OFG Ch 460-464 (Patreon)

Part 2/5 of OFG Week. All chapters will be released in PDF and Epub at the end.

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Chapter 460

“Hi, good to meet you,” you said, leading your group as you approached the Plaintiff's table. “I’m John, this is Gemma, Sabrina, and Eric. I’m hoping we can have some with this.”

“Hey, John,” the blonde athletic guy said, stepping forward with the sort of smile that would have made you feel like you were in an entirely different classification of human from this ridiculously attractive person. Would have, except you now had two gorgeous girlfriends and that gave you a confidence no one could ever tear down. “I’m Tucker. Good to meet you too.”

“Thomas,” the other guy with the slumped posture said. He pushed his glasses up his nose a bit before shaking your hand, and when he did his grip was flimsy and loose-wristed like you were shaking hands with a noodle.

Tucker was already shaking hands with Gemma, flashing that grin of his and trying to say something flirty, but you could just feel your girlfriend giving him a Customer Service smile. You, however, were running into your own problem.

“Samantha,” the tall, lanky blonde said. If Thomas was limp-wristed, Samantha was stiff as a two-by-four and had the grip of a gorilla. “We should talk settlement,” she continued, not letting go of your hand. “Your client has absolutely no recourse to get out of their contractual obligations, but to move this on quickly our client is willing to negotiate in good faith so that this matter doesn’t need to drag on.”

“How about we finish introducing ourselves before we start talking business,” you said, raising an eyebrow and completely letting go of her hand, making it obvious that she was clinging on to you.

“I don’t see why-” Samantha started, but the girl with the immense tits literally grabbed your wrist and hers and forced Samantha to let you go.

“Jesus Christ, Sam,” she said. “He could sue you for battery, you left claw marks on him.”

“I-” Samantha said, frowning as she looked down at your hand where her fingernails had left indentations in the side of your hand. “You should get checked for oedema, that shouldn’t happen.”

“Sorry about her,” the brunette said, stepping between the two of you and taking your hand in both of hers. Even with her blouse completely buttoned up she was difficult to look in the eye and not glance down at her ridiculous bus. She wasn’t fat, though she was built with somewhat broad shoulders. You managed to keep eye contact though. “I’m Amanda. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” you said. “And I promise not to sue over an, ah, overzealous handshake.”

“Thank you,” she said, flashing you a pretty smile. 

Tucker was trying to flirt with Sabrina now somewhere behind you, and she was playing a game that she and Gemma had come up with called, ‘What do you mean by that?’ where when a guy hit on one of them they would take everything he said literally. It was surprising how many flirty comments were insults with another tone, and you could hear Tucker stumbling to try and explain something he’d said wasn’t meant to insult her.

“This is Maeve,” Amanda said, turning and introducing the curly-haired goth girl.

“Nice to meet you,” you said, offering her your hand.

Maeve took your hand but instead of shaking it, she turned it palmed up and traced a finger along the lines of it, frowning and then smirking before looking up at you. “You have a strong heart line,” she said, her voice a surprisingly mellow British accent. “But it’s doing this weird thing at the end where it splits. Are you a cheater?”

You blinked, raising an eyebrow.

“Maeve,” Amanda scoffed, shaking her head.

“No, I’m not a cheater,” you said. “Though I am polyamorous.”

“Oh, interesting,” Maeve said, looking at you closer. She was wearing a pair of dark-rimmed glasses and she was that sort of nerdy-hot attractive where she could probably pull off Sexy Librarian just as easily as grungey goth nerd. 

“OK, weirdo,” Amanda said, snapping in front of Maeve’s face and breaking her stare. “No trying to mind-read the opposing counsel until after we start the trial.” She turned to you. “I am so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you said and glanced back to Maeve as you took your hand back from hers. “It was nice to meet you, Maeve.”

“You too,” she said, smirking just a little.

You introduced Amanda and Maeve to Gemma, and then to Sabrina and Eric.

