Mairin was determined. She had plenty to occupy herself. Funny, she often thought. I began law school to forget Charlie; now I’m using it to blot out Michael. Her job was busy, too. She had said so often that she didn’t like social work, that people’s problems were too burdensome to deal with day after day. But many of her clients meant a greet deal to her.

And there was something new on the law school horizon, too. During the second year she’d struggled with the properties, (both real and personal), federal taxation, agency and partnership, corporations and that blockbuster, constitutional law. Now, as the year was ending, she planned to register for legal writing for the summer session. She had planned this very carefully. She could have signed up for it either second or third quarter, but she had deliberately chosen to defer the course until summer.

Legal writing was the gateway to law review. And law review was the gateway to the better jobs. But to Mairin it was even more than that. It was a challenge. She felt that she could write. Hadn’t she been an English major? She might not be a trial lawyer. She might not even want to practice law, but she did want to see if she could compete with the best of her class. There were some very good people. Mairin’s class standing was high, not the top, but she felt certain that her writing would meet the test.

She had decided to take just the one course during the summer so that she would have all of her time to devote to it. As a matter of policy, the night students were encouraged to take a break over the summer, and most of them did. Summer with its nine-thirty darkness was simply not conducive to closeting oneself in the library. And then, there was the simple, human need for a break. The pace of daytime work and evening school was simply too fast to continue year-round with no break.

Mairin had a topic that had grown out of Sandra’s case about which she planned to produce a first-class article. Ninety-nine percent of law review articles were scholarly and exhaustive of the subject. The particular law review that Mairin would be gunning for had a dual role. Along with the scholarly articles, it featured short, practical articles. The longer ones were most helpful to courts and to lawyers preparing cases on appeal. The shorter ones were often life-savers for practicing attorneys. Mairin’s would be lengthy and exhaustive; the subject lent itself to that approach.

She mapped out a work schedule. In deference to summer, she planned only two nights a week in the library. She’d do weekends, too. Those were always easier. Full days not divided between work and studying. Just studying. At the end of summer quarter she’d have a first-class article to turn in. The professor who taught the legal writing classes was the faculty advisor to law review. When he graded the papers at the end of the course, he passed on to the board of editors those papers that he thought were outstanding. Those would be published.

If a paper was one of those, the board issued the student a formal invitation to become an apprentice. If the student accepted, he did tedious editing chores for a year then became an editor himself. If a paper wasn’t passed on directly by the advisor, the student could submit it himself to the board. Mairin wanted hers to be passed on directly.

That summer became Mairin’s law library summer. She’d worked in her college library as a reference assistant and she had really learned how to use a library. She had always been amazed at what information libraries would yield if one approached them with a little sophistication.

Still, it wasn’t easy for her to stay inside and sift through indexes when the sun shone and the breezes blew. Mairin often felt edgy, especially on the weekends, and she would go out for a stroll. Instead of being on the main university campus, the law school was downtown, near the courthouse, which in turn was on the lake. Mairin loved to walk on the promenade near the lake, and it helped her to relax.
 
 
 
 

Harry and Bea expressed a friendly and continuing interest in the article, although Harry at least felt that she was crazy to want to take on the added burden of law review editorship.

"It won’t be too bad," she told him one evening, relaxing over a glass of iced tea. "I figure that one evening a week, on the average, is all I’ll need."

"It’s the non-average that will kill you," Harry said. "I predict that just at exam time you’ll have an issue to put out, and you’ll go nuts."

"I could hope that the editors schedule better than that," said Mairin. "There are three issues per year, and something is always in progress. If I make it third year I’ll be an apprentice and fourth year I’ll be an editor. The apprentices have to check all kinds of dreary things, but from what I hear, it usually proceeds pretty well. And, after all, let’s face it, third and fourth years are not the classroom grinds of the first two. People actually get bored and have free time, or so I’m told.

