Page 75 of Partner Pursuit
Very truly yours,
Colette
Audrey huffed out a breath; she should’ve guessed that Colette was not content with just defensivediscovery.
Hunter said, “She raises some good points. She should share strategy. And maybe we should hold out longer and not offer up James. It will make us look weak if we lead with a request to settlethat.”
A cold distance widened between them. It was as if she was facing litigator Hunter and notcolleague-and-friendHunter. How had Colette changed him so quickly?
“We are not offering up settlement immediately,” she said. “I proposed deposing the James case plaintiff first to get intelligence about him, a sense of opposing counsel, and to smoke out any arguments counsel may use in other cases. If that plaintiff is a highly sophisticated investor, then James has a legal defense. If not, only after that deposition, did I suggest settlement. And what other option do we have if the internal investigation finds that James was fraudulently trading? What does Colette say aboutthat?”
Hunter sat in the chair facing her desk, leaning back, one leg crossed over the other. “She said the internal investigation can’t find intent as required for a finding of fraud, so we can still argue that James didn’tintendto make the trades to increase his commissions. She suggested we put the investigation on hold while the litigation is pending.” His look wasassessing.
“That doesn’t set a positive precedent at Hen. Hen’santi-fraudpolicy doesn’t look at intent. It looks at the number of trades and any justifications. Hen won’t agree to that. And ultimately, Hen is our client.” She was sounding defensive.Easy, you’ve still got this.“I’ll read her memo in detail, but I’ve already thought about the points in her email. They are good points, but when I plot out various possible outcomes, ultimately I still think my approach will be more successful.”
“You plotted out various outcomes?” He leaned forward.
“Yes, of course. Like flow charts.” Her dating experience was proving to be of some benefit for litigation strategizing. But she wasn’t going to share that thought with Hunter—especially at this moment. He’d hand the whole case to Colette.
She pulled out her huge charts and tacked them to her bulletin board on the side wall. She had thought this through, and she could prove it. Hunter swung around his chair toviewthem.
She took a sip of water and then faced Hunter. “Here, this red line shows our starting with Rothman first. First, let’s ask themillion-dollarquestion: how strong is that case? My answer: not aslam-dunk, although the recordings are reallyhelpful.”
Hunter pulled back, surprised. “John didn’t do it. And you found that case with the facts directly on point supporting our legal argument, countering Colette’s New Jerseyopinion.”
“Hopefully we can rely on that case and get it dismissed on legal grounds. This arrow shows that winning outcome. But we have to consider all the options. Let’s say we lose the motion to dismiss.” She traced the alternate arrow. “We continue with discovery of the facts. If Pierre didn’t authorize John to trade on his behalf, it’s John’s word against Pierre’s. We know John, so we think he’d be a good witness, but Pierre sounds pretty charmingtoo.”
“What?”
She opened up her file drawer and pulled some magazine clippings out of a folder. “Look at him. He’s frequently in French society magazine pages: he’s good looking, charming—the jury could go for him in a ‘he said, she said’case.”
“I can’t believe you researched French society magazines,” hesaid.
She couldn’t tell if he was being derisive or thinking she’d been very thorough. She suspected the former.
“It’s important to know about Pierre, especially if it comes down to personality and jury appeal. I hope we can get the case dismissed on the law. But it seems pretty factual at this point, unless Pierre executed a letter authorizing discretionary trading. We didn’t find that in the first document pull. Colette’s now in charge of finding the rest of the documents in the archives,” Audrey said. “Given that we need to complete discovery, it makes sense to delay the Rothman case. If we follow Colette’s suggestion to litigate the Rothman case first, and Hen Bank’s internal investigation of James concludes that James violated Henanti-fraudpolicy, that’s going to create a negative inference for John that his report committed fraud.”
“Won’t that inference remain even if we proceed with the Rothman case after settling James? Plaintiffs can still say your employee committed fraud on your watch.”
“Not if James is fired. Then John can say: ‘I don’t tolerate fraud. We investigated, he violated policy, and I fired him.’” She traced the red lines on the chart. “But if we start with the Rothman case and the James case is promptly settled once the internal investigation concludes, then we lose any intelligence we would’ve learned from proceeding with James first.”
“I see. Getting information from the James case is helpful,” Hunter said. He studied the flow chart. “But if we start with the Rothman case, John can say that he fired James here and that would mitigate the damage.” He pointed to the red flow chart red arrow showing the James case intersecting the Rothmancase.
Audrey looked at the intersection on the chart. “Unless you follow Colette’s proposal and the investigation is put on hold and he isn’t fired.”Yes, good point.Quick thinking.She could see Hunter register that as a good point. “Then John gets all these questions because he’s James’s boss about why he hasn’t dismissed James. That will be a nightmare.” She needed to add that point to these charts. She hadn’t ever considered the possibility of putting the company’s investigation on hold.I know Hen wouldn’t agree tothat.
Hunter acknowledged that she had thought this over and asked for copies of the charts. He looked at Colette’s memo again. Her muscles tensed as she debated whether to say more. Then he said, “I agree with Colette that she should direct strategy too, because she is the same level as you. This doesn’t diminish yourposition.”
She worried that it did—that it would look to the other partners like she neededhelp.
He said, “You’ll beco-leaders. It’s always good to have more perspectives, although she should have raised her points with you directly. I don’t think she realizes that we’ve worked together for years and how much I valueteamwork.”
Cold dismay coursed through her.I just lost strategy. He was bending over backward to be fair to Colette. She didn’t want to share strategy with Colette. She might’ve, if Colette seemed inclined to work with her, but she doubted that was going to be Colette’s approach. Hunter’s speech implicitly recognized that, but still rewarded Colette when she hadn’t worked as part of a team.It would be too confrontational to call him on this. And my ultimate goal is for both of us to make it.
“I need to ask you a question. Am I competinghead-to-headagainst Colette for a partner position? There are rumors to that effect. As long as we are being frank, is that true?”she asked.
“That’s ridiculous. We need more women partners,notless.”
“Can you share with Colette that you think the firm needs more womenpartners?”
