50

HIS FIRST SIX WEEKS as acting managing partner of Walters, Cassidy & Breen were not exactly a bowl of cherries for Ed Jackson. And today, what he had to do with George Ryder didn’t make his life any easier.

If asked under oath whether he wanted the job, he would have said “No,” immediately and emphatically. The problem was that he didn’t have the nerve to refuse it on the morning that Fiore called him in, just a half hour before the Executive Committee meeting, and told him what he had in mind.

Some people in the firm called him “Big Ed.” He was six feet five and a half inches tall and was on the basketball team at Rhode Island College. In fact, he played very little during his three varsity years. Saddled with a team that could claim only a few players good enough to compete in their small college league, the coach lived with the hope that Jackson’s clumsiness on the court would give way to at least marginal talent at some point. That wish was never fulfilled.

Fiore was sipping a cup of coffee as he spoke. “I don’t know how much of my time I’ll be able to spend on office business, Ed. It’s not fair to the firm for me to stay on as managing partner under those conditions. I’m going to tell the Committee that I want you to fill the job temporarily. You’ve got more seniority on the Committee than anyone else. We’ll take a vote on it. The rules allow you to vote too—I checked it out—so it will carry with you, me, and Rubin. Then we’ll take it to the partners with an Executive Committee recommendation. Some of them will probably fight it, but we’ll have the numbers on our side. I’ve already spoken to the right people about it.”

Jackson got a less than welcome insight into his unpopularity at the partners’ meeting two weeks later. Listening to the discussion and the arguments, he concluded that about half of those in the room strongly opposed his right to be in the firm’s primary position of leadership, even for a short period of time.

Someone contended that Jackson didn’t have the right to vote for himself when Fiore submitted his name to the Executive Committee. That being the case, he argued, there had really been a 2-2 vote by the Committee, not enough for a recommendation. Fiore anticipated the objection and answered by reading from the section of the partnership agreement he reviewed earlier. While not definitive, it lent enough support to his position to keep the vote from being successfully challenged.

Another partner raised a related issue. His respect for Jackson’s veracity was lost years earlier in the course of a debate at the firm about the propriety of targeting a rival firm’s client, and he avoided contact with him to the extent possible ever since. He maintained that even if Fiore was right on the point he just defended, the Executive Committee shouldn’t have come that far. “The rules governing the Committee’s conduct allow a managing partner to recommend his own replacement only when his absence is going to be temporary,” he said. He then pointed out that Fiore would be giving up that office for four and a half months if he was away from the firm through the primary, and for almost six months if he was still a candidate in the general election.

“That’s longer than what’s reasonably thought of as temporary for a managing partner,” he argued. “A lot of pretty important things can come up in that kind of time period, problems that someone may have to resolve right away to keep the firm out of trouble. And of course the possibility exists that Doug won’t be back at all if he’s elected governor. You’re calling it temporary, but it’s more than temporary in any case and could very well become permanent.”

That generated a buzz among the partners in the room. In the ensuing forty minutes of debate a number of them offered their own views on the point, pro and con. It was finally agreed that the group was unable to resolve the intent when the word “temporary” was written into the specific clause. Fiore had the final say. He reminded everyone that the firm traditionally gave the strongest weight to an Executive Committee recommendation. Ballots were passed around the room and Jackson’s elevation to acting managing partner was approved by a scant two votes, much closer than Fiore anticipated.

After a short break, Jackson was asked when he intended to submit the name of a nominee for the fifth member of the Committee. Someone was now required to serve until Fiore resumed his position or, if he became governor, until approved by a vote of the partners for a full term. Jackson’s reply was scripted by Fiore who knew the question would be raised. “Big Ed” said that he would look into it, propose someone to the Executive Committee, and most probably have a candidate for the partners to consider at the next month’s meeting.

Fiore’s preference, already made clear to Jackson, was to fill the vacancy with Mark Zappala, one of the younger partners. He knew he could count on Zappala’s loyalty to him. It was Doug who successfully lobbied the hiring committee to offer Zappala a position with the firm ten years earlier, even though his grades from Suffolk Law School in Boston were far from spectacular. No one else was aware that Zappala’s stepfather owned the automobile dealership in East Greenwich where Fiore purchased four cars over the years, including the Mercedes 300SL he now drove.

A second plus going for Zappala was that he did a large amount of work for Margaret Cardoo, and at times she praised him ecstatically. Fiore felt that Cardoo would be hard pressed to vote against his being put on the Executive Committee, even though she might suspect he was Doug’s ally.

Fiore gave Jackson a quick education on firm politics. “I want Zappala on the Committee,” he told him. “But if you try and get it done at the same meeting you’re elected acting managing partner, it won’t fly. Some of the partners are going to be pissed off good, at me more than you, once you get the votes to take my place. They’ll be dead set against anyone else they think I’m supporting. Instead of doing anything about Mark right now, hold off until the next Executive Committee meeting. I think you’ll get the votes you need for a recommendation to the partners. Rubin will be with you, I’ll make sure of that. Deveraux will vote against, so we’ve got to hope Cardoo sees it the way I figure she will.”

Cardoo proved Fiore right. Later, despite some heated opposition, a majority of the partners were again reluctant to vote down someone who had the Committee’s endorsement. Still, many of them were aware that Jackson had virtually no relationship with Zappala, and he easily read the disbelief on their faces when he told them, before the vote, that more young blood was needed on the Executive Committee. Jackson’s opponents knew that Fiore was behind the recommendation, and he knew that they knew it.