It was a bad day, in the middle of an unhappy month, not quite mid way though a year which held no perceptible promise. It had, Andi thought, been like this for a while. She looked out the window at Chicago's springtime skyline, 40 floors above Wacker Drive. People and vehicles below seemed to move with purpose, eager to attend to the business of being alive. For Andi, the business of her business (which was the law) had occupied so much space her life that the business of living had simply ceased to exist in any meaningful way. She had loved the law at first, driven by the intellectual challenge of learning to be a trial lawyer and the interpersonal challenge of finding her way through a male dominated firm and profession without losing what it was that made her Andi. There was no event, really—just a fading away of friends, and interests, and dating, until all that was left was work, a sense of emptiness, and absolutely no clue about how to make things better.
And now, into this already unpleasant soup, a fly had fallen: she had made a case mistake from which there was no obvious path to recovery. Having already hired an expert to support the care her physician client had given to a woman who died, she learned yesterday that her expert's license to practice medicine had been suspended several years before. In cases which often came down to a "battle of the experts", having an expert who managed to get his license suspended was very bad indeed. Trial loomed, deadlines for the disclosure of new experts were long expired, she hadn't told a soul, and she was desperate for a plan.
She leaned against the window and took a deep breath though her nose just like her DVD yoga instructor told her to do. The window was colder than she had expected; it felt good. She turned around and pressed her forehead to the glass, eyes closed. She wondered if anyone was looking and, if so, what they might be thinking. She wore a peach cashmere short-sleeved top, a gray pencil skirt, and her uniform black pumps. She was 5' 5", weighed about 10 pounds more than none-of-your-business, but knew that she was shapely and at least fairly attractive. Her mid-length reddish brown hair hung loosely—she could feel it against the sides of her face. She tried to feel someone's eyes on her, and failed. No one was looking or, if they were, they weren't caring. What the hell was she going to do?
She sighed and pulled away from the window. It would be suicide to confess to her partners—that was out of the question. The trial needed to be continued or, even better, avoided altogether. She thought about Jack McLaren, the lawyer who represented the estate of the dead woman. He was in his late 40's, maybe early 50's. Tall, bald, smart, and clearly confident, he had been nothing but a pleasure to work with during the case. He was, in fact, so sure of himself and accommodating that it was a little unnerving—like they were playing a game but only he knew the rules. She reviewed her list of options in her head and found only one idea on the list. She walked back to her desk and picked up the phone.
In Illinois, it turns out, someone who files a lawsuit can, under some circumstances, dismiss the lawsuit and then refile it anew. This process, called a voluntary dismissal, was typically used by claimants when something went wrong late in the case and they needed a do-over. In Andi's case, of course, nothing had gone wrong for the claimant, and there was no rule that allowed a defendant or Andi to restart the case. Andi's plan, such as it was, was to call McLaren and see if he would be willing to dismiss his perfectly good case.
His office staff put her through and he answered warmly. "Kelly. How can I help?"
If you only knew, she thought.
"I'd like to sit down and talk about Collins when you have a minute" she said, using his client's name to identify the case.
"Do you have your checkbook?" he asked with a smile in his voice.
Repartee she could handle. "I do" she said. "Plenty of checks, but I'm not so sure about funds."
She could sense his appreciation. "What's on the agenda?" he asked.
"Procedural stuff". She waited a breath. "And maybe even a favor".
" Good. Can you do tomorrow around 6?" he asked.
"Yep. Where?"
"I'll meet you at the bar at the Peninsula", he said, picking one of the city's nicer hotels. "Drinking sometimes needs to go together with favors."
The call ended. And her worried rehearsing began. It continued all night when she should have been sleeping, and through the next day when she should have been generating billable hours.
The time was nigh. She went to the bathroom and checked her reflection. She looked just like she felt--tired and worried and strung out. She found something in her purse to cover at least some of the shadows beneath her eyes, put on a little lip gloss out of habit, and headed to the elevator to grab a cab.
She would have been happy in the bar at the Peninsula had she been there for almost any other reason-- it was warm and rich and comfortable, the drinks were good, and the service was nearly perfect. As she walked in, however, she could feel the anxiety rising like a flood tide. She suspected that her neck was flame red, something that often happened in times of stress, but there was no way to know for sure. So she soldiered on, full of foreboding, sheathed in false confidence about a micron thick.
He was there already, seated in a chair, reading. A drink, probably bourbon, sat before him. There was another seat across from his, and Kelly headed for it, resigned to her task. He stood and extended his hand.
"Kelly. It's good to see you. What can I get you?"
No reason to make this harder than it needed to be. "Just a diet cola, I think."
"How sad", he said, smiling. He raised a hand, and a waitress started to glide in his direction.
Kelly watched him. He seemed relaxed, certain of his place in the universe, sure of what was to come. She envied him that. She unloaded her briefcase and raincoat onto an adjoining chair and sat, crossing her legs.
Small talk ensued. Kelly found it almost unbearable. Not that he was hard to talk to; in fact under almost any other circumstance she would have regarded this a welcome respite from the day. But now, the weight of her plight was just too heavy to allow her to enjoy his company. After a while, he seemed to know.
"Okay" he switched gears. "What's up on Collins?"
She glanced down, smoothed her already perfectly smooth skirt, and took a breath. She had thought about this for hours now. It wasn't that she was against bending the truth a little, it was just that nothing but the truth seemed to have any chance of working.
"I've got a problem in Collins. I can't tell you what it is exactly, but it's big, much bigger than just losing this case. Not only might I screw up a client relationship that the firm has had for decades, but it might give me career trouble." Kelly looked up.
McLaren was gazing at her steadily. "Can you fix it?"
"I can't," she said. "But you can."
"And how would that be" he asked, his voice just a little harder and his eyes steady.
"I need you to..." Bad start. Try again. "I was hoping you might consider taking a voluntary dismissal."
She took a quick breath and launched into her argument before she lost her nerve.
"You can refile as soon as you want. It will cause some delay in the resolution of the case, but not a lot-- not more than 6 months. Your case will be as good on refile as it is now. And I'll be able to go back to sleeping at night."
