He ushered me out the door and I was left standing in the glass-walled hallway with Asher. He turned without a word and walked down the hallway. I followed behind. Despite the fact that I was a bit put off by his intensity, I couldn’t resist admiring how his pants snugged around his ass, tapering more than was common in a regular suit pant.

He didn’t say a word as we walked down the hall and into another office, this one facing straight west with a view of Hollywood, Century City, and Santa Monica in the distance. He didn’t say a word as he sat down behind his desk, a sleek, modern piece with narrow steel legs supporting a thick slab of wood. There were no filing cabinets, no drawers, no scrap of paper anywhere. It didn’t look like the kind of office someone did any actual work in.

I took a seat across the table from him and folded my hands in my lap. Asher just sat there, resting his chin on his hand, and looked at me. I was determined not to fidget, not to give any sign of how uncomfortable he made me feel. I wasn’t used to feeling this way around guys. Not that I hadn’t had crushes, guys I obsessed about but couldn’t bring myself to talk to, but that was when I was younger. By the time I was in college, I was the one making boys stammer incoherently. And even when I traveled abroad after graduating, I found talking with guys to be the easiest part of learning a new culture. But this guy was different.

“Tell me what you think about criminal defense.” When he finally spoke, it came as such a surprise that I almost didn’t pay attention to what he was saying. Thankfully, law school had instilled in me an ability to catalogue whatever someone said, even if I wasn’t paying close attention. It was a useful skill when professors indulged in long digressions about irrelevancies, only to double back and ask some question about a case once you had stopped listening. I could just play back the last thing they said in my head.

“Umm, well, I believe in the adversarial system. I think that everyone has a right to a fair trial and that criminal defense attorneys serve as an important check on the prosecutors.” I grew in confidence as I wound out my answer. I knew I was basically spouting a company line, an answer that defense attorneys told outsiders and themselves when asked how they slept at night after defending some rapist or murderer. It was a good argument, I thought. One that rested on playing one’s role within a system that was basically fair and just. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed it, but it seemed like the right thing to say to a defense attorney.

It, apparently, was not.

Asher’s face twisted and he let out a derisive snort.

“Do they have you practice that line in law school now? Faith in the system, check on the power of the state, equal justice under the law, and all that? Let me tell you. If you based your decision to go into the law on a belief in a system of justice, you are going to last about a month before you break down in tears and quit.”

I sat there, stunned. This guy was who my uncle picked to be my mentor? He was a complete ass.

I stayed silent for a few moments. It took me a bit to collect myself. I was entirely unprepared for this guy’s tone, but then again, it wasn’t something I hadn’t encountered before. That sense of superiority, of arrogance, it was common among attorneys. I decided that I wasn’t going to be intimidated.

While I was composing myself, Asher continued lecturing.

“Look, criminal law is not about principle, it’s not about justice, it’s about winning. It’s about making sure that your client doesn’t have to pay for his actions. No matter what.”

I was shocked by how open he was about his cynicism. Most lawyers were able to convince themselves they were doing the right thing, whatever that happened to be at the time. It was a function of the education. When you are taught to argue a position, regardless of your own personal convictions or beliefs, it became a lot easier to argue yourself into changing those convictions, or convincing yourself they didn’t matter. Most attorneys could wrap themselves up in knots in order to prove the case, to themselves as much as anyone else, that they were doing the right thing.

But Asher didn’t seem to be concerned about that. He didn’t act like he was interested in playing the part of the righteous seeker of justice. It was incongruous in someone who looked like he was barely thirty. It intrigued me as much as it put me off.

“So, you don’t care if your clients are guilty?”

He gave a short, sarcastic laugh.

“Cora, right?”

I nodded, annoyed at his pedantic tone and the fact that he either had forgotten my name or was trying to make me feel insecure by pretending that he forgot it, a subtle indication that I was of minimal interest or importance to him.

“Look around you. Do you have any idea what the rent on this office is?”

I shook my head. I resolved to provide only the bare minimum of responses. I didn’t want to be drawn out into something that would end up making me look a fool.

“Go down to the garage and look at the cars everyone in this office drives. Look at their clothes, go to their houses. Do you think that any of that gets paid for by defending innocent people?”

I gave no response. He didn’t seem to need one. He sighed.

“When do you finish your exams?”

“May twentieth.”

He pulled out his phone.

“Ok. You will be here the next Monday, the twenty-third. Nine a.m. I will have a case file and instructions ready for you. In the meantime, you need to forget everything you think you know about criminal law and about being a lawyer. Because the truth is, you don’t know anything.”