Chapter
Five
Nicole mentally readied herself for the team meeting. Things were heating up on the MPC litigation, and she planned to be ready to jump on any opportunity that presented itself. Since she knew battling Miles on his turf wouldn’t work, she had to have something solid to show for herself on the substantive work. She’d never be able to play the political game like him.
She buttoned her black-and-white print suit jacket and walked into the large conference room, which was bustling with action. Of course Miles had already secured the seat next to the head of the long rectangular table. One of his typical power plays. She chose an open chair closer to the middle.
Ethan had called an all-hands-on-deck meeting. She wasn’t sure what he wanted to discuss, but whatever it was, she was ready for the challenge.
Ethan walked into the room looking perfectly put together as usual. His short dark hair was neatly styled, and he wore a navy tailored suit and checkered tie. But she immediately noticed the dark circles under his eyes. She knew that being a relatively new partner at an elite law firm like Peters & Gomez was highly stressful. There was little room for error in this business when millions of dollars were on the line. She wondered if she was really cut out for that type of stress.
Ethan took a seat. “Thanks, everyone, for joining on such short notice. We need to start ramping up for the MPC case, and I want to make sure we’re fully staffed and up to the task.”
She looked around the room and saw a mix of associates at her level and those who were more junior. Ethan didn’t have any senior associates on the case at this point. She liked to think that was because she and Miles already operated on the senior level even though they were technically still midlevels.
“The first case we’re going to be trying is the Wyman case,” Ethan said.
That statement set off chatter within the room. They’d developed a short list of the cases to propose for the bellwether trials. Each side got their first pick, and then the others would be negotiated. The Wyman case was one Nicole knew might be chosen by the plaintiffs, and she dreaded it.
“I can tell by your reaction that everyone has already read up on the facts of the Wyman case,” Ethan said. “Yes, this is a big challenge, but if we can perform well on this case, it will shape how the entire MDL goes. There’s no getting out of these bellwether trials, so buckle down and get ready for some of the most intense months of your life. For many of you, this will be your first experience with being on a trial team of this magnitude. These days, we don’t see trials like we used to because most large corporations settle. But product liability is a different beast, and sometimes we have to go to court. So if anyone wants out, now is the time, because I can’t have any excuses. This case will be your life for the next few months.”
There was no way anyone was going to bail. That would be the easiest way to ensure a bad review and a closed-door meeting that resulted in being let go. Nicole had seen it happen one too many times.
Big Law had changed over the past few years. Gone were the days when you could slack off and still pick up the big paycheck as long as you did the bare minimum to get by. Now, with more lawyers than positions, they knew they were all replaceable and had to earn their keep. One misstep and they’d be shown the door.
Ethan crossed his hands together on the table. “Well, I see that you all want to be on this case, or you’re just too scared to get up and walk away. Either way, you’re stuck on this case until I tell you otherwise. Here’s how we’re going to divide things. Our outside vendor has done all the data collection from the systems at MPC—that includes hard drives, shared drives, the whole nine yards. We’ll have to negotiate search terms with opposing counsel, but in the meantime, we’re going to start our own internal searches. We need to identify any hot documents now so we can figure out how to work them into the storyline of our case.”
Nicole had learned her second week as a first-year associate that a hot document was basically one you didn’t want to exist. But there were ethical rules about what lawyers had to produce in litigation, and she believed Peters & Gomez would follow them. At least, she had on every other case she’d worked on for the past five years.
“The document review team is going to be led by Nicole Sosa. She’ll manage the team and handle all of your day-to-day questions. We’re looking for a minimum of ten hours of review a day. And before anyone starts moaning and groaning behind my back, yeah, I know it sucks. But if you want to work at a firm like this, it goes with the territory. I sat in your exact seat once.”
That was true, but not everyone would end up in Ethan’s partner seat. The competition was fierce—and that was for those who made it through the grueling years of being an associate. At Peters & Gomez, there was only one type of partner, and that was equity. Which meant that once you were in, you were a full partner and entitled to your piece of the pie. And at a firm like this, it was a substantial piece of pie.
“Each day you’ll report your progress to Nicole, and she will keep me briefed on how things are going. If you find any hot docs, tag them in the electronic review database and let Nicole know immediately. Nicole, anything else to add?”
She wanted to set expectations up front so there would be no surprises. “Our vendor is conducting mandatory training on the database tomorrow morning at eight. Everyone must attend that meeting. I’ll distribute the document review protocol after this meeting is done. We have a ton of docs to get through, so like Ethan said, we need everyone to be a team player.” She looked over at Miles. He wouldn’t be in the trenches, but she had to get over that. They were never going to be on a level playing field.