“Alright, now we should discuss settlement,” Samantha said pretty much as soon as Eric and Maeve had shaken hands. You could see Maeve glance down at Eric’s palm surreptitiously. “We’re willing to take-”

“We’re willing to hear your first offer,” Tucker cut in, speaking over her. He glanced at Samantha, and she scowled back slightly, and you had a feeling there had been some sort of a disagreement in the past on who was leading their team.

“Well, our offer is that you drop this suit,” Sabrina said. “And we all go about our week. Our client has made it clear that yours has acted in a way that breaches the contract they signed, and we consider the matter fairly cut and dry.”

“You’re not even willing to make an offer?” Samantha asked.

Sabrina gave her a soft look, one of compassion. One that said, ‘Oh, you sweet child, you’re so out of your depth.’ It was masterful and you could immediately tell that Samantha - who you guessed was certainly high-functioning but potentially somewhere on the spectrum - was rattled by it.

“It was nice to meet you all,” Sabrina said. “I’m sure we’ll come to a resolution here. We’ll leave you to it.”

You turned and looked back to Amanda and Maeve. “It’s nice to meet you,” you said.

“You too,” Amanda said with a slightly chagrined smile. She’d obviously been dealing with the oddisms of her fellow interns all summer and was running a little out of patience.

Maeve winked at you as she smiled.

When you got back over to the table, Gemma leaned in and whispered to you, “That cute goth girl wants to fuck you.”

You scoffed lightly and rolled your eyes, and Gemma smiled and shrugged as if to say, ‘Not my fault it’s true.’

Then you sat down and Sabrina sat next to you and leaned in. “Amanda wants to fuck you,” she whispered.

You coughed, covering your mouth to try and hide your reaction. Sometimes Gemma and Sabrina had to be wrong about that kind of thing.

 Right?

Chapter 661

“Alright, folks,” Garrison said loudly as he, the female lawyer from the other firm and an older man who looked like he was in his seventies all mounted the stage. “Welcome to court. I’d like to present to you the Honourable Ivan Mathews. Judge Mathews served as a District Judge for seventeen years, and then on the State Supreme Court for another twenty-two, all after a successful career as a criminal prosecutor with a specialty in financial crimes.”

You and all the other interns clapped politely, and you sort of wanted to shake the man’s hand. It was an impressive career and, to be frank with yourself, he sounded like a fucking amazing reference for law school applications. There were also a little under two dozen other folks who had come in; several were Associates and Partners from your firm, and you had a feeling the others would be from the opposing one. They were all clapping as well, and you wondered if the Judge was something of a local legal celebrity.

“Judge Mathews will be presiding over your trial,” Garrison said.

“Let’s keep things fun, and have a good mock trial,” Judge Mathews said. “I don’t want any funny business. What my good friend here didn’t tell you is that I also managed the high school and college-level Mock Trial association in the State for forty years, including when he was competing in college, and have written several large cases including the one you’ll be presenting today.”

“Shiiiit,” Sabrina hissed softly beside you through her smile.

You glanced at Garrison, who was smirking just a little, and you knew he’d been sitting on that one just to put that last little bit of pressure on the four of you.

“Any questions?” Garrison asked all of you.

You shook your head slightly, though you felt like you should have had questions. Out of the corner of your eye, you thought you saw Samantha twitch at the other table, but someone must have stopped her.

“Great,” Garrison said. “Then, All Rise for the Honourable Judge Mathews. Sir, you can assume your position.”

The Judge, who used a cane lightly even though he didn’t seem to really need it, headed around to the Bench, climbed a couple of stairs and assumed his seat, rearranging the notepads and other things that had been set back there for him. It lasted for almost three minutes until he looked up, eyeing all of you still standing and waiting.

“Good,” he said. “You may sit.”

You all sat, and you wondered how many kids, or other college students, had fallen for that simple little trick.

“Good morning everyone,” Judge Mathews said, gesturing you forward. “I’ll be presiding over your case for the next few days. Could counsel please introduce themselves?” He looked pointedly over to the Plaintiffs.

“Your Honour,” Tucker said, quickly standing up. “Tucker Jackson, representing the Plaintiff, joined by my friends Amanda Garcia, Samantha Van Der Groot, Thomas Malberry, and Maeve Walker.”

