Page 89 of Partner Pursuit
Chapter Forty-Five
Hunched over her office desk, Audrey was revising hercross-examinationquestions forher trial.
Jake:While you’re stuck at work, think about this: I thought you might want to do a yoga session while I’m surfing in Santa Teresa. Should Ibook?
She googledthelink.
Audrey:Looks fabulous! YES! Thanks! Wish I could do that yoga sessionrightnow.
Jake: What about snorkeling with sea turtles?He texted a picture of sea turtles.Excited for river rafting. But dry season in December. We may have to go back in September—also prime whale watchingthen.
Audrey: Yes to sea turtles. So excited for river rafting! I can’twait.
She felt guilty. They should be planning this together, and instead, Jake was doing all the Costa Rica vacation research. She’d have to find some fabulous activity once she finished preparing for her meeting with Popflickstomorrow.
Jake:Going to bednow.
Audrey: Sleep well. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it home tonight intime.
She sighed. She wanted to be going to bed now with Jake, joking around, Biscuit taking up the bottom of thebed.
Chapter Forty-Six
Audrey took a seat on the comfortable purple couch in the Popflicks reception area to wait for her client, the Popflicks general counsel. Two large flat screens playing Popflicks movies enlivened the reception area. Pop music played in the background. And next to the receptionist, a red1950s-stylepopcorn machine churned merrily, periodically making popping noises. Bright bags of popcorn jumbled joyously in a bowl on the coffee table. And it sounded likeping-pongwas being played in the room behindher.
Betty emerged from a side door and greeted her enthusiastically. What always struck Audrey most about Betty was her confidence. She’d seen Betty give a presentation at a New York bar association meeting, and she’d dominated the room upon entering, even surrounded by men in dark suits. She’d made aquick-wittedjoke to start her talk, and the audience had been enthralled, leaning forward.
Audrey followed Betty down a hallway lined with framed pictures of movie stars. Laughter emanated from one office that they passed.
“I should have told you that it’s completely casual here. We all wear jeans,” Bettysaid.
Audrey said. “I’m going back to the office afterwards anyway.”
“Ah yes,” Betty said. “I don’t miss that life at a law firm where leaving at 5 p.m. is frowned upon. Thework-lifebalance is better here. As long as you get your projects done, you can leave when you want to, which is great when you have kids and need to see some school performance or soccer game.” Betty had previously told Audrey that she had two teenagers, a boy and agirl.
“I sometimes wonder how I will balance family life with being a partner,” she said hesitantly. Discussing the desire forwork-lifebalance may not be appropriate witha client.
“Many women do it, so they make it work,” Betty said, “but it’s not easy. Hopefully it will change. It helps if your male colleagues also have kids and obligations. Our CEO, Sebastian, has four kids, and he’s very open about taking time off for them, so he setsthetone.”
They entered alight-filledconference room in the corner of the building. Audrey placed her laptop on the white laminate table and pulled up a chart that showed a summary of the plaintiff’s allegations—that Sebastian was only allowed to provide such news via corporate press releases and filings, not via Facebook. The plaintiff hadn’t seen Sebastian’s Facebook update and thus didn’t sell his stock when others did, so he was harmed.
Audrey clicked on the next slide and said, “But his discovery production is helpful. I think he heard about the update that day. If he decided not to sell, that’s his own fault, and we win the case.” She moved to the next slide. “His discovery production is filled with folders of stock research. He does extensive analysis before he invests in a stock. At a minimum, we should be able to prove he’s an experienced investor who should be held to a higher standard.” She switched to another document on her laptop. “More importantly for the case, I think he gets automated news alerts on his stocks, as suggested by this chart I created. This column shows the time the news alert was issued and this column shows the time of the news alert printout in his discovery production. Here’s a news alert on United getting the Turkey route at 3:06 p.m. His printout of that news article is stamped 3:10 p.m. So he printed out the news alert four minutes after the announcement. And this repeats across the majority of his stock holdings. So, either he’s glued to the news or he has automated news alerts. If he’s set up automated news alerts for United and his other stocks, I’d imagine that he also has automated news alerts for Popflicks because he holds significantly more Popflicks stock than United. If he received an automated news alert on the Popflicks news, he can’t make the case that he didn’t know about the announcement.”
“That’s amazing that you figured that out,” Betty said. “Sebastian will love it. He loves charts and graphs.”
“I will email you a copy toshowhim.”
“Oh, he’s coming by. He wants tomeetyou.”
Audrey was surprised. Anderson, the senior partner on the case, was not going to be happy to learn he’d missed a meeting withSebastian.
“But no printouts of the Popflicks news in his discovery production?” Betty asked.
“No.”
“That would have been too much to hope for. Still, this is good sleuthing.”
Audrey explained the rest of her proposed strategy forthecase.
