Executive Privilege

When he’d finished his breakfast, Brad walked several blocks to a thirty-story, glass-and-steel office building in the heart of downtown Portland. Reed, Briggs’s main entrance was on the thirtieth floor. The first person clients saw when they entered the spacious waiting area was a gorgeous receptionist who sat behind a magnificent polished wood dais that displayed the firm name in shiny metal letters. Behind the receptionist were several glass-walled conference rooms with magnificent views of three snowcapped mountains and the river. While they waited, the clients sat on soft leather sofas and thumbed through copies of U.S. News & World Report or The Wall Street Journal. It was on this floor that the partners made big deals for important people in huge offices furnished by interior decorators.

Brad did not take the elevator to the thirtieth floor. Junior associates entered Reed, Briggs’s hallowed halls on twenty-seven and walked down a dull, windowless corridor to a plain door, where they tapped in an entry code on a keypad affixed to the wall. Inside, the support staff sat in cubicles that filled the center of the floor, surrounded by the unimpressive offices occupied by the firm’s newest members.

Brad filled a mug with coffee in the lunchroom and carried it to his tiny office. A narrow window above his credenza looked down on the roof of a hotel parking lot. The rest of the office was filled to capacity by a desk, two client chairs, a gunmetal gray filing cabinet, and a bookcase stuffed with a set of the Oregon Revised Statutes and the tax code. Brad’s only decorations were framed copies of his college and law school diplomas.

Brad’s desk was usually stacked high with assignments from the partners, but when he’d left his office the night before he’d had fewer files than usual to work on. This was because the partner he’d been assisting had just settled the lawsuit that had taken up a good part of Brad’s time since he’d joined the firm. When Brad walked into the office he stopped short and groaned. Three new files covered his blotter. A quick look at the memo on top of the center file let him know that he was in for a late night.

Brad took a sip of coffee while his computer booted up. After checking his e-mail, he started going through a forty-page contract between a subcontractor and a construction company that was building condominiums on the coast near Lincoln City. He was on page seven when his intercom buzzed and the receptionist told him that Susan Tuchman wanted to see him. Brad sighed, placed a yellow Post-it on the paragraph he was reading, and headed for the stairs that would take him up to the thirtieth floor.

The associates had nicknamed Tuchman the “Dragon Lady” and the aerie where the Gods of Reed, Briggs ruled, “Heaven.” Brad could have ascended there on the elevator but walking up stairs was one of the few types of exercise he was getting since he started working fourteen-hour days. Some of the other associates jogged or exercised in a gym before work, but Brad was not a morning person. He did play an occasional game of te

Susan Tuchman’s corner office was an homage to minimalism. Two large windows met at one corner giving her a wraparound view of Portland. A black leather sofa stood against a third wall under an all-white painting. The senior partner’s desk was a large sheet of glass supported by aluminum tubes and the only items on it were an in-box and out-box made of polished metal and a thick file. The only cluttered space was a wall decorated with awards Tuchman had won from the I

Tuchman was five four and rail thin. Her blond hair was free of gray thanks to chemistry, and a Beverly Hills surgeon of national repute could claim credit for her skin being as tight as plastic wrap. The senior partner was wearing a black Armani pants suit with a white silk blouse and a necklace of black pearls. She was forty-nine but she’d been a partner for ten years as a result of a series of victories for a pharmaceutical client and a tobacco company. Tuchman’s first husband had been an associate at another firm but she had divorced him rather than set up a situation where an opponent from her husband’s firm could move to have her taken off a case on the grounds of a conflict of interest. A second, tempestuous marriage to a federal judge had lasted only as long as it took Tuchman to process the difference in the income contributions to their joint bank account.

“Sit,” Tuchman ordered, indicating a client chair made of the same black leather as the couch and supported by aluminum tubing similar to the tubing that held up Tuchman’s desk. Brad lowered himself onto the chair cautiously, expecting it to tip over backward at any second.

“I’ve had some good feedback about you from George Ogilvey,” Tuchman said, mentioning the partner who had just settled the lawsuit on which Brad had been working. “He tells me you’re an ace at research.”

Brad shrugged, not from modesty but out of fear that any support he gave for George Ogilvey’s opinion would encourage Tuchman to add to his workload.

Tuchman smiled. “I’ve been trying to pick an associate for an interesting project, and based on George’s glowing recommendation, I’ve concluded that you’re the man for the job.”

With all the work Brad had already he didn’t need any more projects, interesting or otherwise, but he knew it would be wise to keep that opinion to himself.

“You know that Reed, Briggs prides itself on being more than a money factory. We believe that our attorneys should give back to the community, so we take on pro bono projects. The projects are exciting and give our new associates a chance to work one-on-one with clients and get courtroom experience.”

Brad knew all about these pro bono projects. They were good PR for the firm but they were also time-consuming and brought in no money, so the partners foisted them off on the newest associates.

Tuchman pushed the file that occupied the center of her desk toward Brad.

“You’re not from Oregon, right?”

“ New York. I’d never been on the West Coast before I interviewed for this job.”

Tuchman nodded. “Does the name Clarence Little mean anything to you?”

“I don’t think so.”

Tuchman smiled. “Snap quiz, name the president of the United States.”

Brad returned the smile. “Christopher Farrington.”

“Well done. And you know he was the governor of Oregon before he was selected as President Nolan’s VP?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess I knew that.”

President Nolan had died of a heart attack halfway through his second year in office and Farrington had suddenly found himself president of the United States. Brad turned toward the photographs showing Tuchman schmoozing with important people and suddenly noticed how many contained a smiling Christopher Farrington.

Tuchman noticed where Brad was looking. “The president is a close personal friend. I was his finance chairman during his run for governor.”

“What does President Farrington have to do with my assignment?”

“Mr. Little has filed a writ of habeas corpus, which is now in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a convicted serial killer and he’s challenging a death sentence he received in Oregon. The murder took place while President Farrington was governor and the victim was the daughter of the governor’s personal secretary. The case created quite a stir here because of the tie-in to the governor but it may not have gotten much space in the New York papers.”