7. Reid
Reid
“Your honor. Marriage is built on vows, but jurisdiction is built on facts. Proof of what is considered reasonable. Not fair, but earned. Because court cases like this aren’t about what’s fair.
They’re about getting back what you put in.
And I think it’s safe to say that my client put in a lot more than she took out.
She was, for lack of better words, the breadwinner in this case.
She is a CEO, works sixty plus hours a week, funds childcare, the mortgage, the transportation, and still makes it to every ballet recital and swim meet.
While her husband prioritized living his best life now, she prioritized life.
Not just for herself but for her employees, her children, and even high-cost medical procedures for their Goldendoodle, Chester.
My client is not seeking revenge out of spite.
She wants resolve. She wants to close the book and move on. She wants what she has earned.”
While those are my words, words I spoke just this morning at the last hearing of my current case, I am not the one reciting them now. That would be my colleague, Benson, who is literally reading my “speech,” as he likes to call it, to everyone present at Remington Attorneys.
The room erupts and I can’t help my grin.
It was a good end to a case I knew I had in the bag from day one.
Not a hard deduction to make when the opposing client works as a self-employed luxury car detailer, landing only one Lambo a month and spending the rest of his time “testing new products on his Corvette”.
A Corvette that was purchased by, you guessed it, my client.
“You know, August,” Benson goes on while he continues to stroke my ego in front of everyone.
“I really do think you might be the best damn divorce attorney I’ve ever witnessed,” he says, addressing me by my professional name.
My legal name. It’s no secret to everyone here that I go by my middle name, Reid, in personal settings, but around here, I go by my given name.
The name welded to the front of my one-hundred-million-dollar building.
A name that even passing airlines can read.
That said, I’m not ashamed of my name. But considering not everyone is fond of divorce lawyers, I like to keep things compartmentalized.
“Thank you, Benson. It was a good case. An easy one, but great nonetheless,” I brag. “And speaking of that, I have things to do. And so do all of you,” I call out, and everyone cheers again before getting back to work.
And even if I’m not everyone’s cup of tea (I’m more of a whiskey up kinda guy), I can confidently say–I fucking love my job.
I take the elevator up to my office. I have one more appointment today, and then I’m getting out of here. Jessie, my secretary, is with me, briefing me on the new client.
“His name is Mike Overholt. Michael,” she says.
“Age?” I ask.
“Thirty-nine.”
“How long have they been married?”
“Seventeen years,”
“Kids?”
“No,”
“Interesting,” I say.
“Infertility,” she says.
I nod.
“He works in tech. She’s a homemaker,”
I snort. I’m not dissing homemakers. Stay at home wives, specifically mothers or ones that have to take care of the house while their husbands work seventy plus hours a week, are not to be joked about. But they have no kids. And that is going to make this case very, very easy.
“Who filed?”
“He did,”
“Grounds?” I ask. Not that the man needs grounds.
If I had to guess, she makes little to no contribution to their situation.
They have money, are living the dream, and like anyone else stupid enough to get married as soon as they’re old enough to pop a bottle of bubbly, they realized that the only green grass is AstroTurf.
“Loss of interest leading to irreconcilable differences.”
If I had to guess? Infidelity.
Quinn was right about that, actually. It is the leading cause of divorce. And depending on which side it was on, it makes my job easier.
“Alright,” I say. “Send him in three.”
“Yes, sir,” Jessie nods before we part ways.
I like a couple minutes to myself before clients walk in. I don’t want to look like I am walking from one case straight to the next, even if that is what I am doing. Nobody wants to be represented by an attorney that looks overbooked or flustered. Two things I am not.
A moment later, Jessie walks in with a man in a suit. But despite his ironed slacks and his fresh haircut and the overwhelming scent of pine aftershave, the bags under his eyes tell me the same story I always hear–
The man is tired. The man is discouraged. And the man wants a divorce.
“Mr. Remington, I’ve heard so much about you. Thank you for seeing me,” he rattles off, and I gesture at the chair in front of my desk.
“Sit, please,” I offer. Then, “Whiskey?”
