women’s and men’s showers and lockers, ten conference rooms, a
supporting staff of several hundred and, most important, a client list
coveted by every other major firm in the country, that was the empire of
Patton, Shaw & Lord.
The firm had weathered the miserable end to the 1980s, and then picked
up speed after the recession had finally subsided. Now it was going
full-bore as many of its competitors had downsized. It was loaded with
some of the best attorneys in virtually every field of law, or at least
the fields that paid the best. Many had been scooped from other leading
firms, enticed by signing bonuses and promises that no dollar would be
spared when chasing a new piece of business.
Three senior partners had been tapped by the current administration for
top-level positions. The firm had awarded them severance pay in excess
of two million dollars each, with the implicit understanding that after
their government stint they would be back in harness, bringing with them
tens of millions of dollars in legal business from their newly forged
contacts.
The firm’s unwritten, but strictly adhered to, rule was that no new
client matter would be accepted unless the minimum billing would exceed
one hundred thousand dollars. Any f the firm’s time. And they had no
problem be a waste o sticking to that rule, and flourishing. In the
nation’s capital, people came for the best and they didn’t mind paying
for the privilege.
The firm had only made one exception to that rule, and ironically it had
been for the only client Jack had other than Baldwin. He told himself he
would test that rule with increasing frequency. If hf, was going to
stick this out, he wanted it to be on his terms as much as that was
possible. He knew his victories would be small at first, but that was
okay.
He sat down at his desk, opened his cup of coffee and glanced over the
Post. Patton, Shaw & Lord had five kitchens and three full-time
housekeepers with their OwIl computers. The firm probably consumed five
hundred pots of coffee a day, but Jack picked up his morning brew at the
little place on the corner because he couldn’t stand the stuff they used
here. It was a special imported blend and cost a fortune and tasted like
dirt mixed in with seaweed.
He tipped back in his chair and glanced around his office.
It was a good size by big-firm associate standards, about fourteen by
fourteen, with a nice view up Connecticut Avenue.
At the Public Defenders Service, Jackhad shared an office with another
attorney and there had been no window, only a giant poster of a Hawaiian
beach Jack had tacked up one repulsively cold morning. Jack had liked
the coffee at PI) better.
When he made partner he would get a new office, twice this size–maybe
not a corner just yet, but that was definitely in the cards. With the
Baldwin account he was the fourth biggest rainmaker in the firm, and the
top three were all in their fifties and sixties, looking more toward the
golf courses than to the inside of an office. He glanced at his watch.
Time to start the meter.
. He was usually one of the first ones in, but the place would soon be
stirring. Patton, Shaw matched top New York forts. The clients were
enormous and their legal demands were of equal size. Making a mistake in
this league might mean a four-billion-dollar defense contract went down
the tubes or a city declared bankruptcy.
Every associate and junior partner he knew at the firm. had stomach
problems; a quarter of them were in therapy of one kind or another. Jack
watched their pale faces and softening bodies as they marched daily
through the pristine hallways of PS&L bearing yet another Herculean
legal task. That was the trade-off for compensation levels that put them
in the top five percent nationwide among all professionals.
He alone among them was safe from the partnership gauntlet. Control of
clients was the great equalizer in law. He had been with Patton, Shaw
about a year, was a novice corporate attorney, and was accorded the