"Yeah, that’s true. . . Go ahead. More power to you. Maybe I was always jealous because I was never on law review. Never liked writing. Grades were important in getting in, too, in my day. It will be good on your record when you go job-hunting. It’s really the creme de Ia creme."

"It’s funny, isn’t it, how law has such different areas of distinction. Being good at writing is important, but it Isn’t the whole ball game. There are people who are far better at negotiating, that kind of thing."

"Sure. And I’ll bet you’ve heard that people who don’t do well in law school are often the more successful lawyers financially. They don’t like the books, but they’re street-wise."

"Do you really think that’s true?" Mairin was skeptical.

"Often enough it is," said Harry. "You take a guy who really likes business--and that’s what running a law office is--and he’ll build up a well-paying practice. Not everybody can do that. Lots of lawyers just scrape by. Or you find that some of the big firms have some people who really aren’t distinguished at all academically. But they bring in the business. They’re called ‘rainmakers.’"

"I’ve heard that."

"But go on, have a go at law review. I know that you can write. You’ll make it. And after you get on law review, you’ll survive, because you’ve got one important weapon going for you."

Mairin looked surprised.

"Energy. You’ve got that to burn. You overdo it, but you’ve basically got energy. That’s anybody’s best weapon."

"I’ve been thinking about that," said Mairin slowly. "I’ve been noticing how hard it is for me to sit still in the library. I’m too alert. I hear people drumming their fingers on the tables, chewing gum, having whispered conversations. I wish I had the iron concentration that some people seem to have. I feel restless all of the time. If that’s energy, I could do with a little less."

"Yeah, it probably is. I’d call you high-strung. It’s a two-edged sword. You’ve got the energy, but sometimes you can’t turn it off. It’s a question of how to manage it."

"I know," said Mairin. However, I am looking forward to having an easier academic schedule this fall."
 
 
 
 

Mairin continued working hard that summer. There had only been one class session, the first week. The students were on their own to work in the law library with only one scheduled individual conference with the professor. Levin looked the part of the scholarly law professor. He was about sixty, dapper, had that touch of grey at the temples to give him a look of distinction, and did not appear to have a friendly bone in his body. However, he commended Mairin on a good beginning. She was ecstatic. Lack of extensive criticism from Levin was said to be a promising state of affairs. It gave her momentum for the last four weeks of writing. She was still typing the night before the deadline but handed in the final product with a few hours to spare. It was also said that Levin wouldn’t send up any late papers on general principle. "Responsibility," he was wont to say, "is the keystone of the editorial personality."

Within two weeks Mairin was stopped in the halls by an editor. "Good paper, he said. "You’ll be with us in the fall."

With that Mairin relaxed completely and clowned the rest of the summer. She even went out a few times with a fellow classmate, Evan.

Harry was always delighted to see Evan. "He’s a nice guy," he’d say to Mairin. "Why don’t you go out with him more often?"

"How soon you forget," Mairin would respond. "Non-involvement. That’s the key." Harry always seemed to accept that answer.
 
 
 
 

And then fall was upon her. This time it was commercial paper, evidence, and wills. Added to that were assignments for law review. Mairin had been fairly correct. She could sandwich them in around classes. However, Harry was correct too. As he had predicted, she did get caught with one first quarter final and a big assignment, but somehow both got done. Winter quarter was completely uneventful.

It was a blessing not to have the pressures of trying to participate in a case like Sandra’s. Mairin still had contact with Sandra, however. There were messages at work to call Sandra. Late at night the phone would ring. Sandra was more understanding of her time than Michael, but the long and short of it was that Michael and Sandra did not see eye to eye about boy the case should proceed. "It’s my life," said Sandra, "and I have the final say over it." It seemed to Mairin that Michael was just being his usual egocentric self.

"Mr. Jeffries asked me about you," said Sandra one night. "I told him you’d had to cut down on the time you were spending. Do you know, he’s really an interesting person. I started out hating him, but I can see now that he has a job to do. His manner is so charming, courtly, you know. What does he look like?"