Ethan gave her a warm smile. “Thanks, Nicole. Our other team is the deposition and witness preparation team, and that’s going to be led by Miles Patterson. The doc review team will feed the dep team the key documents so we can start preparing for deps and trial testimony. I’ll send out specific team assignments when this meeting is over. Each team is vital, and neither is more important than the other. So regardless of which team you’re assigned to, I want everyone on top of it. Any questions?”
The room was so quiet, it almost made her uncomfortable.
“All right, then,” Ethan said. “I’ll stick around for a few minutes in case anyone has questions they’d rather ask one-on-one.”
Ethan was a nice guy, but he was still intimidating, especially to the younger associates. Not surprisingly, everyone filed out of the room except her, Miles, and Ethan.
“Did I scare them too much?” Ethan asked.
“Nah,” Miles said. “They need to know how much work this is going to be.”
She held back a laugh, given the comment was coming from Miles.
Ethan turned his attention to her. “Nicole, you need to rule your team with an iron fist. We can’t afford to miss any key documents.”
He’d reiterated this multiple times, which made her think he was worried about what they were going to find when they dug into MPC’s computers. “Don’t worry. You sent a strong message today, and I will reinforce that at our training tomorrow. And if there are any problems with their work ethic or competency, I’ll let you know.”
“We have two other huge cases happening right now, so I had to do some negotiating with other partners to make sure we had enough solid junior and midlevels to get this done. We could’ve contracted out the document review, but the client was insistent that everything was reviewed in-house, given the sensitive nature of the data.”
“That’s great for billable hours,” Miles said.
“Yeah, but it means we’ll be under even more scrutiny if something goes wrong. We won’t be able to blame it on the outside vendor,” Nicole said. “I had a document review that went sideways two years ago, but it was all the vendor’s fault. We inadvertently produced privileged material to the other side because of the vendor’s incompetence.”
Ethan’s face noticeably reddened. “I don’t even want to know how that one ended, Nicole.”
“Sorry,” she said. She didn’t need to add to his stress. Sometimes she needed to think more before she spoke.
Ethan ended the conversation by standing up and walking toward the door. “Keep me posted.”
“Will do.” She stood and walked out with Miles.
“How do you feel about the first case being Wyman?” he asked her.
“It’s not good for us at all, but maybe having the hardest one first will end up working out. If we can mitigate the damages on this one, then maybe we have a fighting chance for a low settlement deal.”
He nodded. “The jury is going to eat this one up. The woman’s husband died of cancer ten years ago, and then she loses her only child to a brain tumor. They’re going to make us out to be the big, bad drug company.”
“Isn’t that what we are?” she asked.
“Look, I’m under no delusion that MPC’s hands are clean here, but we have to do our job as attorneys and defend them. That’s part of what we do, working in a firm like this. We don’t have time to get emotionally attached. Leave that to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.” He gave her a little punch in the arm. “Don’t go soft on me, Sosa.”
She looked up at him. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Good. Then let’s get to work taking down these plaintiffs.”
Kate ushered Landon into her office and eagerly awaited his update. Today he wore a gray button-down shirt and dark jeans. She looked up at him, expecting him to smile, but he did just the opposite. Something was wrong.
“What do you have for me?” she asked as he took a seat.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“What?”
“My police contact said the trail has run cold on Ellie’s case and that while there is obviously a desire to pursue, he isn’t optimistic on coming to a resolution any time soon—if ever.”
She groaned. “They’re not just going to give up, are they?”
He shook his head. “No, nothing like that, but when there are absolutely no leads, it puts law enforcement at a disadvantage. It’s like they’re chasing shadows. That’s why professional hits are so hard to track down, and it means we don’t have any ability to tie MPC to what happened to Ellie. We need to start thinking about other ways to get to the truth. I’ve got a few ideas I’m working on.”
“Thanks for keeping me updated.” She took a few deep breaths, but her heart still ached for Ellie. “Given that you and the police think it was a professional hit, is there any doubt in your mind that this is all connected to what Ellie knew about Celix?”
“I’ve thought about it long and hard and examined every angle, and I do believe it’s all connected. The big problem is that we have no proof. There’s nothing beyond our suspicions that I could take to law enforcement—and that’s even if you wanted to go that route. I’m not knowledgeable enough on all the legal issues to understand how any criminal actions would impact your civil case.”
She’d had those same thoughts. “At the end of the day, my ethical obligation is first and foremost to my clients. I need to see this through and put on the strongest case I can to advance their rights, because that’s what I was hired to do, and it’s the right thing. But what happened to Ellie has hit me hard. I feel like if we can gain justice for these victims, though, it would be the best way I could honor Ellie’s memory. I have to leave the law enforcement efforts up to the experts. And like you said, what would we tell the police? They’d want to know what evidence we have, and all we could point to is my conversation, but that doesn’t rise to the level of actionable evidence they’d need to open an investigation into MPC.”
