As I enter the glass-walled meeting room (affectionately referred to as “the Aquarium”), people are making overly pleasant conversation to pretend that they are awake and happy to start their week with an 8 AM meeting. I take a seat next to Down the Hall, my friendly neighborhood associate who has an indestructible good mood and has helped me through many a crisis in my 4.5 years with the firm. She gives me a meaningful look and then yawns without opening her mouth, making her nostrils flare. Suddenly, I feel like I’m back in the third grade passing around a naughty note, and I stare hard at the conference table to push back the impending giggles.
“Partner Number Two, Partner Number Two, Partner Number Two,” I repeat to myself in an urgent mantra. Partner Number Two is not a laughing matter. He is Very Serious and nothing about him must be taken in jest. “Number Two, Number Two, Number Two” echoes my rebellious brain, which has just decided to wake up, and I squeeze my hands together as tightly as I can between my knees to avoid a laughing fit.
“Down the Hall, what will you be working on this week?” asks Elvis, aka the King, who is the department head here at BigLaw litigation as he goes round the table. Down the Hall responds as she always does, succinctly, to the point, clearly stating her busy-ness and effectiveness for the firm without sounding like a total bitch. Nicely done. My turn.
“Very well, Down the Hall, thank you. Undercover?”
“Yes, I will be finishing my research for Partner Number Two before noon.”
“Wasn’t that due first thing this morning?” asks Elvis.
What is it with these people? Most days, they can’t even remember my name, and suddenly their smartphone calendars are all synched up and blinking reminders that my deadline has passed? I shoot a quick look at Partner Number Two, but he is typing away on his Blackberry, oblivious to the meeting around him. I manage a convincing “By 2 PM in fact, sir” without Partner Number Two looking up. “And then I will be available for other work until Wednesday, when we will start prepping the client for depositions in the “Your Momma” Case.”
It’s not officially called the “Your Momma” Case, actually. I like to refer to it as the “Your Momma” Case because the parties are so upset with each other that if their lawyers hadn’t stopped them when the litigation started, they would still be writing the rudest, most vitriolic e-mails in the foulest language ever read by impressionable young document reviewers in the history of law. Deposing the parties in the “Your Momma” case will be like watching an uncut Quentin Tarantino movie or any recent footage of Mel Gibson.
“Thank you Undercover. Next?”
After the tour of the table, I make my clever hand gesture and sneak out of the room, catching a frown on Elvis’ face as I go. I have weighed my priorities here: better a frown from Elvis than a number two from Partner Number Two because I missed my Moscovian deadline.
At precisely 5 minutes to noon, I knock on Partner Number Two’s door with my memo, neatly researched, footnoted, formatted and ready to go. All it needs is his stamp of approval, and of course his name signing off on the cover letter. Hard work, being a partner, signing your name on pre-packaged memos at 1,000 bucks an hour.
“Thank you, Undercover,” he says without looking up, “leave it in my in-tray.” So long, sweet memo, may you have a happy and prosperous couple of days once you make it out the door of this building and before you are shredded by the client after a quick read-through. I enjoyed writing you.
“Oh, and Undercover?” Partner Number Two lifts his head.
“Yes, sir?”
“Next time, make sure you meet the deadline.”
Did I mention I don’t like Monday mornings?
Secretly yours,
The Undercover Writer.
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