"He’s tall, not really heavy, but solid. He’s a big man. He’s handsome, really. There must be a mold somewhere, maybe at Harvard Law, for these guys. They just pour them in, knock them out, and send them to the big law firms. He’s fiftyish--greying hair, horn-rimmed glasses, charming smile."

"Oh yes. He was talking to me one day during a break. He has some family in Tennessee. He was so courtly--almost like a Southern gentleman. Remember the time that he scared you so much? Wanting to take your deposition?"

Mairin shuddered. "Yes." She had never told Sandra that Harry had asked Bob Jeffries over for dinner. Sandra got too taken up by personalities and wanted to discuss them in detail. Sandra felt that she had special insight into people, and maybe she did, because not long after that conversation, Bob Jeffries called Mairin. She was at work at the agency and had to pause momentarily to place his name.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Jeffries."

"Please call me Bob, Mairin. Look, I’d like to have lunch with you, and I’d like you to visit this firm. As I told you, there are two young women here that I’d like you to meet."

"That’s so nice of you," said Mairin, "but I really mean what I said that evening about being committed to the agency."

"That’s fine. I understand that. However, I really don’t think you should shy away from law without looking at it more carefully. You said some interesting things the night we met, and I’d like to talk to you some more. Are you free at one o’clock Friday?"

"Well, yes but. . . "

"I’ll meet you at one at The Tower."

"All right, thank you." Mairin hung up. The Tower was a lovely restaurant. It was expensive, and she’d only been there a couple of times. She was excited about going.

"It really might be fun," she said to Harry and Bea that evening. "No matter what, eating at The Tower is a treat."

She dressed especially carefully that day. It was early spring, and she picked a colorful print blouse to wear with a tailored suit. She even double-checked her eye make-up before she left the agency. No cafeteria food for me this noon," she said to Carol. "I’m going to eat with the fancy folk."

Bob Jeffries was waiting for her inside the restaurant. They were shown to one of the best tables and were given immediate attention. "Would you like a drink?" he asked.

"Perhaps a glass of wine," said Mairin. I think I’ll need all my faculties unimpaired to talk with you."

He laughed. "I’m not going to take your deposition."

"Thank god."

"You were really upset, weren’t you?" Bob Jeffries looked at her carefully.

"Yes. Law is a scary business if you’re one of the principals."

"You said something interesting the first evening we met. You said that nobody gets hurt in social work but that they get hurt in law. What do you mean?"

"What I meant is this. When I do casework with a client, I work hard to help him. I often need to work with others in his life--his family, his employer, that sort of thing--but in helping my client, I don’t have to hurt anybody. In law it seems that to help one party, another must be hurt. In Sandra Guilford’s case, one party will be hurt."

"I’ll put it even more precisely. In Sandra Guilford’s case, one party will win, and one party will lose." Bob Jeffries looked expectantly at Mairin.

"I’m not comfortable with that," said Mairin. "I don’t mean to talk about a specific case, like Sandra’s, but I’d like to see people settle things without the win-lose framework."

"So would most lawyers, Mairin. However, consider this. By its very nature, law begins at a different place than casework. Let’s take a simple instance. I owe you money. I don’t want to pay it. There’s no way that you can talk me into paying it. You must sue me for that money. You will win, and I will lose. Law is necessary for the solution of some problems. Social work is necessary for the solution of others."

Mairin sat still. She nodded; she looked down at her plate.

"You’re uncomfortable with winning. You equate it with hurting people." Bob Jeffries studied Mairin intently again.

"Maybe," she said. It’s more than that, though. I don’t fully understand it myself, but there’s something male-female about it, too. I’ve thought a lot about it, and it’s not just the social work training I’ve had. I’m uncomfortable with hostility."

She looked him straight in the eye. "You and Michael. You act absolutely awful to one another, and to the witnesses, during a deposition. Then you walk out for a cup of coffee, and you’re smiling and talking with one another. It’s almost as though you have some invisible coat of armor that you wear when you’re adversaries. I don’t understand it, and I can’t do it."