He blinks. “Now?”
I glance at the clock. “It’s the afternoon. Unless my clock is wrong. Though it never is,” I say with a hint of a smirk.
“Hell, alright,” he says with a deflating sigh.
I offer a drink within thirty seconds of every first client appointment.
It shows them that I am their friend. But I am not everyone’s friend.
It also loosens them up enough that they tell me the truth.
The only thing that makes my job harder is when I don’t know the truth.
I don’t need my clients to be in the right in their cases.
I just need to know all the angles so I can convince the judges that they are right.
A task that is much easier to accomplish when they’re forwardly transparent.
I pour two fingers into two highball glasses and hand one to him before taking a seat.
“Alright, Mike, tell me why you want a divorce,” I say, taking a sip.
He lets out a lip flapping sigh and rakes a hand through his hair, diffusing another cloud of aftershave into the air between us. I’m starting to think the man bathed in it. First lesson I’m going to teach him: less is almost always more.
“Well, let’s see. Ashley and I met at a concert of all things, right before we turned twenty-one. And–”
“Mm,” I shake my head on a swallow. “Not the history. That’s not important right now.
You…fell in love…when you were basically a kid.
Not smart, but also not uncommon. Thus shackling you to false ideals.
That’s almost always the story in these cases.
And none of that matters. What matters is that right now you are sitting in my office, willing to pay an absurd amount of money for a divorce lawyer. I want to know why.”
For a moment, Mike just sits there, his eyes flickering in thought.
In there somewhere is either enough hurt, enough disappointment, or enough logic that he has come to realize marriage is a scam.
And I am going to excavate that information with the precision of a skilled surgeon and the indifference of demolition contractors prepared to take down a historical building without so much as batting an eye.
“Whatever we had…” he says as the weariness returns to his hollow eyes. “Is dead.”
And there it is. The conclusive feeling that will drive him to go through with the divorce and drive me to win the case against whoever she is.
After Mike leaves, I make my way out. But before I reached the parking garage, someone falls in stride with me. Someone with the same kind of stride as me. Another lawyer. And I don’t even have to look at him to know who it is.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Why do you assume I want something?” Grant asks.
I scoff. “Because you work in the same field as I do. And it’s no secret that we aren’t exactly friends and never have been. Working on the opposing side of the courtroom kind of prevents that.”
“It’s not my fault you always choose the wrong side,” he jabs, and I bite the inside of my cheek with a smirk.
“I heard you have a new case. One that might be looking into both sides before you fight.”
“And why would I do that?” I ask, picking up my pace to shorten the conversation.
I have known this man for the majority of my career.
We have battled many times in the courtroom.
I am usually defending someone who wants a divorce.
And he is usually trying to save it, as he puts it.
It’s a vigilante move if nothing else. Needless to say, sometimes he wins. And sometimes he does not.
“Because you only have one side of the story,” he answers, casually jingling his keys in the pocket of his slacks.
It’s one of the things about this man that drives me insane.
He’s casual about everything, a na?ve approach to law.
But what do I know? I’m only one of the most successful lawyers in the state of New York.
I’m not bragging; those are facts. Check them if you’re uncertain.
“Isn’t that how this works? Knowing both sides would only lead to bias. Though I do usually tend to lean towards the prosecuting side.”
“Because you have no faith in love,” he states still jingling.
“Because I rely on logic and realism. Feelings can muddy the waters of better judgment, often making people reckless and usually making them bitter. My job is to get them out of that fairytale of a situation with as little damage as possible, and the most wins.”
“Even the cost of their hearts?” he asks as we come to a start, facing each other like two bulls ready to fight.
“By the time people come to me, their hearts have already been compromised. Again, my job is collateral damage. And your job is to stay out of mine.”
With that, the valet brings my car to me, and I step inside it without looking back.
Grant Bowen has always been a thorn in my side.
While we both work in divorce law, he is always in favor of trying to prevent divorce.
It makes zero sense to me, especially as a man who isn’t even married from what I’ve seen.
Half the time I think he just does what he does to make me angry and to compete with me. It’s a losing battle.