Landing a job at a high-powered corporate law firm was not all it was cracked up to be.
At eight o’clock, Mr. Provost’s paralegal carried a stack of files into Josh Harlow’s office. Josh glanced outside. He had an office, at least. The internship he’d finished at Davis, Cash, and Lee the summer between his second and third years had ensured that he’d be offered a good job at a great salary upon graduating from law school and passing the Bar, which he’d done last summer. Josh certainly couldn’t complain on that front; his salary was adding a lot of padding to his bank account right now. Unfortunately, he never got to spend any of it because he spent every waking hour at this very desk.
“Mr. Provost wants a summary of the Donaldson depositions before he has to be in court at ten on Thursday.”
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll just squeeze that in between the Appleton case and the O’Dwyer paperwork.”
The paralegal winced and left the office.
Josh sighed and gazed out the window. His office faced Sixth Avenue, about three blocks south of Rockefeller Center. He could see roving bands of tourists walking up and down the street, the lights on the signs of the bodegas and souvenir stores and clothing shops and grab-and-go lunch spots across the street. He’d been so absorbed in what he’d been working on that day that he hadn’t noticed the sun setting.
New York City had a lot of lawyers, but it also had a lot of ex-lawyers, and Josh was starting to understand why.
When he finally left the office close to midnight, he took advantage of the company car service account and got a ride home. His apartment was in a massive high rise in downtown Brooklyn, and given that he’d started work at DCL about a week after he’d moved to the city, he hadn’t had time to decorate or, well, furnish the apartment yet, despite living there for almost six months. The bed, the old sofa, and the kitchen stuff had come from his apartment in Georgetown, but most of his books were still in boxes, his refrigerator was empty except for energy drinks and an expired bottle of milk, and the desk he intended to set up was still packed in a long, slim box, waiting to be assembled.
On the way into the building, he stopped to say hello to Bill, the doorman. He’d picked this building because it was about eight blocks down Whitman Street from the cat café where his sister worked and had an upstairs apartment. When he’d signed the lease, he had a vision of popping down there on weekends to say hi and hang out. He spent his weekends now mostly sleeping or working.
Something had to give. Josh was fucking tired.
As he brushed his teeth, he thought idly about Megan and what she might be up to now. Was she just as busy at her new firm in Chicago? Although he still felt a pang in his chest whenever he thought of her, maybe it was just as well that they’d broken up. Working a schedule like this, he’d never see her anyway.
He finished the summary of the Donaldson deposition and brought it to Greg Provost the next morning. Provost was a bit of a snake, but he was a partner in the firm, a widely respected attorney, and Josh’s boss. He spent the bulk of his time defending the firm’s corporate clients against accusations of fraud and other financial crimes. Since Josh had spent the better part of the last twelve hours reading through depositions, he felt confident concluding that the fraud charge in this particular case was bullshit. So he handed over the summary and was getting ready to leave again when Provost gestured toward an empty chair and said, “Have a seat.”
Provost had a corner office on the fifty-fourth story of the sleek high-rise the law firm occupied. He wore expensive suits and worked reasonable hours and Josh had to remind himself that paying his dues now was how he himself would eventually get to this place. He took a deep breath and waited for Provost to speak. Provost asked for an assessment of what he’d put together, so Josh gave him the bottom line.
Provost smiled. “Good work. I had a hunch, but I’m glad the rest of the evidence bears that out. Hopefully this stays out of court.” Provost set Josh’s summary aside. “You got that done rather quickly. I just gave that to Allison last night.”
“I worked quite late.”
“And I appreciate that. You show a lot of promise, Mr. Harlow. I want to give you some additional help on the Appleton case. Let’s get another associate on it and a couple of paralegals. Would that help?”
“Yes, sir. That would be a huge help.”
“Great. Hopefully that will free up time for one of the firm’s other initiatives.”
Oh, great. Just when Josh could almost taste free time, Provost was going to pull him into something else. He knew he had no right to complain; based on all the venting that went on in the private Facebook group for his law school class, his classmates were all going through the same thing right now. This was paying his dues and being rewarded handsomely for it. But at the same time…he missed sleep. And reading novels and watching garbage television and eating home cooked meals. He missed going for runs in the park and going on dates and having art on the walls of his apartment.
“All right,” he said.
“We at Davis, Cash, and Lee believe that giving back to the community is something every employee should be a part of. As such, we ask all of our associates to volunteer for something.”
Right, of course. Someone had mentioned this to Josh when he interviewed for the job. The associates had to volunteer a set number of hours per quarter. Most of the partners just donated money to good causes, which could be translated into volunteer hours via some elaborate equation. Josh nodded to seem game.
“I’m not picky about what you volunteer for, although my assistant Jane has a list she keeps of organizations we’ve done work for in the past if you want some suggestions. I only ask it be a long-term project and not just a charity event that takes place once a year.”
“No problem. My sister works with a lot of animal shelters. She probably knows of some good volunteer opportunities.”
The words were out of Josh’s mouth before he realized what he was saying, although it was true that his sister Lauren managed a cat café that did a lot of work with local animal shelters in Brooklyn. It was the path of least resistance—if he just asked Lauren, he could find a project easily and wouldn’t have to waste a lot of time researching it.
“Splendid!” said Provost. “Jane’s got a form for you to fill out.”
Josh arrived back at his own office fifteen minutes later with a form to fill out recording his volunteer hours. He added it to the mound of paper on his desk and wondered if all law firms killed this many trees.