Free Rocking the Pink by Laura Roppé Page A

Rope?”
    â€œRo- pay. Here.”
    The entire classroom erupted in laughter.
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    At the end of my first year in law school, I was number one in our class. Brad, a big grin on his face, told anyone who’d listen, “I’m sick of her riding my coattails all the time.”

    Two years later, as Brad and I graduated from law school together, hand in hand, I’d slipped to number two.
    â€œNumber two? Loser!” Brad needled me, laughing. “I knew you were riding my coattails all along.”
    In any event, being a “loser” didn’t seem to hurt my employment prospects: I had my pick of jobs at graduation time. Without a thought, off I went to work as a civil litigator at my top pick, one of the most prestigious law firms in San Diego. Hypnotized by the world of high salaries and pretty offices, I didn’t stop to think, even once, What do I want? I just plucked a low-hanging plum off the tree and took a big, juicy bite, without considering whether I even liked plums at all.
    It didn’t take long before I figured out that studying to become a lawyer was a helluva lot more fun than being a lawyer. My daily life became about people fighting over money—whether relating to a real estate deal gone bad, a business contract turned sideways, or a busted employment relationship. Every day was all about money, money, money and fighting, fighting, fighting . My daily life was other people’s problems—OPP—and no, I wasn’t “down with OPP.”
    The swanky law firm where I worked was right out of the movie The Firm —sleek marble tables, plush leather chairs, and floor-to-ceiling views of the skyline. Elegant older men with silver hair and designer suits cut through the quiet hallways, their assistants twittering and trailing behind.
    I worked long days, well into every evening, and most weekends, too. I never said no when someone asked me to do any task, no matter how big or small. I kept track of time worked on my cases in six-minute increments, to be billed to the client—the system known
in the law field as keeping track of “billable hours.” At the end of the first year, I felt immense satisfaction at being the attorney who’d logged the most billable hours in my entire firm. I was a workhorse.
    Consistent with my impeccable, precise surroundings, my suits were tailored to perfection, hugging the stick-thin frame I had worked so hard to achieve with a daily five-mile run and strict no-fat diet. Everything about me screamed “type A,” right down to my A-line bob.
    The three “elders” of the firm could not have been more different: Doug, the managing partner, had a singsongy way of asking, “How’re you?” as he passed in the hall; Gary, the top rainmaker, was formal and exacting and intimidating as hell; and Curt, the swashbuckler, was pure, unadulterated masculinity—I was pretty sure I ovulated every time he entered the room.
    The women partners were especially interesting to me as I tried to imagine my future as a partner at this firm. June was an old broad in the tradition of Bette Davis, calling ’em like she saw ’em, smokin’ and drinkin’ whiskey after work with the big boys. Sue was a billable-hours machine, churning out briefs and depositions at such a rapid-fire pace, I didn’t have more than a five-minute conversation with her over the course of eight years. Her manic work ethic did not appeal to me, though I was following right in her footsteps.
    The woman who influenced me most was my mentor, Janice, who was like no one else I’d ever met in my life—a tornado. She was an African American woman who, through sheer tenacity, had risen to the esteemed rank of partner at a major law firm in her early forties. But she hadn’t accomplished that feat by staying on a traditional path;
no, she had gone the opposite direction: When every other attorney was dressed in