.” The secretary returned to the phone within seconds. “I'm sorry, but Mr. O'Reilly is preparing for an important telephone conference with the Governor right now. Can he return your call later?”

Porter groaned. “No. Tell him my call is important, too.”

After a lengthy wait, O'Reilly came on the line.
“Yeah?” There was a definite air of impatience in his voice.

Porter could tell he was on the speakerphone. Porter hated speakerphones. “I'm calling about Vernetta Henderson. There seems to be a problem with a case she's been handling. The folks at Micronics thinks she—”

“I know all about it,” O'Reilly said, cutting him off. “I played golf with the General Counsel Sunday morning. I just wish you'd had the foresight to fill me in before that awards dinner Saturday night. You had that meeting on Friday afternoon. You should've called me right away.”

Porter's two brows knitted into one. “Well, I'm calling you now. I just wanted to let you know that I plan to meet with Vernetta this morning to—”

“I'd like to be there. Let's have the meeting in my office. How about nine-thirty?”

Porter was speechless. This was
his
case and
his
problem. The meeting should be held in
his
office. O'Reilly was always throwing his weight around.

“Well, does that time work for you or not?” O'Reilly asked impatiently.

“Fine.”

“Good. I'll see you then.”

Porter squeezed the telephone receiver so hard his hand began to ache. He had planned to resolve this matter quickly and quietly. Now O'Reilly was stepping in and would probably end up taking credit for cleaning up the mess. Nothing had changed since the first time O'Reilly had screwed him more than twenty-five years earlier. Porter's anger over that incident had only intensified over time.

During their first year at the firm, a jury handed one of O'Reilly & Finney's most respected senior partners the kind of notoriety no attorney welcomed—a multimillion-dollar jury award that was not in his favor. O'Reilly and Porter became the two junior members of a post-verdict team charged with coming up with a basis for overturning the embarrassing award.

Porter and O'Reilly were assigned the same legal issue to research. Although instructed to work as a team, both young associates were confident that their own superior intellect and excellent research skills would uncover a multitude of cases on point. So it made no sense to share the glory. The first day's research, which lasted late into the night, produced nothing helpful. By five the next morning, Porter was stationed in his cubicle in the library, well along in his research. O'Reilly didn't stroll in until after seven. While they had verbally agreed that O'Reilly would review treatises on procedural law and Porter would begin with law review articles, both had secretly encroached on the other's assigned turf.

After seven straight hours of research, Porter left the library hoping that some fresh air would energize his brain cells. He was gone just long enough to pick up a turkey on rye at the deli across the street.

As Porter headed back to the library, he was greeted in the hallway by a beaming senior partner. “Did you hear the news?” the partner asked.

“What news?” Porter was too sleep-deprived to worry about the impropriety of appearing uninformed.

“O'Reilly found the case we needed.
U.S. v. Lewis.
We're drafting a motion for a new trial as we speak.”

When Porter returned to the library, his appetite gone, he noticed that the papers in his cubicle had been disturbed. The volume of the
Harvard Law Review
that he had just reviewed was no longer perfectly centered on his yellow legal pad where he had left it. It was now sitting slightly askew.

Porter stared at his legal pad and felt sick to his stomach.
U.S. v. Lewis
was the eighth case on his list. He had already crossed off the first six. If he had taken the time to read just two more cases before going out for his sandwich, he—not O'Reilly—would have made the big discovery.

For months, Porter stood quietly on the sidelines as the entire firm sang the praises of the young Columbia law grad who had saved the day. When the verdict was subsequently overturned, everyone began saying that O'Reilly would be twice the lawyer his grandfather had been. One of the partners even joked that he could pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Porter never told anyone that O'Reilly's rabbit had been stolen from
his
hat. Porter kept his suspicions to himself because doing otherwise would have made it sound like he was not a team player. And everybody knew that O'Reilly & Finney attorneys were expected to be superb team players.

Even if they hated each other's guts.

W
hen I got to the office Monday morning, I did not give it a second thought when my secretary told me O'Reilly wanted to see me in his office in an hour. I was still on Cloud Nine after the plug he had given me at the banquet Saturday night. I figured he just wanted to lay it on even thicker.

But when I hit the doorway of his office and saw Porter sitting rigidly on O'Reilly's brown suede couch, my body's internal defense mechanism set off a silent alarm.