The Judge nodded, Tucker sat, and Mathews looked over at you.

“Your Honour,” Sabrina said, standing up just like the four of you had planned. “Sabrina Sodemeyer representing the Defence. I am joined by my colleagues Gemma Anderson, Eric Daniels and John Watkins.” Each of you nodded in respect to the judge in turn, and Sabrina sat.

“Excellent,” Judge Mathews said. “Alright. Do we happen to have a settlement on the table here, folks? I’m not getting paid by the hour, so you won’t hurt my feelings.”

“Your Honour, no settlement has been offered at this time,” Sabrina said, standing up again. “Our client is fully prepared to defend themselves against these frivolous claims.”

“Noted, Miss Sodemeyer,” Judge Mathews nodded, then looked to the Plaintiffs. “Any second guesses on the strength of your claims, Counsel?”

“Not at all, your Honour,” Samantha said, shooting up to her feet before Tucker could.

“Alright then,” Judge Mathews nodded. “If we have no settlement on the tables, let’s see your pre-trial motions. No need to stand on ceremony for this part, folks. This would usually be handled well in advance. Someone just bring up your packages for me to review.”

That was your job for the moment, so you grabbed the thick file of motions, slipped around Sabrina in the 1st Chair position and brought it up to the Judge at the same time that Amanda was doing the same.

“Your Honour,” you murmured, giving Mathews a respectful nod as you handed over your file. There were ten motions, each one helpfully tabbed and labelled. Amanda handed over her file and it looked like they had a few less, but that didn’t mean that your case couldn’t get torpedoed by any one of them. She glanced at you as you both turned to head back to your tables, and you gave her a little nod as well which made her smile slightly before you split up back to your chairs.

Mathews was like a machine, skimming through the motions. You had to assume that, since he was the man who fucking wrote the damn case, he knew what sort of hooks and traps and pitfalls he’d woven into it so it wasn’t quite as difficult to parse through as a real civil case.

Preliminary motions weren’t the usual for Mock Trials, nor was the size or timeline of the case. Usually, a civil Mock Trial only lasted about an hour and was limited to short opening and closing statements, a couple of witnesses per side, and closing arguments. But Mathews had crafted a fucking beast of a case that was like a Mock Trial on steroids - you couldn’t imagine anyone tackling it in the usual time limits of ‘competitive’ Mock Trial. Part of the package had been the variation on the usual rules for the trial - preliminary motions would be presented before opening statements and ruled on, and all such motions that would usually come up in discovery were on the table even if discovery, depositions and all of the other formalities were presented in the package.

That meant that, technically, the Trial could end right at that moment if your side had smashed a Motion to Dismiss out of the park and Mathews agreed.

Chapter 662

“Alright, folks,” Judge Mathews said, calling everyone to attention. “Here’s my rulings. First, on the Motion to Dismiss from the Defence, I’m reserving comment or ruling until after the rest of the trial - it’s no fun if I rule in favour, but I’m also not telling you if it wouldn’t have worked. Points will be awarded at the end.”

That dashed your Hail Mary hopes that one big swing could win for your side, but it also made sense. There wasn’t really a point to all of this if you could just get the case dismissed and the Plaintiffs couldn’t even fight it.

With the big one out of the way, however, Mathews started ripping into the rest of the motions of both sides. They were almost all motions for the suppression of evidence by both sides, though Eric had also filed a motion for a change of venue based on the fact that the county jurisdiction seemed to rule in favour of plaintiffs against insurance companies a little over 80% of the time, showing a likelihood of bias.

That one got a smirk and laugh out of Mathews, who denied the motion but told Eric he’d made a decent case for it on the merits.

He tossed out almost all of the motions to suppress from both sides on their merits, which wasn’t too surprising. Motions to Suppress were usually criminal case matters since it was usually related to bad actions on the side of law enforcement. In a civil case, the space for that to actually apply was generally fairly small. Still, both teams had tried, and Judge Mathews narrowed them down to one each from the Defence and the Plaintiffs. He then handed them over to opposing counsel and gave you a maximum of an hour to formulate defences against the motions.