He was smiling at her. "Do you mean to tell me there’s a difference between men and women?" He was teasing her, and she knew it. "The sex discrimination cases would all be down the tubes."

Mairin smiled too. "No, of course it isn’t that simple. There may be some women who can play the game. I’m just saying that I think it’s very much a matter of how I, Mairin Farrar, was raised that the game is alien to me. There are two questions. One is a matter of whether I can learn it. Th. other is a matter of whether I want to learn it."

"There are all kinds of law, Mairin. Trial lawyers are a small percentage of the total. Those of us who do trial work love it. We don’t truly think there is any other law. But, seriously, there are many, many specialties where you never meet your opponent in the ring."

The waiter was clearing the plates. Mairin ordered tea. "Tea is a security blanket," she said. "It’s warm and comfortable as well as having the caffeine that gets me through the day."

"I still don’t know how you do it, Mairin."

"I don’t either, but somehow, if you just make up your mind to it, you can make yourself keep almost any kind of schedule."

"I’m interested in that kind of discipline. Why would you talk about giving up law when you’ve had the discipline to fight very tough odds to complete law school?"

‘Because I made a mistake."

"Do you really believe that?"

"I don’t know," Mairin said honestly. "I must say that I wonder"

"Let’s go back to the office. I want you to see how much there is to law."

Hadleigh, Wriston, Jeffries, Van Atta and Maxwell occupied two floors of one of the city’s most prestigious office buildings. The entrance was ornate--almost to the point of laughter, Mairin thought. The door was flanked by a lovely, large wood frame. The names of the firm members were beautifully lettered in gold-- the names of the partners on the left side of the door, the names of the associates on the right.

The reception room was monstrously large and decorated in a style that Mairin knew to be of a specific period without recognizing which period. At the desk sat an older woman, beautifully attired. Mairin wouldn't have been surprised to see her in the floor-length gown of the period. She gave Bob Jeffries an obsequious welcome.

They walked down a long, carpeted hallway to Bob Jeffries’ office. It had a spectacular view of the lake, shining blue and white in the day’s sun. The furnishings were lovely, and while not starkly modern, definitely contemporary. There was a lovely print on the wall--a woodcut with bold forms and colors. Almost involuntarily, Mairin said, "That is lovely."

"Yes, he said. It was in the May show at the art museum two years ago. I couldn’t resist it." He took Mairin’s coat. "Now for the tour," he said. They walked back into the hall. The floor had partners’ offices around the perimeter, each office with an outside view. Different halls housed different departments as well. Corporations was the biggest, taking two halls. Real Estate had a sizeable number of offices, as did Tax.

"How do you feel about tax?" Bob asked Mairin.

"I hate it with every bone in my body," she said.

"So do I," he said. "What about probate?"

"I don’t know," Mairin said. "It sounds dull."

"It’s detail," he said, "but at least your clients don’t talk back to you."

"Do you do any domestic relations?" she asked. "Or doesn’t Hadleigh, etc., do divorces?"

"We do them. We used to do them only as a favor to our big clients, but there’s money in it per se. How do you feel about that area?"

"I don’t know. During my first year in social work school, I was placed in an agency that did lots of family counseling. I got the distinct feeling that parties could work things out pretty well until the lawyers stepped in. I saw it more than once. A couple would have come to some agreement. One would go to a lawyer who would say, ‘Oh, no, you’re giving up too much.’ Then it would be a fight all over again."

They were up on the second floor now, where labor law and commercial law were practiced. "Also civil procedure," said Bob.

"You mean the department of loopholes and dodges," said Mairin.

"Sometimes," he said. "But here’s a good example of the back room. The people here are advocates just as much as those of us in the ring. Nearly all the research and writing goes on here. Do you like that?"

"Yes, I do," said Mairin simply.

