Calgary, November 2021
They say that life is full of surprises, and they are right. The following story has enough surprises to demonstrate it. My name is John Smith, and I am a junior lawyer. Until recently I have been working for a large law firm, doing the usual twelve hours days, and dreaming of a bright future.
The story began about ½ year ago when I got my first court case. Being a new layer, it wasn’t anything big. Just a land dispute between one of our rich clients, who had a summer home in the near-by small town, and a local landowner whom I will call Jeff. As I studied the case, it looked to me that it could have been easily resolved out of curt, but Jeff (easily confused with Jerk), insisted on suing. Therefore, at the given day, I appeared in the court room of the small town and introduced myself as a representative of our client. Jeff was there with his layer, a young woman who was just as new to this game as I was. However, she didn’t have the resources of a large company available to her, and I won easily. On the way out of the court room we talked briefly about the case. Her name was Mary Williams, she appeared to be reasonable and agreed with me that the dispute should have been resolved out of court. We exchange business cards and I returned home.
That should have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t. Our friend Jeff decided to appeal. This was becoming truly ridiculous. I wrote him a letter explaining that the appeal will cost him more than the original lawsuit and most likely he will lose again. It would be much better, I pointed out, to come to out-of-court settlement. Reluctantly, he agreed, and we had a meeting between four of us: Jeff and his representative Mary, my client and me. Our site agreed to pay some money, my client didn’t really care, and the dispute was settled. At this point the story should have ended again, but, once more, it didn’t.
Some time later I got an e-mail from Mary asking if I would we willing to meet with her.
I agreed, and we met at a restaurant close to my work. After the usual small talk about the hard life of a junior layer, she got to the point:
“You know, John, I have enough of working in a small town for people like Jeff. I am looking for a job. Any openings in your firm?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but send me your resume and cover letter, and I will give it to my boss to read it.”
Mary sent me the documents, I gave them to my boss, and, lucky for her, there were openings for junior lawyers. Mary had an interview with us and soon after she got a job offer. The new employment was a big change for her. The amount of work, the long hours, deadlines, all that was much more stressful than her previous work. She needed somebody to talk to, and that somebody was me. She didn’t know anybody else.
“This is really hard, John. I don’t know how long I will be able to cope,” she told me with doubts in her voice.
“You will get used to it. It is hard for everybody.”
I was trying to encourage her, even though I felt the same way. I too needed somebody to talk to. We became friends, then more than friends and finally ended up sharing an apartment. To save on rent, as we tried to rationalize it. All went well until Jeff found out about us living together and started to smell moneys. He wrote a nasty letter to the director to our law firm, saying something like this:
“Dear sir,
I want to make a strong complain about two of your employees, John Smith, and Marry Williams. About ½ year ago I was in a lawsuit with you client, who was represented by John Smith. My representative was Mary Williams. Recently I have found out that they were lovers who now live together, and the case was deliberately manipulated such that she could gain employment with your firm. This is a severe breech of professional ethics and I demand compensation of $... (and Jeff specified a large sum of money) for damages due to the lost court case. If you refuse, I will publish this breech of ethics in our local newspapers and in social medias.
Sincerely,
Jeff … (and he used his full name)
The director gave this letter to my boss, who called Mary and me to his office and showed the letter to us. After reeding it, I was furious.
“This is absolute, total lie,” I defended myself. “During that lawsuit I didn’t know Mary at all, it was there where I saw her for the first time!”
“I don’t doubt that,” said my boos. “But this is a serious charge. If he publishes it, it will harm the reputation of the firm. I cannot ignore it.”
“So, what do you intend to do?”
“I will tell him that we will investigate.”
Not surprisingly, Jeff didn’t leave it at that. He claimed having witnesses who saw us together before the trial.
“This is a total lie, just like the first time,” I said when my boss showed me the new allegation.
“That’s what Mary told me too. Therefore, I will write a letter to Jeff saying that we investigated his claims and found them to be false. Moreover, if he ever publishes those charges, we will sue him for false accusations and bribery. For that he would be facing a prison sentence. That hopefully will end the whole thing.”
I was relieved and happy to leave the office, but my boss called me back.
“There is one more problem, I am afraid,” he said.
“What’s the problem?”
“You know that we have a strict company policy against employing married couples.”
“I am not married to Mary, if this is what you imply.”
“You are in a common law relationship with her, and the policy applies equally.”
“So, what should I do?”
“Unfortunately, there are only two options. Either you separate or one of you will have to quit. It is all because of that letter Jeff sent to our director. If it would be up to me, I would let it pass, but now the director knows you live together, and he will ask questions. I am sorry.”
I was sorry too. We both were sorry. After discussing the situation, we rejected the first option, to separate. We got used to living together; to our evenings and to the sweet nights hugging each other. That left us with the second option, quitting. The question was who had a better chance to find a new job, and it was me. I had more experience and one successful court case to my credit. Therefore, regretfully, I handed resignation to my boss.
“I am sorry to lose you, John. You must really love Mary.” He looked as if he meant it.
“Yes, I do. To me it is more important to be faithful to a person than to a company.”
I don’t know if he agreed with me, but we parted on friendly terms. “You can always use me as a reference,” he said.
So, now I am an unemployed lawyer looking for a job. Sometimes I think about that lawsuit which started it all. I certainly won the case but lost my employment. Was it worth it? Yes, it was. I won something more important than employment. I won Mary.