Free The Rainmaker by John Grisham Page A

days.”
    “Anyway, I asked him if he could fax me a copy of any written correspondence between Brodnax and Speer and you, Rudy Baylor, regarding the merger and your role after it took place.”
    “There’s none.”
    “I know. He admitted as much. Bottom line is that they did nothing until the merger was over.”
    “That’s right. Nothing.” There’s something cozy about having Madeline on my side.
    “So I explained to him in great detail how he had screwed one of our grads, and we got into one huge catfight on the phone.”
    I can’t help but smile. I know who won the catfight.
    She continues, “Beck swears they wanted to keep you. I’m not sure I believe it, but I explained that they should’ve discussed this with you long before now. You’re a student now, almost a graduate, damned near an associate, not a piece of property. I said I knew he ran a sweatshop, but I explained that slavery is over. He cannot simply take you or leave you, transfer you or keep you or protect you or waste you.”
    Atta girl. My thoughts exactly.
    “We finished the fight, and I met with the dean. The dean called Donald Hucek, the managing partner at Tinley Britt. They swapped a few phone calls, and Hucek came back with the same spin—Beck wanted to keep you but you didn’t meet the Tinley Britt standards for newassociates. The dean was suspicious, so Hucek said he’d take a look at your resume and transcripts.”
    “There’s no place for me at Trent & Brent,” I say, like a man with many options.
    “Hucek feels the same way. Said Tinley Britt would rather pass.”
    “Good,” I say, because I can think of nothing clever. She knows better. She knows I’m sitting here suffering.
    “We have little clout with Tinley Britt. They’ve hired only five of our grads in the past three years. They’ve become so big that they can’t be leaned on. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to work there.”
    She’s trying to console me, make me feel as if a good thing has happened to me. Who needs Trent & Brent and their beginning salaries of fifty thousand bucks a year?
    “So what’s left?” I ask.
    “Not much,” she says quickly. “In fact, nothing.” She glances at some notes. “I’ve called everybody I know. There was an assistant public defender’s job, part-time, twelve thousand a year, but it was filled two days ago. I put Hall Pasterini in it. You know Hall? Bless his heart. Finally got a job.”
    I suppose people are blessing my heart right now.
    “And there are a couple of good prospects for in-house counsel with small companies, but both require the bar exam first.”
    The bar exam is in July. Virtually every firm takes its new associates in immediately after graduation, pays them, preps them for the exam, and they hit the ground running when they pass it.
    She places her notes on the desk. “I’ll keep digging, okay. Maybe something will turn up.”
    “What should I do?”
    “Start knocking on doors. There are three thousand lawyers in this city, most are either sole practitioners or intwo- or three-man firms. They don’t deal with Placement here, so we don’t know them. Go find them. I’d start with the small groups, two, three, maybe four lawyers together, and talk them into a job. Offer to work on their fish files, do their collections—”
    “Fish files?” I ask.
    “Yeah. Every lawyer has a bunch of fish files. They keep them in a corner and the longer they sit the worse they smell. They’re the cases lawyers wish they’d never taken.”
    The things they don’t teach you in law school.
    “Can I ask a question?”
    “Sure. Anything.”
    “This advice you’re giving me right now, about knocking on doors, how many times have you repeated this in the past three months?”
    She smiles briefly, then consults a printout. “We have about fifteen graduates still looking for work.”
    “So they’re out there scouring the streets as we speak.”
    “Probably. It’s hard to tell, really. Some have other plans