I was still one of the "Young Turks," despite the fact that at the time I was in my seventh year with the firm. Most of my colleagues were in their late 40s or 50s, with a fair number of the partners well into their 60s or even 70s and fast approaching, at, or well past, retirement age -- maybe that's why
Cahill, Swann & Moore
had hired so many new attorneys this year. I, on the other hand, was only 35, but looked even younger, or so I've been told.
Maybe it was because I wasn't married, though it's not that I wasn't looking for someone! But when I started my career, I was one of those young adults that had entered the new millennium with the delusion that I could "have it all" -- career, spouse, family, big house, fancy car, and still find happiness, success, self-satisfaction, and true love.
I was beginning to think I been sold a bill of goods on that one. I had chosen to put most of my efforts and focus on becoming a good attorney, and so something had to give. I guess what "had to give" was everything other than my career. Besides, in my you-can-have-it-all mindset, I had also concocted some impossibly high standards. I was looking for a woman that was smart, funny, beautiful, driven, principled, passionate, and loving. But I digress.
As was the tradition, all of the company's new attorneys were introduced to the current employees at a week's worth of annual meetings that were held each year in February at this posh resort in Scottsdale. It
was
something I looked forward to -- flying down in the middle of winter to the warmth of the
Valley of the Sun
for a week of great food, golfing, wild parties, and an opportunity to meet some of the new female lawyers that the company decided it required in order to achieve "gender equity." If attaining gender equity meant hiring hot, young female attorneys in their 20s and 30s, then I was all for it. Besides, most of them that I had met were great lawyers.
But frankly, gender equity didn't sit well with some of my colleagues. The older men who had been with the firm for nearly 20 or 25 years, like my closest friends, Paul Houlihan and Tom Durant, resented the youngest and the prettiest of our new associates.
I guess people like Paul and Tom had already concluded that because of their age and their marital status, they had no shot with any of the new female lawyers, so they might as well despise them. They also assumed that none of them were actually competent to practice law based on the assumption that the only thing that had earned any of them a job at
CS&M
was their gender. So from the get-go, they turned up their noses at the sight of any woman under the age of 50 that found her way into our gigantic law firm.
I was surprised from the very beginning when I started at
CS&M
that I got along so well with some of the older attorneys like Paul and Tom. I thought that they would regard me in the same way that they did the younger women that were being hired now. But I came to realize that there were two differences between me and the young, female attorneys that had come to
CS&M
in the past three or four years.
The first was obvious -- I was male, and there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that there were a good many sexists among "the good ol' boy" crowd. Most of the chauvinism was latent, though some of it was blatantly overt and explicit.
Like the brilliant woman who joined us straight out of
Harvard Law
, who, when she lost a case that she had absolutely no chance to win, was told by several colleagues that in any future litigation, she needed to ask for help from the male attorneys during "that time of the month," since she had "clearly come across too emotionally" in her closing statement.
She had been thrown to the wolves by her older, male colleagues, all of whom were afraid to take the case themselves because they knew it was unwinnable. The result was predictable: she left after only a few months. It wasn't difficult to understand why.
The second difference was that unlike a lot of the younger attorneys, both male and female, being employed now, I actually had what was considered an impressive resume when I was hired, having had five years of solid experience in litigation, specializing in Intellectual Property and Patents cases.
I had worked at a medium-sized, but respected firm in Pittsburgh before coming to
CS&M
. Being hired by
CS&M
had been an opportunity for more money, more opportunities for advancement, and a chance to return to Cleveland, my hometown. But that had nothing to do with gender, since there were as many young male attorneys being hired straight out of law school as there were females.
So, when Paul, Tom, and I, along with a handful of our other colleagues from the Cleveland office were seated around a table for the opening of last year's annual meeting, I knew that I would be hearing a fair number of pointed, sexist comments directed at the new female hires as soon as the meeting convened.
The partners always started every annual meeting by introducing the new attorneys from each of our ten regional offices: New York, Washington, Miami, Dallas, Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, L.A., and Seattle. Since our corporate offices had recently moved from Cleveland to Phoenix, the new Phoenix attorneys were first up -- like lambs to the slaughter, I thought to myself.
The names of six people were called, four young women, and two guys -- one already in his late 40s and the other, a black guy fresh out of law school. All stood before the assembled crowd, nervous and fidgety, as their bios were read out loud to us. My eyes were immediately drawn to the young woman on the far right. She was stunning -- a gorgeous face poised atop a body that could not be hidden beneath her corporate attire.
She was the last of the six introduced. Her name was Kerri Parson, and she had graduated top her class from
Georgetown Law
and had worked for two years at a D.C. firm whose name I recognized --
Rowland & Mauer
. As I listened to her credentials being ticked off, I was certain that even the most ardent, old school chauvinist would regard her background as impeccable and beyond reproach.
I was wrong. To my right, Paul whispered under his breath to Tom and me, "She's not going to win any cases by being pretty," to which Tom replied, "They're going to eat her alive down here in the desert." I kept my own feelings to myself, and when a round of obligatory applause for Kerri and the other five newbies concluded, I was pleasantly surprised when Counselor Parson took a seat at the table in front of me, seated in profile directly in my line of sight. I would be able to stare at her the whole day without anyone questioning my motives.
She was spectacular! I estimated that she was in her early 30s, though I couldn't be certain. She had brown hair that was streaked with light brown and blonde highlights, and the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen, suspended under slender, arching eyebrows. Her nose was delicate, her lips pouty, and a beauty mark accented her dimpled left cheek. She sported a dark tan, and long, toned legs, and it was clear that she worked out regularly.
But it was, as usual, her bosom that caught my attention. Despite being wrapped securely in a stylish, pinstriped business suit, it was straining the buttons of her jacket, pushing upwards and outwards under her silk blouse. Her tailored jacket accentuated her tiny waist and shapely hips. I stared at her the entire day, but I tempered my attraction to her with the sobering assumption that she was spoken for -- probably married to some hotshot athlete or at least to some guy that was so rich that he could buy her affections with a massive house or a fast car.
That evening, the company hosted a lavish dinner, which was accompanied by, what always promised to be, a fairly decadent night of drinking. It was not uncommon for some of my colleagues to find willing partners to drag back to their respective rooms, and though drinking to excess was almost encouraged, fraternizing with colleagues was very much not.
Paul, Tom, and I made our way down to the opulent ballroom about 6:30 p.m. for the