“You’re right. Just because we strongly believe MPC is involved doesn’t mean that law enforcement would see it that way. We’re talking about a huge and highly respected company. None of the executives have any criminal records. I did that research as part of my investigation—the CEO, COO, CFO, all the members of the leadership team are squeaky clean and extremely wealthy. Men like that know exactly how not to get their hands dirty, but the end result is still the same.”
“So what would you suggest we do?”
“Let me work some other avenues and see if we can go about getting more information. Hopefully, between the two of us, we’ll be able to come up with something.”
“I have a meeting with Ethan tomorrow to go over the discovery items. Things are about to jump into high gear on the litigation side.”
“How are you holding up?”
“Why, do I seem like I’m frazzled?” She wondered if her stress was beginning to show.
He smiled. “Not at all. Just the opposite. You don’t seem fazed by anything.”
“Then I guess I’m a good actress, because this entire thing has shaken me quite a bit. I’m trying to remain focused on each task and take one step at a time because I care so much about getting this right.”
He studied her for a moment. “You’re really different than most lawyers.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah. Most attorneys I’ve known are obsessed with lining their pockets, but you don’t seem to be that interested in money.”
“I’m interested in justice.” She looked at him and realized she had put a lot of trust in him. That was something she didn’t do easily, but he had a way of making her feel safe and comfortable. It wasn’t just the fact that he was a former Army Ranger, though. It was something else she couldn’t put her finger on.
“Your clients are fortunate to have you, Kate.”
“I hope they feel that way after the first of the bellwether trials.”
“I don’t have any doubts about your skills. From everything I’ve witnessed, you’ve got all the regular legal stuff completely under control.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Let me know when you come up with other strategies to vet the information that Ellie gave me.”
“Will do.”
The next day, Ethan sat in his law firm’s conference room, waiting for Kate’s arrival. He wanted their first discovery meeting to be on his turf, and she hadn’t complained about his request to meet at his office. The conference room he’d chosen was one of the smaller ones, since it was just going to be him and Kate.
He’d become spoiled by all the law firm’s amenities. Nice conference rooms were just the beginning of what he had tied up in his life at the firm. He stared out the window into the Midtown skyline and the other large office buildings filled with lawyers, accountants, businesspeople, and consultants.
Atlanta might not be New York City, but it was like the NYC of the South. Major corporations from various industries had made their home in Atlanta, including MPC. Ethan’s goal was to become one of the biggest movers and shakers in the Atlanta legal community. One of the first steps was to achieve a huge defense victory in this litigation. Winning jury trials was the name of the game.
He’d come up with a game plan. It included being as aggressive as the law would allow. His career and lifestyle depended on the success of this case. When he’d made partner, he had bought a very large home in the suburbs and treated himself to an apple-red Maserati. They were big splurges, but he was also pulling in close to a million dollars a year now. That could all change in the blink of an eye if he messed things up. He couldn’t allow that to happen.
When Kate walked into the room, he rose to greet her. She looked great as always, wearing a black-and-white polka dot jacket. “They just let you wander around this place unaccompanied now?” he joked.
“Yeah, you know how tight I am with Karen. I’ve been here enough to know my way around.”
“Except, unfortunately, this time it isn’t a social visit. Please sit and let’s talk.”
He looked at his longtime friend. Kate was one of those women who had no idea how pretty she really was. Her big hazel eyes always held so much kindness. He’d never had any romantic feelings toward her, but she was a close friend who had always been there for him. That was going to make this all the more difficult.
Sometimes life wasn’t fair, and that was especially true in cutthroat, high-stakes litigation. Litigation that your career and paycheck depended on. He had accumulated a large amount of debt, thanks to his extravagant purchases, and he had no intention of turning back to his old life. If that meant he had to compromise his friendship a little, then that was what he was going to do, because this case meant everything to him.
So now he had to start putting on the hard sell and see if Kate would buy it.
“First, I should congratulate you on being tapped as lead counsel in this case. As a friend, I couldn’t be happier for you. I know how hard you’ve worked to get to this point in your career, and this is a big payoff.”
“But as opposing counsel, you’re ready to rip my eyes out.”
He laughed. “You know how it is.” He opened his laptop. “But I could never rip your eyes out. You’re the last person in the world who deserves that type of treatment. I think we can keep things friendly, even if we’re on opposite sides.”
“I’ll definitely give it my best shot. We respect each other and understand the situation. And we’ve got a lot to discuss. Do you want to get started?”
“Yeah, I’m ready when you are.”
“Where is your army of associates that I know you have working on this case?”
“I thought this first meeting would be more productive if it was just you and me. We can cut through the silly issues and get right down to it.”
“You know I’m not going to cut you any slack, right?”
