“So, how’s the Monique case going?” Noah asks me, peeking his head into my office.
“Great,” I say, smiling at him, “just great!”
And why shouldn’t I feel great? After all, I’ve got the litigation totally under control. I’ve researched the law on dissolution of partnership, studied Monique’s partnership agreement, analyzed her non-compete clause, and even had the case fast-tracked in an effort to avoid unwanted media exposure. So, I’ve got it all in the bag.
“Litigating against your fiancé is going all right?” Noah asks, furrowing his brow. When he found out that Jack was the Gilson Hecht partner on the matter, he wanted me to pass the case off to another associate, but I stood firm. I’m really going to prove myself on this matter and nothing’s going to stand in my way.
“Of course!” I say, “In fact, it’s even better than I could have imagined. With Monique’s husband, it would have been a bit of a challenge to negotiate a settlement. But, with Jack against me, it’ll be a piece of cake! The man is putty in my hands. I almost feel sort of sorry for him, you know?” Now, I know I was laying it on a bit thick, but Noah Goldberg is one of the founding partners of the firm and I just want to assure him that my case is going well.
And, okay, Jack may not be actual putty in my hands—he didn’t drop the case when I asked (read: begged) him to—but, I know that he’ll treat me with kid gloves in this litigation and I plan to exploit that to the fullest extent allowed by law. You see, in a normal litigation I know exactly what Jack would do. Seeing that his opposition is a firm that’s much smaller than Gilson Hecht, with much fewer resources, he’d begin the discovery process by burying the other side in a massive document production that would take them weeks to produce. He’d request thousands of pages of documents from the other side that they, in turn, would have to get from their client, review for relevancy and attorney-client privilege, and then number, stamp and photocopy. Given that our case is fast tracked, the deadline would be even sooner than a regular document production, and in requesting as many documents as he could think of, he’d force the other side to concentrate all of their energy into putting together the requested documents instead of working on case strategy, which would then allow him to use all of that time to work on his own case strategy and easily win the case while the other side is inundated with minutia.
But, my Jackie would never do that to me. Thank God, really, because I have a million wedding dress appointments to go to in the next two weeks.
“Putty?” Noah says to me, “Really?”
“Yes,” I say in a stage whisper, “it’s almost embarrassing.”
“That would be embarrassing,” he says, “If you hadn’t just been served with a discovery request.” He walks over to my desk and throws a legal document on top of the case law that I was reviewing. “So much for putty.”
Served?!?
How can that be? Jack and I had a very romantic dinner last night and he didn’t mention a thing to me about serving me with discovery requests. How could he do such a thing to me when I was such a fabulous fiancée last night? I even cooked for him! Well, not so much cooked as ordered a “Heat and Eat” meal from Fresh Direct, but I did totally unpack the box and then heat it up for him! And picked up a bottle of wine and a cheesecake on the way home, to boot! He is really taking this Chinese Wall thing seriously.
I don’t even need to look at the document Noah’s just dumped on my desk. I already know what it is—it’s fastened with two staples across the top, like all discovery requests, with a ‘blue back’ attached, which, as the name implies, is a blue piece of paper secured to the back of a document that folds over the top of the first page by one inch. The fancier law firms use that one inch where blue back folds over the top to announce, in bold faced type, the name of their law firm. I don’t even have to look to see what this familiar blue back says:
GILSON, HECHT AND TRATTNER
425 PARK AVENUE
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10022
Jack has served me with a discovery request. A document request, to be specific.
I immediately pick up the telephone. “I’ve just been served,” I say to Vanessa.
Oh, please. As if your first order of business after being served wouldn’t be to call your best friend?!?
“Served? Like in that movie?” Vanessa asks. “Has someone challenged you to a dance off?”
“This is not funny!” I say, “Jack has just served me with a document request! And he’s requesting a lot of documents here!”
“Just get the junior associate to do it,” Vanessa says, “why are you panicking? It’s not like you’re going to be the one reviewing all of those documents. You’re just going to supervise the darn thing, so don’t be so dramatic.”
“I’m the only person on the case,” I say, twirling the phone cord around my index finger.
“Oh, that is not funny,” Vanessa says.
“I know,” now twirling the cord around my whole hand. My engagement ring peeks out from in between the cord, all sparkles and fire, and I unwind my hand from the cord.