The good news was that the four of you had strategized, trying to figure out what your opponents would try to get tossed. The bad news was that even though you had pre-planned defences, you didn’t have witnesses to call in for this part of the trial. The first responders to the major pileup included police, and it was different testimonies that both sides were trying to get tossed. You were going to need to argue in favour of an officer’s actions to combat the Plaintiff’s motion while accusing another officer at the same time.

“Alright,” Sabrina said after quickly scanning the motion. “The one they got through is on Officer Penholt.”

“He’s the officer who found the bag of pot in the trunk of the plaintiff’s car, right?” Eric asked.

“Exactly,” Sabrina nodded. “They’re arguing it was an unreasonable search without a warrant, and no criminal charges were brought forward, so it should be immaterial to the civil case.”

“Well, we’ve already got that one prepared,” you said. “The pot was in the open, and he saw it while checking for injured people in the pileup.”

“We should split up the problems,” Gemma said. “John and Eric work on the defence, and Sabrina and I work on attacking their defence.”

“Actually,” Eric said. “I’ve been thinking about this. Follow me for a second. Our case doesn’t rely on the pot at all, right?” You all shook your heads. “So what if we just let them have it? We agree it’s immaterial to the civil litigation. We know we can’t prove that the pot in the trunk means the driver was intoxicated. That way we look more agreeable to Mathews and maybe buy some goodwill.”

Sabrina chewed on the inside of her lip in thought and then glanced at Gemma, who shrugged, and then at you.

“I think he might be right,” you said. “Remember what Garrison said about playing to the Judge. If we look like we’re fighting everything tooth and nail, we look desperate and Mathews knows this case inside and out. The pot is probably a red herring in the story, and if we ignore it instead of fighting over it we might look a lot better for it.”

“OK, Sabrina nodded. “We ignore the pot and let them suppress the testimony. There wasn’t anything else in Penholt’s story we needed, right?”

“He was… a tertiary source for a couple of things, but we’ve got them covered anyways,” Gemma said, already having pulled Penholt’s file from our list of witnesses and scanning our notes.

“Perfect,” Sabrina said. “Then we focus on defending our motion. Which one was it?”

“He didn’t say,” you said, shaking your head. “So we either need to ask him, which means we ask to approach the bench and they send someone as well and we give away we’re prepping more defence, or we take best guesses.”

“I vote we take best guesses,” Gemma said. “If they aren’t thinking about further defence, we don’t want to get them thinking that way.”

“I agree,” Eric nodded.

Sabrina agreed as well, and you quickly went through your motions - there were eight that Eric had put together outside of the motion to dismiss and motion to change venue, but they weren’t all made equal. Five of them you were able to weed out pretty quickly since you’d always known they were a little flimsy. Next went the one about claiming violation of right to a lawyer - it was technically true, but the guy who’d been briefly in custody and demanded a lawyer wasn’t crucial to the opposition’s case and you already had two lines of defence to weed out his testimony on the stand if he got called. That left the Chain of Custody issue where the police had misplaced the keys to the plaintiff’s vehicle for several days while the wreck was impounded, and the Violation of Miranda Rights on one of the other drivers in the crash.

“It’s got to be the Miranda Rights,” Gemma whispered. “The missing keys were found in the wrong evidence bag, yeah, and that’s bad. But the car was still impounded and it doesn’t prove anything. Getting the admission of guilt tossed from the other driver is way bigger and applies more directly.”

The other three of you weren’t so sure, but Gemma was so sure that you sided with her, and that pulled Sabrina in, and Eric followed. That let you focus all four of your minds on making sure your arguments for your motion were tight and controlled. No splashy outburst, no dramatisation, just the facts.

“Alright folks, that’s time,” Judge Mathews called. “Let’s hear it. Plaintiffs counsel, you first.”

