Page 70 of Maddy's Justice

Melanie stared at him for three or four seconds then sat down. She kept it to herself, but she did not believe Blake’s lame excuse.

“What did you want to see me about?” Melanie bluntly asked.

Blake simply stared back at her for several seconds trying to remember why. It finally came back to him.

“Oh, um, yes. I, ah, got a phone call last night from my former assistant, Katherine Stearns. Do you remember her?”

“Sure. So what?”

“She told me an investigator with Kadella called her wanting to interview her. He was asking her questions about her time with the firm,” Blake continued.

“Yes, so?”

“How did they get her name?”

“I gave it to them. They asked for a list of all the women who left the firm since McGovern was brought on board. They are expanding their investigation which I certainly agree with. We don’t need any surprises.”

“What exactly did you give them?”

“Names, addresses, phone numbers. No personal data or anything firm related. Why?”

“Some of us believe Kadella is going too far afield. He needs to be reined in. Plus, we must be careful how much information we give out, even to our own lawyers, about former employees. Or even current ones. Maybe even especially current ones.”

“He needs to be thorough because the plaintiffs’ lawyer will be.”

“What you give him may be discoverable. Has the plaintiff’s lawyer asked for these things in a discovery request?”

“Yes, and we are going to fight it. She’s fishing for more clients and more harassment complaints. I think we’ll win,” Melanie answered.

“Maybe. From now on, we need to approve all requests from Kadella.”

“Who is we?” Melanie asked.

“Upper management. The senior partners,” Blake said.

“There are over twenty senior partners,” Melanie said.

“Okay, Brandon, Cliff and me. We’ll act as an oversight committee.”

“You’re going to go through all of the discovery requests?” Melanie asked.

“Yes. Make sure I get copies for my review.”

Melanie stared at him for several seconds. She was tempted to ask why. Why did they want to do this? But instead she merely agreed.

“Are we done? Anything else?” she asked.

“This is no reflection on you. We are simply concerned about outside counsel.”

“Sure, okay,” Melanie looked at her watch and said, “If we’re done, I should go.”

Melanie was ten feet down the hall after leaving Blake’s office when she quietly said to herself, “What the hell have you guys been up to? What are you trying to hide?”

As soon as she was out the door, Gavin Blake phoned Cliff Spenser. A minute later Cliff took a seat in front of Blake’s desk.

“Well, how did it go?”

“Better than expected,” Blake said. “She was pretty pissed off about the settlement offer. She wanted to know why she was kept out of the meeting at Brandon’s.”

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