Page 26 of Hidden & Held

Reading the message twice, I smile to myself at what is to come. I glance at my phone, I have four hours until the meeting. Plenty of time to check my presentation once more to ensure it is flawless.

With the eucalyptus hanging from my shower, courtesy of Nessa, I step out and prepare my war face. Steam still fogs the bathroom mirror as I line up my products across the counter in exact lines. My makeup is precise, defined, and controlled. Eyeliner a little sharper than usual. I slick my hair back into something that says I don’t have to explain myself.

I pull out a dress that I bought for a conference two years ago, and one I’ve never worn to the office. The deep-water color complements my dark hair, and the structured shoulder pattern makes me stand a little taller. I add the heels that Mack once called “weaponized” and that Nessa said “activated my Mars placement,” whatever that means.

I look in the mirror for exactly three seconds.

“Let’s go.”

I walk through the front doors of Cascadia Legal Partners with no hesitation, no shrinking from this environment. It’s 2:00 p.m. exactly when I reach the conference room door, everyone is already seated as the meeting gets underway—perfect for making my entrance.

Isabella is in the hallway outside the meeting room, pretending to tidy up the seating area. Our eyes meet for one second, and she gives me a small nod. Everything is ready. As I open the door, all eyes instantly turn to me. The room smells faintly like burnt coffee and dry-erase markers, the overhead lights too bright against the dark walnut conference table.

Sophia is at the laptop, presenting. When she sees me, she changes a few settings on the machine, and I get a ping on my cell. I have been made a co-presenter and can move the deck along on my phone, perfect.

As I move into the room, there is an instant hush, nobody wanting to speak up at first. Phyllis’s hand freezes midway through taking a sip of her coffee. The junior associates eye each other warily. Mr. Rhodes is near the back with a small smile on his face, as if he is excited for the show. Cassandra sees me and goes still, mouth slightly parted, but no noise escaping.

Jackson’s seat is near the front and his eyes find mine immediately. Whatever composure he walked into the meeting with disappears. Outwardly, he is hiding behind a careful stillness. His whitening knuckles around his pen tell a different story to me.

“Good afternoon and thank you for having me today.” I come to a stop near Sophia, giving them a second, but nobody protests my presence and a small smile plays around the corner of my mouth. “I want to start with a question. The metro area of Cascadia has fewer than 100,000 people. We are a regional law firm. Profitable, established, respected.”

Silence continues as I advance the slide that reads one single line of text:

Why did we need a Mergers and Acquisitions department?

I wait a moment, letting them absorb the words.

“Our largest business is Durham Corporation, a three-generation, family-owned company that has publicly and repeatedly stated they have no intention of selling. If the largest business in the region is not acquiring or being acquired, the question remains—why do we need this department?” I pause, making eye contact around the room. “If they aren’t acquiring or selling, and no other companies are anywhere close to their size in the area, why do we need to add an M&A department?”

Several stares turn in Jackson’s direction, brows creasing as if this question never crossed their minds.

“I have been asking myself this question for months, and I could not find a satisfying answer anywhere. Not in the local business journal, not in online publications … especially not in our firm documentation.”

I wait, letting the words settle.

“I did find some interesting aspects in our firm’s documentation, though.” I turn towards the other side of the room. “As Phyllis has been drilling into our heads, there is an account problem; something isn’t adding up.” Phyllis puffs up her chest at the confirmation nobody has given her.

“For the past eight months, there has been increasing internal pressure around billable hours. We have had memos, meetings, hell, Phyllis even created a meme about it!” A low chuckle can be heard from the group at the tacky and confusing meme that has been circulating for months.

“Scrutiny has been applied to departments, such as land use and family, that have historically met or exceeded their targets.”

I don’t bother looking for a reaction as I click to the next slide. On it is a graph showing our goal billable hours by department and our actuals. Each data point shows we’re at or, in my department’s case, have exceeded expectations over the last three years.

Cassandra finally finds her voice and states, “Where did you get this information? You must have stolen it from our files; that is private for only the partners to see!”

Phyllis looks like she has been stabbed in the heart as she speaks up, “I send out an update monthly, quarterly, yearly, and an end-of-year summary to everyone’s inbox. Don’t you all read them?”

Cassandra’s cheeks pinken slightly as she goes to defend herself, but I cut in, staying the course.

“As you can see by this chart Phyllis so lovingly shared with us, we are not in a billable hours crisis. We have never been in crisis. So the question becomes—why is a profitable firm suddenly concerned with billable hours in departments that are performing?”

Peering out the window, I let the weight of my words settle as my colleagues draw their own conclusions. Turning to face Cassandra directly, I continue, “Unless the concern was never about billable hours.”

I pace to the other end of the room, as if I were presenting an alternative theory to the jury.

“Cassandra Pierce joined this firm fourteen months ago. She is George Pierce’s daughter, our partner who has stepped back due to health concerns. What is concerning is that, in those fourteen months, Cassandra has represented herself in client meetings as a named partner on four separate occasions. I have the meeting notes, which were not protected under the client-attorney privilege.”

Advancing to the next slide, I display the meeting notes, complete with dates, companies she met with redacted, and Cassandra’s name with the title she introduced herself under: Partner.