O'Reilly stood up when I entered the room. “Why don't you have a seat?” He motioned toward one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Good, I thought. I did not want to sit on the couch next to Porter.

Instead of returning to the chair behind his desk, O'Reilly walked over and closed the door, then took a seat in the other guest chair next to mine. I noticed that neither O'Reilly nor Porter made eye contact. With me or each other.

A dreadful thought sucked the air from my lungs. Associates who would not be considered for partnership were typically told a few weeks before the vote that their names would not be submitted.
They're about to tell me I'm not making partner!

“Well, I won't beat around the bush,” O'Reilly began. His voice was uncharacteristically formal, his body as stiff as a cardboard box. “We wanted to speak with you about the Randle case.” He stopped and rubbed his chin.

“The folks at Micronics have reason to believe that you may have a conflict of interest.”

“What?” I felt my body relax, relieved that partnership was not the subject of this meeting, but still totally confused. I glanced over at Porter and then at O'Reilly.

“What're you talking about?”

O'Reilly coughed. “We need to know whether you're involved in a personal relationship with Hamilton Ellis.”

I laughed nervously. “You're joking, right?”

“Take a look at these,” Porter said gruffly. He leaned forward and extended a manila envelope to me.

I opened the flap and pulled out five eight-by-ten photographs. Seemingly from nowhere a burst of heat exploded in my chest. I struggled to keep my hands steady as I examined the pictures. They were taken a week earlier, when Hamilton escorted me to the parking lot across the street from Little J's.

The first two pictures captured me and Hamilton walking toward my Land Cruiser. In another photograph, Hamilton had me by the elbow, helping me climb inside my SUV. In the fourth, Hamilton's head was leaning into the window and he appeared to be kissing me. The angle of the picture, however, made it impossible to determine whether Hamilton's kiss had landed on my lips or my left cheek. The final photograph showed Hamilton and Special. Both of them sported huge smiles as they walked out of Little J's.

I returned for a second look at the picture that showed Hamilton kissing me. I tried to swallow before speaking, but my throat felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton balls. “This is crazy.” I tried to keep my voice level so I didn't sound defensive. “If these pictures are the basis for your accusation that I have some kind of conflict of interest, then you're wrong.”

“Nobody's accused you of anything yet,” Porter said.

I flung a hateful look his way. “Of course you're accusing me. You're obviously implying that I'm involved in a romantic relationship with an opposing counsel. Well, I'm not. And in case you've forgotten, I'm married.”

“Well, can you explain that picture of you and Hamilton Ellis?” Porter snorted.

“There's nothing to explain.” I turned away from Porter and intentionally addressed my comments to O'Reilly. “I met my best friend at a nightclub after work last week. Hamilton Ellis just happened to be there, too. Almost as soon as he came in, I left. He offered to escort me to my car and since it was dark out, I let him. This picture is misleading.” I shoved the photographs back inside the envelope and tossed it onto O'Reilly's desk before continuing.

“He took me completely by surprise and leaned into the window and kissed me on the cheek—not the lips—which is not evident from the angle of that photograph. He said something about remembering his kiss when the Randle litigation got rough. That was it.”

“Okay then, what about that picture of your friend,
Ms. Moore? What's her relationship with Mr. Ellis?” Porter demanded.

“If you're asking me if she's dating him, yes she is. I can't control who my friends go out with.”

O'Reilly sighed. “Can you understand why Micronics might have a problem with this whole situation?”

“What
whole situation?
There is no
situation.
” My vocal cords cracked, but I hurled the emotion from my voice. There was no way I would allow myself to break down and cry in front of them. “I haven't done anything wrong.”

Porter refused to let up. “I understand your husband's living in San Diego. Are you having trouble in your marriage?”

That little bitch!
I couldn't believe I had been stupid enough to talk to Haley about Jefferson. So that was why she had asked me those questions about Hamilton.

I was poised to tell Porter that the state of my marriage was none of his damn business when O'Reilly raised his hand. “Vernetta, forget that question.” He gave Porter a cautionary look. “But I have to ask this next one. Just for the record. Reggie Jenkins appeared on some cable TV show a few days ago. It appears he knows about those sexual harassment cases summarized in that fax you got from HR. Micronics wants to make sure he didn't get that information from you.”