“Right back atcha.”
She pulled a stack of papers and her laptop out of her bag. “Are we going to go through the document requests one by one?”
“Yeah. But I have to start out by saying that this is a crazy fishing expedition, Kate.”
“Instead of making broad statements, let’s stick to the specifics. I’m here, and we can walk through each item. I’m confident about all the requests I’ve made.”
“Fine, then. Let’s talk about search terms first and then go through the requests from the top.”
After two hours, they’d butted heads on each and every document request Kate had submitted. Some more than others. They had come to somewhat of a resolution, though, on the first round of keyword search terms that his document collection vendor would use to identify the documents his team of associates would review. Given how much data was collected in these types of cases, it was standard procedure for each side to agree on what keywords would be searched. But they still had major disagreements over the scope of the doc requests.
It was time to play hardball. Especially after Kate threatened to file a motion to compel.
“Kate, if you do that, you’ll lose and make yourself look bad in front of the judge, and you don’t want that. I don’t even want that.”
“So you’re giving this advice out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Your requests are way too broad and cover multiple other MPC drugs. This case is about Celix, not about any other MPC product. That’s a line we need to abide by to keep this thing manageable for both sides. This is just your attempt to explode the case, put extra pressure on us, and hike up the legal fees by forcing us to look at thousands and thousands of pages of additional documents. Judge Freeman is going to be sympathetic to our position on this.” There was no way he was going to expand this case to other MPC drugs. There were already enough obstacles in his way with Celix.
“That’s your opinion, Ethan, but we don’t know what we don’t know. As plaintiffs, we reserve the right to examine all the relevant facts—including looking at other drugs.”
“The key word being relevant. And other drugs are not relevant to this litigation, Kate, period. Unless you know something that I don’t?”
She opened her mouth but then shut it. He didn’t know what she was going to say or why she stopped.
“Go ahead. It’s not like you’ve ever held back on me before.”
“What have you got to hide?” she asked.
He held back a laugh. “Nothing, but it’s ridiculous to expect a huge pharmaceutical company like MPC to freely give out information on drugs that aren’t even remotely connected to this lawsuit. Putting aside the cost and resource issue, it just doesn’t make good business sense.”
She frowned but didn’t say anything as she typed away on her laptop.
He watched her as she gave him the cold shoulder. But they weren’t done talking.
“So the Wyman case as number one, huh?” he asked.
“You’ll get your pick for number two.”
“Yes, we will. But I don’t think the Wyman case is as strong as you do.”
“You have to say that, Ethan. You’re the defendant.”
He shook his head. Now was the time to play games to try to shake her. “My team is finding interesting things in the documents, and our experts are going to have a field day with the decedent’s prior medical conditions.”
Blotches of red started to spread up her fair neck. He’d gotten the reaction he wanted.
“The decedent has a name. Melinda. A sixteen-year-old girl. An innocent and vibrant girl whose life was taken from her by MPC. A girl who leaves behind a mother who had already lost her husband. Melinda was an only child.”
He lifted his right hand. “Hey, I’m not heartless. I’m not saying her death isn’t tragic, but I am saying that you’re going to have a very tough time proving that Celix was the cause of that tumor. You don’t have the science and law behind this to back up your story.”
“That’s not true,” she shot back.
“You’ve examined her medical history, right? Her father did die of cancer.” In truth, there was nothing that linked the father’s cancer to the girl’s tumor, but he wanted to send Kate on a wild goose chase and plant seeds of doubt in her mind.
“Of course I have.”
“Good. Then let’s turn to any other topics you’d like to discuss.”
“I think we’re at an impasse here.” She paused. “When do you plan to have your first set of documents produced?”
“Very soon. But they’ll come in waves.”
“And all the first ones will be totally useless.”
“Your words, not mine.”
“Remember, I was on your side of the fence for a few years. I know the drill, but I think you also know me well enough to realize that I won’t relent in getting what I need to try this case. If I have to file every discovery motion that I can think of, I will.”
“And if you do that, the judge will hate you.”
“Not if I can show that my arguments have merit. If you hold out on me, I’ll do it. Don’t force my hand, Ethan, and make this uglier than it needs to be.”
“Litigation is always ugly.” That was just the truth of the matter.
“I’d like to think we’ll be able to remain friends once this is over, but so far, I’m not feeling too good about that.”
He’d pushed too much, too quickly. He still needed her to trust him if he was going to use their friendship to his advantage. He walked over to her side of the table and sat down beside her. “Kate, our friendship is stronger than any of the cases we work on. Yes, we’re going to fight tooth and nail, but at the end of the day, I’m never going to give up on you or our friendship. We’ve been through too much over the years.”
And just like that, he saw her eyes soften and knew he had her. It was almost too easy.