Chapter 663

“We are shocked,” Samantha said as she stood up. “That opposing counsel would even consider the fact that a duly appointed member of law enforcement, highly trained and in a position of trust in their community, would fail to perform even their most basic of duties when speaking with a member of the public. Based on the testimonies of both Officer Sanchez and Mr Fred Tribonello, there was no arrest made and therefore Mr Tribonello’s discussion with Officer Sanchez required no declaration of Miranda Rights. If opposing counsel is contending that Officer Sanchez had placed Mr Tribonello under arrest, then we would very much like to hear this from the Officer or Mr Tribonello themselves.”

So it was the Miranda Rights case, and Gemma had been right.

For having an hour to formulate their attack, you had kind of been expecting more. During your ‘from the opponent's point of view’ reviews over the weekend you’d come up with a couple more reasons they could have used - namely that Fred Tribonello had made a voluntary admission of guilt. Officer Sanchez hadn’t been asking him for a confession.

The problem was that Officer Sanchez might have said he was only detaining Tribonello, but that wasn’t quite the case.

“Rebuttal?” Judge Mathews asked, looking over at your table, and you stood up.

“Your Honour,” you said. “I believe that my friends have become somewhat zealous in their Defence and have forgotten to manage their expectations in terms of how the rule of law is applied outside of this courtroom. Officer Sanchez’s actions on the day in question very much reached the level of an arrest and therefore required the reading of Miranda Rights prior to any further questioning. Even though the word ‘arrest’ was never used, Officer Sanchez refused to allow Mr Tribonello his freedom of movement for an extended period without engagement, including ordering him to remain near the bumper of his police cruiser and then placing him inside the cruiser despite repeated requests by Mr Tribonello to leave. Two hours after arresting Mr Tribonello, Officer Sanchez then began an express line of questioning while Mr Tribonello was still in the back of the police cruiser, beginning a custodial interrogation by any reasonable reading of the definition. At this point, Mr Tribonello had been arrested, intimidated, and denied his rights. This may be civil and not criminal court, Your Honour, but we believe it is absolutely clear that anything Mr Tribonello said during the subsequent interrogation by Officer Sanchez is tainted beyond belief and should be suppressed.”

Judge Mathews was nodding along with your reasoning, then looked back to Samantha at the defence table. “Anything else to say, counsel?”

Samantha stood again. “Officer Sanchez placed Mr Tribonello in the police cruiser to get him out of the sun, not because he was under arrest. And the discussion Officer Sanchez engaged in had nothing to do with the admission of being at fault for the accident.”

“Not good enough, Miss Van Der Groot,” Judge Mathews said. “Not ‘meaning’ to kidnap someone doesn’t make it any less of a kidnapping when you grab them off the street, throw them in your trunk and drive away. I’m granting the suppression of Mr Tribonello’s testimony and the alleged admission of guilt due to it being taken during a custodial interrogation lacking Miranda warnings. Officer Sanchez is not barred from testimony, but if you try and bring in the testimony I will not be happy.”

“Yes, Your Honour,” Samantha said, getting a spiteful look on her face as she sat back down.

“How about you, Mr Watkins?” Judge Mathews turned to look at you. “Thoughts on the Plaintiff’s motion?”

You glanced at Sabrina, who nodded for you to field it. “No, your Honour,” you said. “We have no issues with the findings of Officer Penholt being considered outside the scope of this case.”

“Excellent,” Judge Mathews nodded. “Then I grant the motion, and I’ll give you the same warning - if Officer Penholt hits this witness stand and you try to sneak the details back in, I will not be a happy camper. Understood?”

“Understood, Your Honour,” you nodded.

Judge Mathews nodded again, more definitively, and looked down at his notes as you sat. There wasn’t exactly an uproar coming from the Plaintiff's table, but you could tell by the quick, harsh whispers that there was some confusion in their ranks as to why you wouldn’t fight them on the discovery of the pot. There really wasn’t a good reason for it to be suppressed, but you’d handed them a ‘win’ and they weren’t sure why. It was all the little wins that could stack up into a proper victory.

