A lawyer's travails, including murder--a work of fiction

• INTRODUCING ANNA STEIN, OUR HEROINE

  I want to finally tell you the true story of what happened when Cynthia Manning died.

  I know it was a long time ago, and the outrage surrounding her death has all but faded. But I believe now I can put meat on the bones of the story that, for many months, was the object of fevered speculation in the media and particularly in the legal community of which we were all a part. I was there when Cynthia was killed, one of the 40 partners in the Philadelphia office of our law firm. Today we have 75 partners, but the firm has changed little in its ways.

  Those of us who work at the firm have always spent many hours together every day.

  In some ways, we know each other better than we know our families. But we are not, emphatically, family. As some of my partners say, whenever undertaking a particularly distasteful employee decision, “It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.” We are all too wrapped up in our jobs to be truly nice people. Nevertheless, some of us are nicer than others. And that clearly had a part in Cynthia’s death. 

  The termination of Cynthia Manning in 1994 proved to be the worst in the firm’s entire hundred- year history, starting an earthquake of fear and disbelief when it happened and ending with unexpected aftershocks. Cynthia was the firm’s first woman partner, and a role model for many younger women, including me. Because our firm was so old-fashioned, Cynthia was herself not very old, and hadn’t been a partner very long. She was in her mid-forties, and had been a partner for thirteen years. (It had taken my partners years to recover from the shock of what they had done; it wasn’t until ten years later that they were moved to elect another woman to partnership. That was me.)  

  The decision to terminate Cynthia emanated from our firm management committee.  I was one of five elected partners on the committee. However, like Cassandra, my major role was to cry "doom is at hand" while the others ignored me.

  One of my partners, Steve Glazer (often called Prince Charming because he has a lovely smile, he’s tall, he’s spoiled, and purports to see everything as a joke), explained to me that I was like the artistic daughter in a family of businessmen; everyone loved me, and listened to me patiently, and was glad I was around, but they wouldn’t let me run the business.

  Ironically, when the decision to oust Cynthia was made, she had just been elected to the presidency of the American Bar Association, a national office of great significance for lawyers. In addition, just the day before, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court had honored her with an award for her role in mentoring young women entering the field of law. Yet despite this high visibility recognition, my new partner Melrose Eigner (known as “egghead” to most of us), who was now always present at management committee meetings as an unelected “advisor,” was unimpressed.

  “She’s not the kind of lawyer we want in this firm,” he said. “She has no relationship

  with clients, she is timid, she has no abilities as a rainmaker.” He delivered this opinion while staring at his dinner plate, now emptied of the roast beef and potatoes that were a staple accompaniment to our meetings.

  “First of all, Melrose,” I said, “you’re wrong. She’s good with people. The run for the presidency of the ABA is very political. Cynthia must have been glad-handing people for at least the last year. She’s a smart lawyer. And the Supreme Court recognition means that she has come to national attention, and at the highest levels.” What I didn’t add was that apart from me, none of my partners had campaigned for Cynthia, and neither the firm nor its partners donated any dollars, made any phone calls, wrote any letters or threw any parties to make her

  election happen. She had done it all on her own.

  “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way,” said Steve Glazer, with his most charming

  smile, “but both the presidency and the award are just woman things.” He reached across me to snag another dinner roll. With much restraint, I did not give in to the urge to bite through

  his expensive, well-tailored sleeve.

              “I think I must be taking this the wrong way,” I said. “Since when is holding the highest office of the ABA a woman thing? She’s the first female president in the Association’s history.” I found myself sitting bolt upright, holding my fork vertically on the table, looking undoubtedly like one half of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.”

  “That’s what I mean--she’s the first woman. The bar association is being politically

  correct, that’s all.”  

          And they used to say women aren’t logical! I tried to be patient. “The fact that she is the first woman elected means that she’s not just an excellent woman lawyer, Steven, but an

  exceptional lawyer, period.”

  “These days,” said Steve, “the first woman anything is more of a figurehead. Cynthia

  was simply in the right place at the right time.”

  “And the Supreme Court mentoring award?”

  “Same thing. Done to makes Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg happy.”

              My partners laughed.

              “Jesus,” I said, “you guys are bizarre. “

              “Just don’t poke us with the pitchfork, Anna,” said Richard King, laughing and chewing.

              “Look,” said Egghead, “it’s simple economics. If she’s here during her year as president, she won’t have time to do any work, and she’ll want us to provide secretarial staff

  and such. “

  “Of course she will, but that’s a small price to pay for the prestige of having a bar association president as a partner. “

  “Prestige!” said Steve. “Take that to the bank. “

  I felt like banging my head on the conference table in frustration. Steve Glazer called a vote on the question, and I was outvoted--Cynthia was soon to be history. The firm’s waiters cleared the plates and served dessert, which everyone but me tucked into happily. Melrose hummed slightly as he ate. Steve Glazer turned to me and winked.

  I couldn’t help feeling that Steve Glazer’s anti-Cynthia position was partly the result of

  pique. He had run for bar association president several years ago, with the firm’s support (cocktail parties, dinners and open houses for hundreds of lawyers all across the country), and

  had lost in a landslide.

  But Steve’s run for the presidency was hailed by my partners as a sacrament. Partly, this

  was because he was male. Equally importantly, he was a man who had made law firm politics

  an art at which he excelled.

  Law firm politics, like all politics, is based on the interplay of power, need and fear.

  The powerful are usually those--dubbed rainmakers--who bring wealthy clients to the firm. If you are a woman, it is most unusual to have a hefty “book of business, “ because male business people tend to prefer to work with other men--i.e., male lawyers, and in particular in big law firms, male partners. For those who are not the firm’s gods--the rainmakers--it is important to  

  curry favor with those in power without alienating everyone else, who may some day be in power. Steve had started his career as a sycophant, and had been elevated to rainmaker status when his mentor died and he inherited his mentor’s business. He had gone from being a toady to being a pillar of the institution.

  Cynthia, on the other hand, despite (or perhaps because of) her ladylike behavior, good manners and tact, could not seem to figure out how to insinuate herself into the good graces of some powerful man to help her. And with no mentor to protect her, she was earmarked to be a goner when the gods of power demanded a sacrifice.

  Melrose looked truly shocked when he saw Cynthia’s body in my office. That was probably the first time I had ever seen an expression on Melrose’s face. It was not a pleasant expression; in fact, the shock made him look like a frog. But at least it was a change; Melrose’s face usually looked as though there was no one there behind it.

  I expect my face had also registered shock when I found Cynthia, since the last time I had seen her--that morning--she was undoubtedly alive and she was not in my office. In fact, she was in her own office, packing her belongings. Her death added layers of meaning to her “termination."

  I had never seen a dead person before (can one be dead and still a person?), and I had the gut-wrenching feeling that I would be a suspect since Cynthia was found in my office. Even though, as at least I knew, I had no motive to kill her.

  “Who in the world would want to kill Cynthia?” said Melrose.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “You’re a much more likely victim.”

  His little froggy eyes turned on me, narrowed and glassy. His bald head gleamed with sweat, and his glasses became fogged. He did not speak.

  Have I given away the fact that I don’t like him? I’m not alone. I once met Melrose’s sister at a wedding, just before he joined our firm as a partner; she expressed her condolences with the pithy “Poor you! My brother’s such an asshole.”