Gray Mountain: A Novel(27)

Because Samantha had so little to offer, she was content to let him ramble. After half an hour, though, she got bored. Ending the conversation was a challenge—he was desperate and clinging—but she finally convinced him she would immediately review his case with their Social Security specialist and get back to him.

By noon, Samantha was famished and exhausted. It was not the fatigue brought on by hours of reading and poring over thick documents, or the relentless pressure to impress people, or the fear of not measuring up and being shoved off the track to partnership. It was not the exhaustion she had lived with for the past three years. She was drained from the shock and fear of looking at the emotional wreckage of real humans, desperate people with little hope and looking to her for help.

For the rest of the firm, though, it was a typical Monday morning. They met for a brown-bag lunch in the main conference room, a weekly ritual, to eat quickly while discussing cases, clients, or any other business deemed necessary. But on this Monday the main topic was the new intern. They were keen to examine her. Finally, she was encouraged to speak.

“Well, I need some help,” Samantha said. “I just got off the phone with a man whose claim for Social Security disability was denied. Whatever that means.”

This was met with a mix of laughter and amusement. The word “disability” seemed to draw a reaction from the rest of the firm. “We no longer take Social Security cases,” Barb said from the front line. She met the clients first, as they came through the front door.

“What was his name?” Claudelle asked.

Samantha hesitated and looked at the eager faces. “Okay, first things first. I’m not sure where we are with confidentiality. Do you—do we—discuss each other’s cases openly, or are we each bound by rules of the attorney-client privilege?”

This drew even more laughter. All four talked at once, as they laughed and chuckled and nibbled on their sandwiches. It was immediately clear to Samantha that, within these walls, these four ladies talked about everyone and everything.

“Inside the firm, it’s all fair game,” Mattie said. “But outside, not a word.”

“Good enough.”

Barb said, “His name was Joe Duncan. Kinda rings a bell.”

Claudelle said, “I had him a few years ago, filed a claim, got denied. I think it was a bad shoulder.”

“Well, now it’s spread to his lower lumbar,” Samantha said. “Sounds like a mess.”

“He’s a serial claimant,” Claudelle said. “And that’s one reason we don’t take Social Security cases anymore. There is so much fraud in the system. It’s pretty rotten, especially around here.”

“So what do I tell Mr. Duncan?”

“There’s a law firm down in Abingdon that does nothing but disability cases.”

Annette chimed in, “Cockrell and Rhodes, better known as Cock and Roach, or Cockroach for short. Really bad boys who have a racket with some doctors and Social Security judges. All of their clients get checks. They’re batting a thousand.”

Mattie added, “A triathlete could file a claim and the Cockroaches could get him disability benefits.”

“So we never—”

“Never.”

Samantha took a bite of her highly processed turkey sandwich and looked directly at Barb. She almost asked the obvious: “If we don’t take these cases, then why did you send the phone call back to me?” Instead, she made a mental note to keep the radar on high alert. Three years in Big Law had honed her survival skills razor sharp. Throat cutting and backstabbing were the norm, and she had learned to avoid both.

She would not discuss it now with Barb, but she would bring it up when the moment was right.

Claudelle seemed to be the clown of the group. She was only twenty-four, married for less than a year, pregnant, and having a rough time of it. She had spent the morning in the bathroom, fighting nausea and thinking vile thoughts about her unborn baby, a boy who had already been named after his father and was already causing as much trouble.

The tone was surprisingly raunchy. In forty-five minutes they not only covered the firm’s pressing business but managed to explore morning sickness, menstrual cramps, labor and childbirth, men, and sex—no one seemed to be getting enough.

Annette broke up the meeting when she looked at Samantha and said, “We’re in court in fifteen minutes.”





9


Generally speaking, her experience with courtrooms had not been pleasant. Some visits had been required, others voluntary. When she was in the ninth grade, the great Marshall Kofer was trying an airline crash case in federal court in downtown D.C., and he convinced Samantha’s civics teacher that her students’ learning experience would be greatly enriched by watching him in action. For two full days, the kids sat in stultifying boredom as expert witnesses argued over the aerodynamics of severe icing. Far from being proud of her father, Samantha had been mortified at the unwanted attention. Fortunately for him, the students were back in class when the jury returned a verdict in favor of the manufacturer, handing him a rare loss. Seven years later she returned to the same building, but a different courtroom, to watch her father plead guilty to his crimes. It was a fine day for her mother, who never considered showing up, and so Samantha sat with an uncle, one of Marshall’s brothers, and dabbed her eyes with tissues. A pre-law class at Georgetown had required her to watch a portion of a criminal trial, but a mild case of the flu kept her away. All law students do mock trials, and she had enjoyed them to a point, but wanted no part of the real thing. During her clerkship she seldom saw a courtroom. During her interviews, she had made it clear she wanted to stay far away from litigation.