“What types of documents is he requesting?” Vanessa asks and for a moment I consider faxing the document request to her to get her opinion on the case. But then I remember that she, too, works at Gilson Hecht and could turn to the dark side just as quickly as Jack had.
“Tons and tons of things,” I say, flipping through the request. “And it’s due in two weeks.”
“No,” Vanessa says, “in the Southern District of New York all discovery requests get 30 days for response.”
“We’re fast tracked,” I say. “I agreed to turn around discovery requests in two weeks.”
“Well, that was stupid,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Unless you did it so that he can’t spend as much time with Miranda Foxley, man stealer to the stars.”
“Man stealer to the stars? She’s slept with celebrities?” I ask, my ears perking up at the thought of such delicious gossip. Even in the face of hours and hours of work, a girl’s still got time for some juicy celebrity gossip. “Who has she slept with that I would know?”
“Oh, no,” Vanessa says, “she hasn’t slept with any actual celebrities.”
“Why’d you call her man stealer to the stars then?” I say.
“Everything just sounds better when you say ‘to the stars,’ doncha think?” she says.
“Let’s see, tailor to the stars, chef to the stars, yoga instructor to the stars…. Yes, actually it does,” I say. “But it’s making Miranda sound more fabulous than she is. Let’s just call her ‘man stealer extraordinaire.’”
“Done,” Vanessa says. “But my point is the same. Is that why you got the case fast tracked?”
“I didn’t think he was actually going to serve me with discovery,” I say. “This is a dissolution of partnership, for God’s sake! We shouldn’t even be litigating!”
“Just request an extension,” Vanessa says. “Judges love it when parties play nice. You can ask Jack for an extension of a week or two. That way you won’t have to miss all of your wedding dress appointments and you’ll also get in good with the judge when he sees that you and Jack are being professional.”
My wedding dress appointments. I still don’t have a wedding dress. I still don’t have a wedding dress!
“That would mean that Jack wins,” I say, twirling the cord once again.
“Now you’re being ridiculous. It’s not about winning or losing,” she says as I hear her slam the door to her office shut. “It’s about the wedding dress! Get your priorities straight, for God’s sake, woman.”
“Anyway, you can’t ask for extensions on a fast-tracked case, especially when it was your own motion that requested the fast-track,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “The judge will realize that you don’t actually need the case to go fast and think that you’re just trying to manipulate his court calendar.”
“I wish your judge was a woman,” Vanessa says, “a woman would totally understand that you need an extension to go wedding dress shopping.”
“So true,” I say as Vanessa begins to tell me the horror of her latest first date. We’d been so excited about this one, since he had tickets to see The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway, which Vanessa and I were both dying to see. We got even more excited when he asked her to go to dinner beforehand. The only thing, he said, was that he got the tickets with another couple, and would she mind it much if they went on a double date as their first date? Well, the theater is the theater, so Vanessa told him that she wouldn’t mind one bit and then put on her cutest skirt and cropped jacket to go on the date.
Imagine her surprise when she gets to the restaurant to meet her date and finds out that their dinner companions are her date’s parents. Who would also be accompanying them to the show.
“Ironic,” I say, “considering you were going to see The Drowsy Chaperone,” I say into the phone as I peruse the document requests.
“Are you mocking me?” Vanessa says, and I can’t help but giggle. And I do feel badly that I’m laughing at Vanessa, but come on! A double date with the guy’s parents?!?
And then I take a peek at document request number thirteen and immediately stop laughing. Document request thirteen is a request for all emails sent by Monique that relate to the partnership she had with her husband. Requests that ask for emails are always a nightmare—it means that the lawyer reviewing them will have to go through each and every one of their client’s emails one by one to analyze them for relevancy, just like you would do with a normal document. But, it usually takes three times as long to review an email than a regular document, since emails are generally single spaced. And God forbid there be an attachment.
I could object to the request on the grounds that it is overly broad—it could take me months to go through all of Monique’s emails—but chances are that the judge will tell me that it’s relevant to Monique’s husband’s countersuit. Which is true. There’s only one thing I can do here. Besides throwing myself on the floor and crying like a baby, that is. Or calling my fiancé to yell at him. Or my mother. Or my therapist.
No, there is one thing that I really must do here: I need to get myself to Monique’s computer as soon as humanly possible.