CHAPTER 3
The offices of Prescott & Talbott
11:50 p.m.
By the time Peterson had driven in from his center hall Colonial in Sewickley, Sasha had brewed a pot of strong coffee; assembled a crew of exhausted junior associates, pulled from various late-night document reviews; and passed out copies of the barebones media reports on the crash and one-pager about Hemisphere Air’s corporate culture and litigation philosophy.
The gathered associates were tired but excited. The promise of action energized them. They had spent long weeks, if not months, of twelve- to fifteen-hour days reviewing thousands upon thousands of electronic documents for privilege and responsiveness for use in cases they would never come any closer to. Each sat at the gleaming conference room table praying this horrible plane crash would be his or her ticket out of document review hell.
Peterson swept into the room. Despite—or maybe because of—the fact that it was almost midnight and his biggest client was in crisis, Peterson looked fresh and unperturbed. He wore creaseless khakis and a pink golf shirt.
Sasha handed him a mug of coffee and a set of the handouts.
He leaned in and said, “These are real Prescott folks, right?”
She nodded. Prescott & Talbott had dealt with the trying economic times by creating a caste system of lawyers. Contract attorneys—deemed unfit for true employment on the basis of academic achievement or social standing—were brought in to staff the largest of the document reviews and paid an insulting hourly rate for their efforts. Not only would they miss out on the prestige of partnership, but the salaries they earned wouldn’t make a dent in the tens (or, more likely, hundreds) of thousands of dollars of law school loans they’d accumulated.
The contract workers were supervised by staff attorneys—deemed fit to receive a pay check and benefits directly from Prescott & Talbott, but still not good enough to be real Prescott attorneys. The staff attorneys did scut work and were forbidden from signing documents bearing the firm letterhead; they were branded as “staff attorneys” on the firm’s website and business cards and were under no illusions about the dead end nature of their position.
The staff attorneys, in turn, were supervised by junior associates—the bright-eyed men and women who watched Peterson from their seats around the table. They had been at the tops of their law school classes; editors of journals; the spawn of the old money families who golfed, swam, or prayed with the Prescott & Talbott partners; or some combination of the three.
Assuming they didn’t get chewed up and spit out by the firm, these junior associates would one day reach Sasha’s level. As an eighth-year associate she worked directly with clients, stood up in court and argued, and had primary responsibility for writing briefs and running small cases. On a big case, like the crash would be, she’d handle the day-to-day supervision of the case team and work with Peterson on strategy.
And, provided Sasha didn’t burn out, she would soon reach the level of income partner. In the spring, Prescott & Talbott’s equity partners would hold a vote and almost certainly would offer her income partnership. Which would mean she had reached the top of a very tall greased pole. Only a handful of the dozens of eager young attorneys who began work each September at Prescott would make it that far. That was the good news. The bad news was all her achievement would land her right at the bottom of a taller, greasier pole: the one standing between her and equity partnership.
Peterson gave her a nod, letting her know he appreciated her judgment. Sasha felt a small thrill of satisfaction at having pleased him and then an equally small pang of disgust at caring about pleasing him. She shrugged off both emotions and poured herself another cup of coffee.
Peterson pulled out the chair that had been left empty at the head of the table and looked around the table. He met each set of eyes and held his gaze for a moment, to let the seriousness of the evening’s events sink in.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Noah Peterson, the managing partner of the complex litigation department here. For those of you who don’t know Hemisphere Air, they are one of Prescott’s oldest clients and, each year, one of our biggest clients in terms of hours billed and revenues collected. Hemisphere Air is a proud Pittsburgh institution and will be looking to us to help them weather this terrible tragedy.”
Sasha glanced up from her notepad to make sure everyone was nodding in all the right places. They were.
She turned back to drawing up a master task list and making tentative assignments. The immediate issue was to find the best available legal assistant and get him or her put on the case. An excellent legal assistant was more valuable than all the expensive, untested talent sitting around the table.
She looked up again when she heard her name.
“Sasha McCandless will run the team. Sasha is well acquainted with this client and its needs. If you have questions or concerns, you will direct them to Sasha.”
And not to me, you peons,
was left unsaid but not unclear.
Eight sets of eyes shifted from Peterson to Sasha. She put down her pen.
“We’ll meet right at 8:30 every morning for a quick status update and to hand out the day’s priority assignments. Beginning now, you work exclusively for Hemisphere Air. If you need me to run interference with anyone to get you off other matters, tell me now; otherwise, I expect you’ll clear your plates entirely of other work by the end of the day tomorrow.”
Sasha waited a beat to see if anyone had a problem with that. No one did. At this point in their careers, they would chew their arms off to get out of the document review trap.
They could hardly have imagined that, as shiny new lawyers, they would spend their days, nights, and weekends staring at computer screens, reading one inane e-mail after another—sifting through the forwarded jokes, spam advertisements for Viagra, and mundane details of a client’s new transportation benefit in an effort to find evidence of insider trading, an antitrust conspiracy, or legal advice regarding some action of the company. Sasha felt sorry for them. At least when she was cutting her teeth on document reviews, she got to travel to exotic locations like Duluth and paw through boxes of yellowing paper in unheated warehouses instead of being subjected to some stranger’s collection of Internet porn.
