둘
Zachary A. Choi
I'VE ONLY EVER wanted to be one thing.
A lawyer.
To be part of those illustrious stories I heard, from my dad Atiko growing up, on what it was like live and breathe in that chaos where two days were never the same.
He propagated that it was a job of discipline and if I had any ill discipline, I should try my hand at something else. It would be a job that would bleed and rival my own affairs, no matter how studious or intentional I am about creating some sort of balance.
I understood all the reasons why he felt he had to dissuade me and instead encourage that I take up a career in one of the Big 4's financial firms.
At 17, I was nonchalant, the way most teenagers transitioning in young adulthood often are.
But my mind always returned to this flag post.
It felt like an impossible dream of mine that would torture me like a black shadow. It felt like a tempting wedge of meat dangled in front of me, silently taunting me with all the ways I would never be able to have it.
I had waited weeks for my admission letter in the post to the University of Manchester, my dad's alumna. It was a university that could boast that its lawyers were all the very best—a growing legion of reputable district judges, criminal and civil barristers and solicitors that were transforming the landscape of the legal profession.
That letter, offering me their congratulations, didn't come. Instead, what came was a letter offering their immense regret that I was unsuccessful in my admission.
That was the day that my dreams felt implausible.
But, as I sit in this glass corner office that offers me sweeping views of the city's bustle, I realise that those dreams have bloomed into bountiful fruit. I am all the things that I told myself I would be.
A lawyer.
I envelope the handle of my mug of black coffee. It is a nutty-brown elixir, no sugar, no milk. It wafts up towards my nose and brews hot lines of steam.
I am poring through this divorce brief with passages and passages of legal text that require my input. My client is hoping to come to some sort of financial settlement against the Respondent who is her absent, pending ex-husband. He's offering her alimony to recompense her for her role as home-maker, as she gave up hers to facilitate his.
I make the assessment, on first glance, that it will put her and her children in good, financial stead. I want to make sure, though, that there are no clauses that might cause a war to spill later on.
Because these women that I represent are often forgotten, not by me. But, by the person who once upon a time promised that they would love them from infinity to infinity.
They are blighted by that same love.
They stay when the writing is on the walls, dressed in the biggest of letters. I have seen in both correspondence and in teary confessions how these women have abandoned everything to advance the careers of these unfaithful men.
I am nothing but a facilitator, helping to kickstart lives that have been buried underneath the rubble.
My mum always used to worry that because of where I'm placed, I'd form a derisory view on marriage.
Sometimes, I do but I know too many people living off its fruits for that to be a thought that stays with me.
I experienced it, once.
And then, I messed it up. I didn't check in when I was supposed to. I let work consume me like a beast. Sometimes, I do wonder how my Dad strikes the balance with my Mum, even after 29 years of marriage or even how Tobenna makes it work with Amahle.
I haven't found anything remotely comparable since Madison, not that I have been studiously looking.
She saw all of my lows.
She was the one that I thought I would marry and do all the stuff that people in love do.
She was the one that took me to hell and back.
My awareness is brought back onto the brief. A certain clause strikes me as contentious. It prevents my client from raising future claims, once she signs. Assets that she should be entitled to by name, by heritage of her marriage.
I scurry through the files as my desk is now askew, on the hunt for a brief to reference. Bullet-proof arguments in law are built on having a basis to the argument.
It isn't enough to contend that Mr X did that, because then, anyone could accuse, defame anyone of anything.
If Mr X has done what I am alleging, I need something that substantiate my claim.
My shoulders rise and almost tear through my primp shirt. "Maggie." I buzz my secretary's extension, with my thumb pressed on the receiver. "Can you bring me that Archer brief in the vault?" I've got the reference, RWM-001-24."
Her voice is feathery and quail on the other line, "I'll pop up and get it to you. How soon do you need it?"
"If you can get it to me in the next 20 minutes, I'll be grateful. I'm trying to prep the Noble file."
"Let me hurry." She places her phone down and I return to re-examining the material in front of me and seeing what I can glean from here.
True to her efficiency, she trudges into my office within 10 minutes. She holds the brief to her chest like it is a family heirloom of pearls prided on her chest. She slides the brief across my messy desk, "Is this what you were after?"
I unseal the brief, skimming over the extracts that are merely legal prose. "Yes, this is it. Thank you for bumping this up on your to-do-list, Maggie."
She meekly nods, "No problem, Zach."
As my eyes trail through the brief, I am looking for legal authority that substantiates my claim that the lawyers representing my client's ex-husband cannot bar her from making future claims. This brief isn't a secret weapon, an astute lawyer would be privy to such detail but it is a mine, overfull with treasure.
This isn't a problem that will blow up now, or in a few months or even years. But, my Dad always talks about how it isn't enough to be able to know the law inside out.
You have to foresee the black surging storm from the trees. You have to notice that trouble is afoot, before it gets there.
You have to know that you're about to be fucking rear-ended before the blast. He says it, without the embellishment I've added.
Maggie and her small stature stand, facing north. "Do you need me to help you with anything?" There is a desire on her part to make herself useful and I am indebted.
I have become the lawyer I dreamt of being because of Maggie. She's astute, thorough, trusts me implicitly and carries that same spirit for people and justice, like I do.
"There is something you can do for me," I roll my teeth together as the idea hits me like a truck. "I need to instruct a barrister for the Rolt hearing now that the court has issued the case's schedule. I'm totally snowed under with this brief."
"Sure." Maggie, ever so understanding. "I'll make a few calls. Do you have a preference, Zach?"