"Finally!" he said. "Look, the two women I want you to meet are both on this floor. Sylvia Bensonhurst is in labor law." He went to her office, tapped on the half-opened door. "Hi. Here’s the law student I wanted you to talk to. Give her about half an hour and buzz me. Mairin, meet Sylvia." And Bob disappeared.

Sylvia’s office was on the inside of the building, without a view, but it, too, was nice. There was a lovely old desk, and she’d added some plants. Sylvia was very attractive and very stylishly dressed. She got up from her desk and held out her hand. I’m pleased to meet you, Mairin. Sit down. Tell me why you’ re here."

"I was hoping to find that out from you," said Mairin.

"I don’t understand. Aren’t you here interviewing for a job?"

"What did Mr. Jeffries tell you when he asked you to set time aside?" asked Mairin.

"Just that there was a woman law student coming through who might like to talk to me."

Mairin laughed. "Well, I’ll put everything on the table. I am a law student, but I’ve been having real doubts about ever practicing law. I’m doing social work right now. I met Mr. Jeffries through Judge Warncke--I live with the Warnckes. Somehow Mr. Jeffries figures I shouldn’t give up on law quite yet."

Sylvia had been listening intently. "What bothers you about law?" she asked.

"In a nutshell," said Mairin, "I think I have a social service world-saving mentality instead of the adversary/advocate mentality. I sort of despair about being able to convert."

"It might take awhile," said Sylvia, "especially if you’re already doing social work. Are you going to night school?"

"Yes."

"Well, you’re a first, then. This firm has never interviewed a night student."

"They’re not really interviewing me. I have a feeling I’m a pro bono project of Mr. Jeffries. But I’d like to find out about you. What do you feel about practicing law, and what is this firm like to practice in?"

"It’s tough. It’s like all the big firms. They’ll absolutely run you ragged. But all the resources are here. On anything you run into, someone here is an expert. I would hate to think what practicing on my own would be like."

"What do you want to do?" asked Mairin.

"I want to do trial work. I would love to be one of Bob Jeffries’ pro bono projects. There’s some courtroom tie here in labor law, but it isn’t purely trial law."

"Is there any prejudice about your being a woman?"

Sylvia looked distant. Then she smiled. "Sure," she said. "All kinds. I’ve even been propositioned by a couple of the partners. However, since there are about seventy-five partners, you can stay out of one man’s way. Or two. Some of the men knock themselves out to be fair, but most of them seem to feel that you have to prove you’re exceptionally good." She looked at her watch. "I'd better buzz Mr. Jeffries."

While they were waiting for him, Sylvia said, "I'd like to ask you one more question. What made you decide to go to law school? You're saying that you're a social worker at heart, but you must have disliked social work to even think about going to law school."

"Good girl, Syl," said Bob Jeffries, putting his head in the door. "I'd like to hear the answer to that one myself."

"It's complicated," Mairin said. "After I'd done social work for a couple of years, I began to feel bored. I felt that Ineeded a little more challenge. The master's in social work was no challenge intellectually. Maybe I'm an intellectual snob--I never could fully respect the degree. Something kept pushing at me to get a degree I could respect.

"And then I had occasion to go to court a couple of times with clients of the agency... "Oh no," she caught them smiling at one another, "it was no Perry Mason thing. The cases were routine. But I kept thinking that the lawyers had to be using their minds every minute. That sort of pushed me."

"So now I know," said Bob Jeffries. "Thanks for your time, Syl. I want Mairin to meet Kate Regent." They walked down the hall to another inside office where Bob delivered Mairin with the same speech.

Kate Regent was Sylvia's age, but whereas Sylvia exuded energy, Kate radiated peace and calm. Sylvia would be a thoroughbred race horse, ready to run at full speed while Kate could be a very dignified draft horse, calmly waiting to pull a heavy load. Kate was more solid in build than Sylvia, but she was not at all unattractive. She was dressed in very expensive slacks.

