Today's a big day at work for me. It's the day that I get to take the direct testimony of my firm’s client, and then the cross-examination of the most important witness of the biggest trial of my career to date. I take a deep breath and can’t help but look around to see if Charles showed up. He’s not in the courtroom.
I sigh, realizing I should have known that he wouldn’t be here. I did know this, but couldn’t resist checking anyway, just in case. Charles has been all but non-existent in my life lately, barely asking me how my day was or if I’d like to grab dinner.
When I ask him if everything’s okay, he swears it is and that he’s just distracted. But he works maybe ten hours a week and parties the rest of the time, so I don’t know what he has to be distracted about.
Nor do I know why I haven't been brave enough to break up with him, when things are obviously going so, well badly, between us. I guess I'm just stuck in fear and inertia. But I have no time to think about that now. I have a trial to win.
I stand up to begin my questioning of Jed Marks but Jack Holt hands me a sheet of paper. Even though he’s the supervising attorney for the trial, so far, he’s let me handle the entire thing on my own.
I frown, wondering if he’s going to step in to do the big cross-examination, or if his interference means he no longer thinks I’ve been doing a good job, even though he’s been assuring me for the past week that everything has been going even more smoothly than he expected and that he’s very happy with my work.
“You’re doing great, Riley,” Mr. Holt assures me in a whisper. “But there was a sudden change in strategy and I’ve put together these questions to ask instead of the ones you prepared and we went over last week.”
Sudden change in strategy? When was there time for the managing partners to meet about this case between yesterday’s full-day trial session and this morning, and why? He put together new questions? Did he not like mine?
It makes no sense. We had painstakingly gone over my prepared questions until neither of us had any doubt that they were perfect. And now he’s handed me one sheet with questions for our witness and on the back questions for the opposing witness, and they’re completely different than those that we had planned out.
I’m not prepared; I haven’t had time to practice my direct questioning since I didn’t even have these questions until now. How could he sandbag me like this? And why?
As I quickly scan the questions, the answers become a little more clear, but not much. It appears that someone at my firm was given information about the other side’s case, and I doubt that it was done above board. There is no way we could know all of this information unless someone had discovered it unethically or had been provided the information unethically.
And the worst part is that the notes clearly indicate that our client was guilty of trading insider information. It looks to me as if someone at our firm is trying to sink our own client.
The new information completely ruins our case in the civil lawsuit and means I’m not supposed to be questioning the client on the stand. I’m not allowed to let him lie, and if I know he’s lying, I’m supposed to withdraw my representation as his lawyer.
“Go on,” says Mr. Holt, impatiently, in a hissed whisper under his breath.
He actually wants me to do this. I’m not sure what’s happened but he wants me to be unethical in order to win this case. If I’m ethical, I’ll lose it.
And perhaps I’ve been set up the whole time. I’m the associate handling the trial so if I do the wrong thing, it’s my bar license on the line. On the other hand, Mr. Holt would still be responsible as my supervising attorney instructing me to be unethical. So, I guess he just doesn’t care.
What did you think? I ask myself, while trying to decide what to do. That he built the richest law firm in the city by being some moral upstanding citizen?
I know deep in my gut that this behavior is probably par for the course for my law firm. This trial is likely some test or initiation, to see if I have what it takes to be partnership material.
I flash forward to the future in my mind and I see my father shaking his head disapprovingly at me, not for being unethical but for no longer having a job. And my mother’s face in tears, asking me what’s to become of all the money they spent to put me through law school. They thought my career was set, and now I’m fired, and they don’t even know or care why. They just can’t believe that their baby girl would disappoint them like this.
I clear my throat and ask the first question.
“Mr. Marks, have you ever traded insider information about your company’s stocks?”
“No, of course not,” is his quick answer from the witness stand, just as I’d expected.
But the paper I’m looking at tell me that he has. It also tells me a lot of damning information about the other side that I’m not sure how the firm got its hands on— but apparently, the strategy is to deny, deny, deny, while muddying up the waters with all the things the opposing side has done wrong that we somehow know about now.
I pause. This is where I’m supposed to recuse myself. I suddenly wonder if it’s a test in the opposite direction— maybe the firm wants to make sure I’m ethical? It’s a laughable thought but I don’t know which way is up anymore.
Mr. Holt reaches up and points a finger to the next question, angrily, as if he thinks I suddenly can’t read. But I just can’t do it. I can’t go through with this, because even worse than having to look at my parents’ disapproving faces if I don’t, would be having to look at my own face in the mirror every day if I do.
Hopefully this is a test in the right direction, but even if it isn’t, hopefully Mr. Holt will understand. He truly wouldn’t want an unethical associate or partner in his firm. And I will just have to convince him of that, once we are outside of court.
I take a deep breath and look from the unabashedly lying face of my client to the bored face of the judge beside him.
“Your Honor? May I approach the bench?”
“Certainly,” he says, looking relieved to have something to listen to besides allegations of stock market tampering.
But at the same time Mr. Holt says, “Your Honor, I need to have a word with my associate.”
“Well which is it? Does your firm want a bench conference or a recess?”
“No recess is necessary, Your Honor,” Mr. Holt. “I’ll proceed with the questions from here. Ms. Morrell isn’t feeling well, and will need to be excused from the direct examination she just started.”
“Fine, but no more last-minute switches,” says the Judge. “This isn’t a baseball game and you’re not a pinch hitter.”
I look at Mr. Holt in disbelief, but he motions to the exit of the courtroom, his eyes dismissive and annoyed. Just like that, I’ve been tossed out.
As I gather my briefcase and walk out, my client looking at me in confusion, Mr. Holt continues the line of questioning from the notes he had given me.
It definitely wasn’t a test of any kind, I realize. It was just business as normal. Somehow— most probably in an unethical way— Mr. Holt got his hands on this information and decided to use it to our client’s advantage.
He doesn’t care that the client is guilty of what the other side is accusing him of and he doesn’t care that he’s not supposed to let him lie under oath. He just needs to win the case, which is the end goal.
He was going to let me do it but since I wouldn’t, he stepped up. I begin to question how unethical the situation really is, and I remind myself that I have no idea who wrote those notes and that I personally don’t know that my client did anything wrong.
Why didn’t I just continue asking the questions? I didn’t have to get on some high horse and act like I knew he was lying.
Sometimes practicing law feels like an exercise in an ethics test. I’m supposed to zealously represent my client, but I’m not supposed to let him lie. I’m supposed to deal truthfully and with candor to the court, but not about anything that would prejudice my client’s case. And I suppose I should tell Jed Marks what exactly is going on, so that he knows his own firm may potentially sabotage his case.
With my head held low in shame, I exit the courtroom. I want to cry, but more than that I want to dig a hole in the ground and never come out. I’m so afraid I’ve just completely ruined my legal career, or at least my legal career as I know it. Just when everything was starting to go right in my life, everything has suddenly gone horribly wrong.