She continued, “We’re going to have to hit the ground running. Our working assumption is the first group of plaintiffs will file tomorrow. Whoever files first has a good shot at being named class counsel and, if this ends up with a bunch of consolidated cases, MDL coordinating counsel.”
She met with a few blank stares.
“MDL—multidistrict litigation?” she prompted them.
It was criminal, the way firms like Prescott demanded the brightest legal minds and then prevented them from actually practicing law for the first several years of their careers.
Once they started nodding again, she went on, “We’ll need someone to do a conflict of laws analysis, on the off chance the first case is filed in Virginia—the site of the accident—but it’s safe to assume we’ll be in federal court here, in the Western District of Pennsylvania.”
Joe Donaldson had a question. “How can you be so sure? Just because Hemisphere Air is headquartered here? Why would plaintiffs take on Hemisphere Air where it has home court advantage?”
“That’s a valid point, Joe. Look out that window behind you.”
Joe and the four other attorneys on his side of the table swiveled their chairs to look where she pointed. The three people seated across the table from them half-rose from their chairs and craned their necks, so they could see, too. Only Peterson didn’t move. He just smiled.
“See the Frick Building?” It was a squat stone building, lost in a sea of glass high-rises. “The entire building is dark, right? Except for a row of five windows, four floors up.”
The junior attorneys’ heads were bobbing in agreement. They turned back to face her.
“Those are Mickey Collins’ offices. Mickey’s one of the most successful plaintiff’s attorneys in town. The Aston Martin parked right under the security light in the lot next door is his. I’ve been working here eight years and I can count the number of times I’ve seen it in the lot after six p.m. He’s in there, working the phones, trying to find the widow of someone on that flight so he can head into court first thing in the morning and file with a named class representative. You can count on it.”
Joe looked down, sheepish.
“Hey, it was a good question, Joe.” Sasha valued someone who would speak up in a group. “Why don’t you work on putting together background information on whichever Western District judges are the most likely candidates to be assigned the next MDL case filed here?”
“Will do.” Joe sat up straighter.
“Good. Anyone want to volunteer for the conflict of laws analysis?”
Kaitlyn Hart raised her pen. “I’ll do it.”
“Great.” Sasha turned to Peterson. “Are you meeting with Metz tomorrow, Noah?”
“Yes. He’s coming here for a lunch meeting. We’ll do it in the office. The press will be all over their offices tomorrow.”
“Okay. That means I’ll need both memos by mid-morning, so I can review them before Noah and I meet with in-house counsel.”
Joe and Kaitlyn both nodded, as they scribbled notes on their legal pads.
“The rest of you will get your assignments at the morning meeting.”
Sasha felt a smidgeon of guilt that the others had been pulled off their late-night document review tasks only to hurry up and wait, but that was just a fact of big firm life. It could be maddeningly inefficient.
“Any other questions?”
No one spoke. A few people shook their heads.
It was nearly one in the morning. Time to cut people loose.
“Then we’re done. See you in the morning.”
Chapter 4
Outside Blacksburg, Virginia
As a weak autumn sun rose over the mountains, the recovery team combed through what was left of Flight 1667. It was only October, but a hard frost blanketed the ground.
The men and women who had started out as a rescue team late the night before were chilled through and exhausted. Once they had wheeled out the bright work lights and seen the crash site, they’d known there’d be no rescuing, and the adrenaline that had propelled them out of their warm beds had drained away.
Now—under the supervision of a cluster of glum and mostly silent TSA and NTSB officials—the volunteer firefighters, EMTs, and local police officers worked shoulder to shoulder, bagging and cataloguing charred body parts, twisted curls of metal, shards of cell phones and laptops, and scraps of rollerboard bags.
Marty Kowalski spotted a piece of polka dotted fabric and bent, knees cracking, to inspect it. It was roughly the size of a sheet of loose-leaf paper and had once been a cream color, dotted gaily with light pink, mocha brown, and soft blue circles. It looked somehow familiar, but Marty couldn’t put his finger on why.
Where had he seen fabric like this before? His tired brain searched his memory but came up empty. He turned the fabric over and it stuck; the backing was some kind of plastic that had partially melted into the ground. As Marty pulled it free, the plastic liner jarred something in his memory, and he realized he was looking at what remained of a diaper bag: a cheerful pastel pattern, lined with a protective plastic covering.
A mother had carefully counted out the diapers she’d need for the flight, adding a few extras just in case. Then, she’d folded in a case of wipes and a travel-size tube of soothing diaper cream, tossed in a soft toy or board book to keep the baby entertained on the plane, and probably shoved a well-worn blanket or stuffed animal on top.
Now, all that was left was this torn scrap of the bag, and mother and baby were scattered among the ashes blowing across the smoky field. Marty’s stomach seized. He hurried over to the tree line in case he was going to be sick.