But… this wasn’t a competition. Not like the Mock Trials run by a school or a conference. You, Gemma and Sabrina, were applying the lessons you’d learned from the first time Garrison agreed to mentor you - play the game in front of you, not the game you think should be there. Just like working together to finish that practice LSAT, you weren’t looking to score little points - scorecards didn’t matter in court, only the final decision. Judge Mathews was more than capable of keeping those scorecards blindfolded, but you had a feeling he didn’t really care about them. He was a retired Judge, here for the fun of it. He was used to working with professionals, and that’s how you wanted him to see you and your side of the case.

Gemma and Sabrina had both whispered their encouragement when you sat down, and you’d wanted to grab their hands under the table but you knew that just because the Judge might not see you do that, didn’t mean it would be hidden. Garrison and a dozen other lawyers from the firm were watching quietly from behind you. Some of them were working on laptops or their phones, and others were paying more attention to the goings on. No public, or secret, displays of affection were going to fly.

“Alright,” Judge Mathews said after he finished writing down some notes. “Pre-trial motions are now concluded, and we can get on to the case proper. We’re lacking a court clerk, so I’ll fill in the role myself and call this session to order. Counsel, are you prepared to make your case?”

“We are, Your Honour,” Tucker said, standing briefly and nodding.

“Defence is ready, Your Honour,” Sabrina nodded, standing as well.

“Good,” Judge Mathews said, then smirked a little. “I’d be concerned if you suddenly weren’t. Alright, we’ll begin with opening statements.”

Chapter 664

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Tucker or Samantha who stood up to give the Opening Statement for the Plaintiffs. The two of them had been dominating and, honestly, a little domineering in how they seemed to act within their group dynamic. If it wasn’t them, you would have expected it to be Amanda - the large-breasted woman seemed to be fairly normal compared to her compatriots despite her unordinary physical feature. 

It wasn’t here either though. Thomas, the mousy guy with the bad posture, was the one who stood up and came around their table into the space between the lawyers and the Bench.

“Your Honour,” he said, and then cleared his voice. He was holding some cue cards loosely in one hand. “Our clients, Randy and Felise Rutherford, have been unfairly targeted by the underhanded tactics of the DeLittle Insurance Company, who have refused to meet their contractual obligations in regards to the Rutherford insurance policy. This case has reached your court despite attempts at mediation as DeLittle Insurance has stubbornly maintained their intolerable stance that the Rutherford’s policy was breached despite no evidence to the contrary.”

Thomas wasn’t a bad speaker, but you could tell that he was already starting to work himself up a bit. His language usage was flowery and accusatory, and he’d already pointed accusingly over at your table a couple of times whenever he name-dropped your ‘client.’

“The facts of the case are straightforward, your Honour,” Thomas continued. “The evidence will show that Randy and Felise Rutherford, on March 11th, 2014, set about their day as usual in the full belief that their insurance coverage was reasonable and intact, with no fear that they would be left adrift and facing financial ruin by the end of the day. Then, at 3:13 in the afternoon on Highway 17 outside the town of Settlesby, they were embroiled in a seven-car pileup - suffering minor wounds, grievous mental trauma, and leading to their family vehicle, which was fully insured by DeLittle Insurance, to be deemed a total wreck.”

Up until that point in his statement, Thomas was fairly on point with the details other than the actual point of contention - that the Rutherfords had cheaped out on their policy for a lower monthly rate, and that there had been several circumstantial issues with both their vehicle and their actions.

Thomas wasn’t done, though. He played up the mental trauma of being in a car wreck and then made it seem like his client’s dealings with the Insurance company were belaboured and aggressive from the start. Based on the transcripts of the various calls made between Randy Rutherford and DeLittle that wasn’t the case, but it was certainly one way to describe things in their favour. You didn’t think it was a winning strategy since Judge Mathews would know whether it was true or not, but it was their case to make.

He went on to identify the witnesses they intended to call, namely the original Insurance Broker who made up the policy for them and processed it, several witnesses from the day of the accident whose depositions claimed the accident couldn’t have been the Rutherford’s fault, and a former DeLittle employee who was claiming that it was a company policy to deny claims in multi-car accidents whenever possible.

