The Exchange: After The Firm

Mitch and Abby still worried about their sons’ education. They were paying for the best in the city, but they, like most parents, wanted more diversity. Unlike the rest of the world, River Latin was 90 percent white and all-male. However, as products of mediocre public schools, they realized that they had only one opportunity to educate their children. For the moment, they could not foresee changing schools, but their concerns were growing.

Without showing too much affection, Mitch said goodbye to the twins, promised to see them that night, and hustled toward the subway.

As he entered the tower on Broad Street and walked through the soaring atrium, he paused to remember Lamar’s story about his visit here. Mitch saw the chrome and leather benches against a glass wall and sat down for a moment. He smiled as he watched the ants marching, hundreds of well-dressed young professionals like himself eager to start the day and wishing the escalators would climb faster. It would indeed be a shock to a small-town lawyer with a laid-back practice.

He was glad he’d made the effort to see his old friend, but it would never happen again. Lamar had not offered a hand to shake as Mitch left. There were simply too many unpleasant memories.

And that was fine with Mitch.

He glanced at his watch and realized that about twenty-four hours earlier he had been sitting in the former showroom of a Pontiac dealership in a shady part of Memphis, waiting and waiting for a meeting he wanted no part of.

The sharp sound of the word “Mitch” interrupted his random thoughts and brought him back to reality. Willie Backstrom was walking over, thick briefcase hanging from a leather strip over his shoulder. Mitch stood and said, “Good morning, Willie.”

“I’ve been here for thirty years and I’ve never seen anyone use those benches. You okay?”

“We’re too busy to sit down. Seriously, how can you bill a client when you’re sitting in the lobby?”

“Do it all the time.”

They walked away and joined the crowd at a wall of elevators. Once they were packed inside and moving up, Willie said softly, “If you get a minute, stop by today and let’s talk about Amos.”

“Sure. You ever been to the Pontiac place?”

“No, but I’ve heard about it for years.”

“I got the impression that a visiting lawyer can get a lube job while taking a deposition.”

The top man at Scully & Pershing was Jack Ruch, a forty-year veteran still hitting it hard in the final months as he neared the finish line of his seventieth birthday. The firm mandated retirement at seventy with no exceptions. As a policy, it was wise but widely unpopular. Most of the older partners were renowned experts in their fields and were billing at the highest rates. When forced out, they took their expertise with them, as well as the long, trusted relationships with their clients. On the one hand it seemed shortsighted to set such an arbitrary deadline, but youth demanded it. Forty-something partners like Mitch wanted to see room at the top. The young associates were super ambitious and many refused to join big firms that did not clear the deck by shoving out the old guys.

So Jack Ruch was counting the days. His official title was managing partner, and as such he ran the firm much like a high-powered corporate CEO. It was a law firm, though, an organization of proud professionals, not a corporation, and the titles were much weightier. Managing partner it was.

When Jack called, every lawyer in the building dropped what he or she was doing because whatever he or she was doing was not nearly as crucial as whatever Jack might have on his mind. But he was a skillful manager and knew better than to interrupt and throw his weight around. His email asked Mitch to appear at his office at 10 A.M., “if convenient.”

Convenient or not, Mitch planned to be there five minutes early.

He was, and a secretary led him into the splendid corner office suite at precisely 10 A.M. She poured coffee from a silver pitcher and asked Mitch if he wanted something from the daily platter of fresh pastries on the credenza. Mitch, mindful of Chan and his band of Laotian sous chefs set to invade his kitchen in a few hours, thanked her and declined.

They sat around a small coffee table in a corner of the suite. From sixty floors up the views of the harbor were even more impressive, though Mitch was far too focused to venture a glimpse. Those who worked in Manhattan’s tallest buildings were adept at ignoring the views while visitors gawked.

Jack was tanned and fit and wearing another one of his fine linen suits. He could pass for a man fifteen years younger and it seemed a shame to show him the door. But he had no time to dwell on a policy that he had agreed to thirty years earlier and wasn’t about to change. “I spoke to Luca yesterday,” he said rather gravely. Obviously, something heavy was going down.