“Honestly, if someone else were telling me this story, I would not believe them.”
Megan laughed softly. “Well, there’s not much to the suit. Randolph owns three buildings in Chicago, one in the Loop and two in Lakeview.”
“Sure.” That job interview had been Josh’s one and only time in Chicago.
“This was at one of the buildings in Lakeview. The situation is basically that a group of tenants claimed they slipped and fell on ice in front of the building and suffered various injuries, including broken limbs, but the super of that building was religious about salting the stairs and sidewalk in front of the building. We’re pretty confident we’d win at trial, but my boss wants to offer them a settlement to go away first. I think the claim is bullshit, but I just worked a case where the plaintiff showed up in court in a neck brace and the jury awarded her three million in damages. But, like, this woman was in a Volvo that she claimed was rear ended by a semi. Josh, there wasn’t even a broken taillight. If that semi had really hit the Volvo, it would have crumbled up like a tin can.”
Josh sighed. He realized that this was the world in which Megan thrived. She was full steam ahead on representing her shitty client. She likely did not go home at night and lay in bed having any kind of existential crisis about what she was doing with her life.
Okay, that was dramatic, but Josh didn’t think he was well-suited to being this sleazy.
“So, you think the plaintiffs are lying?”
“Yes. However, they’ve hired this real shark of a lawyer who is demanding a massive settlement and is threatening to show evidence in court that Randolph is a slumlord with a pattern of mistreating his tenants. None of that is true, but you know how juries are.”
Perhaps proving Megan’s point, Josh was starting to sympathize with the tenants. “Okay. Why would this affect his business in New York?”
“I’ve drafted up a settlement agreement with a pretty big payout and I think they’ll bite, but the catch is that Randolph wants to use that money to buy out the last remaining tenant in that building in Brooklyn he intends to tear down. Apparently that tenantalsohas a good lawyer and keeps jacking up the amount of money she’ll settle for.”
“Ah, okay.” Well, that all made sense now. “So he probably wants me to talk you out of settling.”
“You know that’s terrible advice, right?”
“I’m not real jazzed about kicking a nice lady out of the apartment she’s lived in for almost fifty years, so I’m the wrong person to ask here.”
“You always were a Boy Scout.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Josh rolled his eyes. He shouldn’t let Megan rile him up. He’d really thought this woman was the one he’d wanted to spend his life with once, but somehow he’d never seen this side of her. She’d been a serious law student, she studied hard, and they’d had a lot of fun together in their downtime. But now she was a shark.
“I’m legit surprised you’re still at DCL, frankly,” Megan said. “I always figured you’d end up at the ACLU.”
“Yeah, well. I’m a sellout, I guess.”
“Don’t be like that. That’s not what I said.”
“I’m paying my dues. Maybe I will quit to go work for the ACLU one of these days, but I’m here for now, so let’s figure out how to handle Randolph.”
“Of course. Remember to represent your client zealously. I think we can find a compromise here. Maybe I can lower the settlement offer so Randolph still has the money he wants to buy out that tenant. I’ll email you, all right?”
“Sure.” Josh dictated his email address to Megan and then decided he should really put the lid back on this box.
He didn’t think she’d always been this way, but it wasn’t a great color on her now. So really, it was just as well. If he’d followed her to that job, they would have broken up by now anyway, or still been living together and been utterly miserable.
So, fine. He’d work out the rest of this Randolph situation and then he’d close the box again, because he was well and truly done with Megan.
Chapter 21
Josh sat at his desk as he ate a sandwich and used his brief reprieve to pay his student loan bill. Itwasnice to be able to make a big payment, but he didn’t know how much longer he could do this. He knew from asking around that about a third of DCL’s associates quit before their first year was up. He was reluctant to become one of those casualties, but he felt a little dirty making a nice salary to defend these terrible clients.
I’m quitting, he texted Lauren.
You are not.
They’d been having this conversation over text for three days. He’d finally broken down and told her that Provost was representing Randolph. She’d been surprisingly rational about it, pointing out that, although she loathed Randolph with fiery fury, it wasn’t like Josh had chosen him as a client. But now that he knew full well that he was helping out a client who could have done real damage to his sister’s and his not-girlfriend’s business, his ambivalence about this job was almost tangible.
End of the year, Lauren texted.