He then spun into his conclusion, his voice raising both in volume and slightly in pitch, as he went into the burden of proof being a preponderance of the evidence - or 51% likely it favoured the Plaintiffs and not the defendants. He then re-stated his theory of the case, which should have been a fairly succinct telling, but he was rolling and didn’t seem to be stopping. You were reminded of the old Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator - you’d gotten to watch and study it in a Political Theory course in your second year at University; in it, Charlie Chaplin got mistaken for the ‘definitely not Hitler’ fascist leader of a fictional country and put in front of a crowd of ‘definitely not Nazis’ with the chance to make one speech to inspire them back to the side of humanity. Chaplin’s speech was masterful in its delivery, and worth studying because it really did follow the patterns of Hitler (and other famous inspirational orators, good and evil), and even without a backing track of epic music you could feel the rising passion behind it.

Thomas was doing that, except… petulantly. You couldn’t know for sure if it was on purpose or not, but he was building and building as he ranted about the injustice of modern corporate greed and how it was sucking the lifeblood from the little people it was meant to serve. He reached his fever pitch, accusingly pointing at you again, declaring that you were making a mockery of the law itself by seeking to make the very basis of the legal system, contract law, moot and unenforceable.

“So, by God, Your Honour,” he said. “For these reasons, after you have heard all the evidence, at the end of this trial we will ask you to return a verdict in favour of not only Randy and Felise Rutherford but of all the little people who have been churned up and spit out by this machine they have created. A verdict in favour of fairness, and equity, and all that is good in this world!”

He stopped, panting heavily, a fist raised like he’d been giving a battlefield speech. His pose said he was expecting applause, though you couldn’t see his face since he was facing the judge. 

OK, Gemma wrote on the notepad in front of her, pointing it towards you. Garrison was right. If I had tried to give that sort of speech I’d look like an idiot.

“Thank you, Mr Malberry,” Judge Mathews said. “For that… impassioned statement.”

Thomas dropped his fist, nodding to the Judge, and returned to his seat. His neck and cheeks were red from his effort, and there was sweat on his brow. He’d gone on for about fifteen minutes.

“Alright, I think that brings us close enough to our morning break,” the Judge said. “We’ll kick back off with the Defence’s opening statement in fifteen minutes.” He tapped his gavel lightly, signalling that the session was in recess, and then cleared his throat. “No need for us to go through all the ceremony every time I get up. Garrison, I believe you mentioned there would be refreshments for the break?”

“They should be out in the lobby now, your Honour,” Garrison called from the gallery behind you.

“Excellent,” Judge Mathews said, standing up and coming around from his bench. “Fifteen minutes folks!”

You could hear the lawyers behind you all standing up and talking with each other, and the Judge headed down off the stage, but both your table and the opposition huddled up.

“That was something,” Eric said quietly. “I thought he was going to pop a gasket.”

“He overplayed it way too far,” Sabrina whispered. “Unless Mathews is good at hiding the fact that he likes dramatics, I think that whole schtick definitely hurt them. Gemma, just do exactly how we practised it and you’ll make us look like sane, normal, professionals.”

“Absolutely,” Gemma agreed. “I-”

“Excuse us,” Samantha said, interrupting your discussion as she and Thomas came over from their table. Thomas was still red, the flush slowly fading, but at least he’d wiped the sweat from his brow. “Now that you’ve seen the strength of our case, we’re giving you one last chance to submit a settlement offer to our clients.”

All four of you glanced at each other, and you had to suppress the urge to laugh. Sabrina turned back to them. “No, we’re good,” she said.

“Are you kidding me?” Thomas asked, clearly surprised as the proud smirk dropped from his face. “I just took this case and turned it into an indictment of the entire insurance system. We’ll make you defend every gross little detail and manipulation insurance companies use to take advantage of people.”

Sabrina pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow for a moment. “OK,” she said. “You can go ahead and make that case, and we’ll make ours. Good luck.”

Samantha looked like she wanted to say something biting, but clamped her mouth shut and they both turned and stalked back to their table.

Sabrina turned back to you and the others. “They can try all they want to make this about ‘big insurance’ or whatever,” she said. “We keep our eyes on the prize. Our client, our case. That’s all we need for a win.”