I fiddle with my ballpoint pen, turning it in and out of the gaps of my fingers, musing over who to recommend. A case is won and subsequently lost by the type of barrister I instruct.
Do I want a barrister that can carry boom in his voice, that might appeal to the judge and their sensibilities?
Or do I want a barrister that sticks only to the facts, but isn't as persuasive? Cases such as these, bitter feuds against two people that once loved each other, are a fine balance. Sometimes, it isn't enough to quote legislative verbatim—sometimes, it is.
Rolt is a tricky, tricky file. I need a barrister that understands the facts but is equally persuasive and commanding.
"Tim Mullins? Gregory Schaffer? Andy Harriman? Anyone at Temple is good."
Maggie pivots, about to head to the direction of the copier where her own office is positioned when I tell her that I need something. "Maggie, can I have a word?"
She shifts on my office rug.
I amble towards the door and pen us both in.
Her face is knitted with grave concern, as she quietly chews at her bottom lip, thinking about what she might've done that has led me to asking her to hang back. She caws a soft breath that adds an aridity to my office.
She is unaware that the reason I have her here is because I want her to know that I think she's been stellar, from the very first moment HR hired her to now.
"I want to give you something."
He finally lets herself breathe.
"For all your hard work, Maggie." I palm over an envelope that represents her bonus. "I am happy to add more zeros if you need me to."
She looks at me, aghast and shies away from the praise that is reserved for nobody but her. "I can't accept that, Zach. No really, I can't. It's too much."
My mum always talks about how it is important to give flowers to those that are still alive to smell them. Maggie has been steadfast, supremely dedicated and I wanted her to know—even if it monetarily, that I see her.
And I appreciate her.
"Maggie." I say with a soft timbre. "Please, don't make me beg."
"I can't accept that, Zach. It's too—" She resists, trying to rip her eyes on anywhere but the outstretched envelope. Her eyes cast a picture of a woman conflicted. To take or not to take, but I don't intend to see her leave this office without that envelope in her hand.
"Yours." I insert, but Maggie continues her battle of will.
"I had a bonus last month." Maggie mentions in case I need a reminder.
But I don't. "Here's another."
Her face swells with red as her withered hands cross mine. The envelope is now with my intended recipient. "Thank you so much, Zach. I don't know to say."
"No, thank you. Now you and Amber can go on that cruise to Mexico that you've talked about for years."
"I'll make a start on calling counsel." She nods gratefully as she exits out of my office. I click the end of my pen and hobble back to my desk.
I resume my study through this brief when I notice legal authority that I can cross-reference in my petition to the court. I circle the clause with my red pen, as the lid is posited in between my teeth. My shoulders are now pinned up, like a carefree gazelle.
The taste of winning has never felt so glorious.
I'm half turned to my laptop, ready to fire an email away to the other contending lawyer when I notice a figure standing in my doorway.
It's Tobenna, my best friend who I've been to the wars with. He releases a quiet holler as he carries bundles of post half-opened in the crook of his arm. We met during the first week of freshers at the University of Birmingham. He is a practicing Mergers and Acquisitions lawyer, posted on 21st floor of our commercial building so his eyes are well attuned to index contract papers.
"What's good, brother? You made any headway with that Morrison brief?"
I salute him with tired eyes, "Yo. I'm getting there. I'm just going through her financial statements."
He rallies a nod. "Calm calm. What are you sayin' tonight? Amiri, Kojo and Tem are blowing up the GC. You 'tryna do something later?"
I shake off the lonely that crawls around my skin like a bug. "Yeah, sure." I could do with a pint and a bit of the outside.
"I'll let 'em know. I need to drop some shit to Amal first but we can link at MacIveys at like eleven then they said they'll meet us two in Butterbite?"
"They're not meeting us there?"
Tobenna shakes his head, "Nah, g. Kojo is in Leeds 'cah of some work ting and Amiri and Tem, I don't know what those niggas are doing."
"I'm good with that." I answer. "Is that mine?" I point towards a pristine white document that inks a silver court seal, in his custody. Tobenna laxly shrugs. "I didn't know they relegated you to admin."
It has to be mine.
It has to be the Rutherford judgment, where I petitioned the court to make an order on the basis of 60-40 split in alimony. It was my hardest case to date and it is a term I don't say loosely. The presiding district judge battered and beat down every single one of my motions, almost finding me in disrepute.
I had apprised my client of the events at play and the likelihood that this would be a case I'd have to notch down as a loss.
"Rebecca's on lunch and I don't mind doing the rounds. Being tied to my desk gets a lil' jarring." He gives me a flat look as he hands over the envelope.
There is no tale, no inference that I can draw from his eyes that might tell me if I've won or not. He continues. "But, yeah it is."
I read through the document at a snail's pace, looking for three words, 'it was ordered'. They are the preamble before the presiding judge's ruling. The document confirms, to my own disbelief, that District Judge Holman found in my favour and awarded my client the 60-40 alimony split.
It only registered on the fourth read.
"Wait." The dust only now settled. "I won?"
Tobenna extols as he breaks out of that stony face he has been wearing since he stood in my doorway. "Yep."
"I don't know how. I was sure I'd lose."
"That judge would say different. Congratulations, g but do something for me."
"What do you need?" I ask, still holding the torn envelope with a stain of disbelief.
"Since you're up, it's only right that you treat us motherfuckers to drink."
"Aren't you supposed to toast me?"
"I don't know what manual you're reading from but that ain't the rule." He peels off my office door, because he is now done causing a ruckus to the rest of us on the 12th floor. "In a bit."
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