"Hello," said Kate. "What can I do for you?"

"Tell me what it’s like being a woman in law and a woman in this firm," said Mairin. "I have some trouble myself with the adversary nature of law. I know it’s a sexist thing to say, but I feel that men often do better at it."

"Only some of them, and only because they’ve had lots of experience. Little boys play sports, you know. They knock one another’s block off, and they go off being friends. Little girls have a fight, and they don’t speak to each other for days. But let’s face it, some men hold grudges, too."

"Can you practice law without getting angry at your opponent?"

"I can. Sure. The structure of the law is made to get the aggression out of your system. I’m fighting a case now where my client got a default judgment on a contract. The defendant wouldn’t pay. So I’m having the bailiff levy on all the goods in the defendant’s store. My client is ecstatic, but he doesn’t have to go nose to nose with the defendant. The bailiff will do that, and since the bailiff has no personal grudge against the defendant, he’s not going to get angry."

"How about the defendant?" asked Mairin.

"He may get angry. But he’s the one that’s chosen this route. He doesn’t have the right to be legitimately angry. Anyway, his anger is his problem; it’s not my problem. I don’t get angry. I’m just persistent."

"I have another question to ask you," said Mairin. I notice that you’re dressed in slacks rather than a dress or skirt and blouse. How is that received?"

Kate laughed. "It makes a lot of people uptight. Women are supposed to wear dresses. I don’t like dresses. I feel comfortable in slacks. So that’s what I wear. One of the senior partners called me in about it once. ‘Let’s talk about my work,’ I said. ‘Do you think I’d work better if I wore a dress?'" Kate laughed. "He actually said yes. His argument was that the firm’s clients expected certain kinds of dress in their counsel. I asked him if anyone had complained. He said no. It’s been a Mexican standoff ever since."

"Would you wear slacks to court?"

"I wear a pant suit when I go to court. If I were into full litigation--in front of a jury rather than a judge--I’d probably wear a dress. It’s too risky to have hidden prejudices in a jury work against my client. I can work with whatever prejudice my client has over the course of our relationship. I don’t have that kind of time with a jury. But I basically do negotiation, not courtroom work."

Bob Jeffries knocked on the door. "I came down a little early. There’s a deposition that I’d like to have Mairin sit in on."

As she followed him down the hall, Bob said, "This depo is in a personal injury case. We represent the defendant, and we don’t quite believe the version of the facts shown by the police report. We’ve called the plaintiff in to get his story first bend. Nathan Howard is going to be taking the depo."

Mairin and Bob walked into the conference room and sat along the wall. The depo was just beginning. Nathan Howard was a younger lawyer, probably still an associate at the firm. The plaintiff was a young man, and Howard was questioning him about the events of the night when the cars of the plaintiff and the defendant collided. The proceedings were extremely businesslike. Mairin was puzzled. This was a very usual case. There were no large issues. The depo didn’t last long.

When they were back in Jeffries’ office, he said, "What did you think of that?"

Mairin shook her head. "I must have missed something, "It seemed like a very ordinary case to me."

He grinned. "It is. Ninety percent of depositions are like that. They'll put you right to sleep. I wanted you to see that because what you’ve been seeing in Sandra Guilford’s case is so extraordinary. The emotions involved there are incredible. It’s by no means a true picture of what law--even trial law--is all about."

"I see." Clever of him. Jeffries looked at his watch. "I’ve taken your whole afternoon. Class tonight?"

"Yes. Estate and gift tax. I hate it. What a way to spend a Friday evening."

"Mairin, I want you to seriously consider leaving the agency to do some type of legal work--preferably here with us. That way you can make a rational decision about whether you want to practice law or not. You won’t be making that decision based on your feelings about an unusual case. I don’t want an answer now, but I want to talk to you in a week. Could you drop in for an hour next Friday on your way to class?"

Mairin sat quiet for a moment. There were so many things she wanted to say. But she merely said, "Yes."