Abby finally roused herself to call up Sally’s law firm, making some excuse of wanting to get a better sense of Sally’s work so she could better archive paperwork she’d found in Sally’s desk.
Sally apparently had one friend there, and luckily Abby happened to call her straight off. Liz Edwards was a junior partner at the firm, but she made it plain to Abby that partner wasn’t what it used to be.
“I got sold this idea of putting in your work for fifteen years or so and then as partner spending my afternoons at the colloquial golf course and delegating to kowtowing associates.” Liz told Abby while serving her tea in her little nook of an office. “Do you see me at the golf course ? or associates kissing my ass? No you do not, because I’m basically a glorified associate. I still put in the 60 hour work weeks, get the smallest cut of equity every years, while the ‘real’ partners–” Liz air-quoted “They divvy up the pie between themselves and act like we had another bad year. when I know the estates management is basically the most consistent revenue you can get in legal work.”
“What is estates management? And what would a paralegal being doing? I never got a good answer from Sally.”
“Sucking up to old people and trying to find ways to hide their money. Mostly via trusts and tax write-offs.” Liz answered. “Sally was the queen of that. She should’ve been a lawyer, and or at least gotten paid like one. She had a way with old men who still thought they ruled the universe. They’d talk about all their property, their investments more than they’d talk about their families. Sally would manage their multiple houses, sell them off, put money into accounts, find new banks and set up companies to avoid tax.”
“Wait, so these banks were off-shore? Isn’t that illegal?”
Liz gave her withering look. “ Hey, we know the law. We just make it work for us. That’s the whole firm’s reputation.”
“What about when someone died. Wasn’t that Sally’s main work? Something called probate?” Abby decided it was better to sound incredibly ignorant, to give Liz more chance to spill beans in detailed explanation.
“Sally’s thing was to avoid probate. Sometimes she’d literally produce a notepad saying this was the will. And once various relatives got a cut they were happy not to disagree. She was clever that way since usually probate meant that there was no will and everything had to get examined by an army of lawyers, who’d take half the estate in fees. If someone couldn’t find a will after a rich relative died, we’re the firm to hire so there’d be something left to inherit.”
Abby suspected high levels of dodgy legal trickery in all this. Some relatives getting ignored while the ones with the right lawyers getting the lion’s share. She’d had that experience with her own father leaving everything to his new family. Abby’s mother had to go through the humiliating experience of getting her daughter’s DNA tested to show paternity and even then she’d inherited nothing due to a blurry, water stained will that proclaimed the second wife to be the sole heir.
“So Sally made sure the right person got the estate? Kind of like an executor?”
“Exactly,” Liz said, “She was amazing at settling estates in record time.”
“Did her clients ever have, you know, weird deaths?”
Liz’s eyes hardened and went cold, appraising Abby for the first time. “What do you mean, weird?”
“Like suddenly or maybe um, uh, messily? Like a bad accident or something?”
“I don’t know what you’re saying but you need to leave now.”
— Von
Sally apparently had one friend there, and luckily Abby happened to call her straight off. Liz Edwards was a junior partner at the firm, but she made it plain to Abby that partner wasn’t what it used to be.
“I got sold this idea of putting in your work for fifteen years or so and then as partner spending my afternoons at the colloquial golf course and delegating to kowtowing associates.” Liz told Abby while serving her tea in her little nook of an office. “Do you see me at the golf course ? or associates kissing my ass? No you do not, because I’m basically a glorified associate. I still put in the 60 hour work weeks, get the smallest cut of equity every years, while the ‘real’ partners–” Liz air-quoted “They divvy up the pie between themselves and act like we had another bad year. when I know the estates management is basically the most consistent revenue you can get in legal work.”
“What is estates management? And what would a paralegal being doing? I never got a good answer from Sally.”
“Sucking up to old people and trying to find ways to hide their money. Mostly via trusts and tax write-offs.” Liz answered. “Sally was the queen of that. She should’ve been a lawyer, and or at least gotten paid like one. She had a way with old men who still thought they ruled the universe. They’d talk about all their property, their investments more than they’d talk about their families. Sally would manage their multiple houses, sell them off, put money into accounts, find new banks and set up companies to avoid tax.”
“Wait, so these banks were off-shore? Isn’t that illegal?”
Liz gave her withering look. “ Hey, we know the law. We just make it work for us. That’s the whole firm’s reputation.”
“What about when someone died. Wasn’t that Sally’s main work? Something called probate?” Abby decided it was better to sound incredibly ignorant, to give Liz more chance to spill beans in detailed explanation.
“Sally’s thing was to avoid probate. Sometimes she’d literally produce a notepad saying this was the will. And once various relatives got a cut they were happy not to disagree. She was clever that way since usually probate meant that there was no will and everything had to get examined by an army of lawyers, who’d take half the estate in fees. If someone couldn’t find a will after a rich relative died, we’re the firm to hire so there’d be something left to inherit.”
Abby suspected high levels of dodgy legal trickery in all this. Some relatives getting ignored while the ones with the right lawyers getting the lion’s share. She’d had that experience with her own father leaving everything to his new family. Abby’s mother had to go through the humiliating experience of getting her daughter’s DNA tested to show paternity and even then she’d inherited nothing due to a blurry, water stained will that proclaimed the second wife to be the sole heir.
“So Sally made sure the right person got the estate? Kind of like an executor?”
“Exactly,” Liz said, “She was amazing at settling estates in record time.”
“Did her clients ever have, you know, weird deaths?”
Liz’s eyes hardened and went cold, appraising Abby for the first time. “What do you mean, weird?”
“Like suddenly or maybe um, uh, messily? Like a bad accident or something?”
“I don’t know what you’re saying but you need to leave now.”
— Von
I sense a mystery coming on. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteOooh, more cool stuff! How do you KNOW all this legalese, Von? Suspenseful. Good readin' ... ---Macoff
ReplyDelete