“You're right,” I snarled back at him. “You already know the answer. If you're asking me if I gave Reggie Jenkins, Hamilton Ellis or anybody else a copy of a confidential client memo and in the process committed malprac
tice by violating the attorney-client privilege and the Rules of Professional Conduct, the answer is no. No, I did not.”

“Is there any chance your friend Ms. Moore might've seen a copy of the document?” Porter asked. He was sitting on the edge of the couch now, acting like an aggressive trial lawyer trying to catch his witness in a lie.

I was on the verge of tears. Tears of anger. I clutched the arms of the chair for support. “If you're asking me if I'm in the habit of showing confidential client documents to my friends, the answer is the same. No.”

The office fell as quiet as a library after closing hours.

“Well, Vernetta, how do you think we should handle this?” O'Reilly asked.

I knew he was only humoring me. “I assume I'm here because Micronics wants me off the case. Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

O'Reilly reached over and patted my forearm. “Look, kiddo, you just told us you didn't do anything inappropriate, and we believe you. But I'm sure you understand the position this puts the firm in. The best thing for us to do is abide by the client's wishes. We're just fortunate that Porter was able to convince the General Counsel not to pull the case from the firm altogether.”

“Fine,” I said, standing up, even though they had yet to dismiss me. “Should I assume I'm still being followed?”

“You weren't being followed,” Porter groused at me.

“Micronics hired a private investigator to trail Randle and his attorneys. The company believes they've been trying to obtain some confidential company records.”

I didn't buy that story. “I only found out that Hamilton
Ellis had joined the case a few hours before those pictures were taken. Micronics must've known earlier since they had time to assign someone to follow him. Why didn't they tell us?”

Neither Porter nor O'Reilly had an answer to that question.

“And if Micronics thought Randle or one of his attorneys was stealing documents,” I said, “why accuse me of giving them the information about those other cases?”

O'Reilly raised his hand for the second time. “We just had to ask the question, Vernetta.”

I started to ask about my cell phone records, but I couldn't risk getting Shelia into hot water. Porter had probably wanted them to see if I had been making regular calls to Hamilton.

O'Reilly got up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Look, kiddo, we're in your corner.”

I looked him dead in the eye. “Sure you are.”

I walked back to my office in a total daze. My legs felt about as sturdy as two toothpicks.
This is insane.
One of the firm's most important clients was accusing me of misconduct based on a stupid kiss on the cheek.

I was about to enter my office when an awful thought paralyzed me mid-stride. I had left a copy of the Micronics fax on the coffee table in my living room before heading off to the banquet.
Had Special read it and shared the information with Hamilton?

While part of me knew that what I was thinking was absolutely insane, I could not shake the awful possibility from my head. I rushed over to my desk, grabbed the tele
phone receiver and dialed Special's office. She answered on the second ring.

“I need to ask you a very important question.” My tone was gruff and businesslike.

“What's up with the ugly attitude? You sound like you're ready to take my deposition.”

“Did you ever tell Hamilton anything I told you about the Randle case?”

“What?” Special replied. “Of course not. Anyway, you haven't really told me anything.”

“Are you sure? Remember that night you came over to borrow my earrings?” I was speaking at a rapid-fire pace, as if Special were on the witness stand, her guilt already determined.

“Yeah, so?”

“I left a copy of a fax about the Randle case on the coffee table in the living room. And somehow, Randle's attorneys found out about it. You didn't happen to look at it when I left, did you?”

“Hold up, girlfriend. I know you're not asking me what I think you're asking me.”

“I just need to know,” I said. “Did you read the document?”

“That law firm mess has really gone to your head. You really think I'd stab you in the back like that? And over some man? Don't you know me any better than that?”

The insanity of my questions suddenly hit me. They were even more offensive than the ones O'Reilly and Porter had just posed to me. I plopped down in my chair and closed my eyes. “Look, I'm sorry, I—”

“Sorry, my ass. I don't know what's going on down there, but if the tables were turned, I wouldn't have had to ask you the questions you just asked me.”

“Wait, Special, let me explain—”

“Save it. Since that law firm is so important to you, call one of them white boys down there the next time you need a friend.”

Before I could say another word, she had hung up.