of their law degrees. As an immediately successful graduate, at the time leaping ahead in the Crown Counsel’s office faster than any of his peers, he was inspirational to young associates-to-be trying to forge a career despite what was seen then as Vancouver’s relatively limited legal opportunities.
By the time I had graduated, the legal career opportunities seemed much more vast, with Derek helping his U.B.C. peers wade through the widening areas of law springing up. Recently, in addition to his successful criminal defence practice, Derek had ventured into the entertainment and intellectual property law field as Vancouver’s burgeoning film and television industry grew to eclipse all other locations save Los Angeles and New York. If there was an area of law in which to make a buck, Derek was there. In that regard, he was very much like his sister. In all others, he was quite different. For starters, he still liked me.
McAllister, Willson, McAllister and Dupere occupied four floors of a building on Georgia Street, kitty-corner to the renowned Vancouver Art Gallery and directly across from the historic Hotel Vancouver. The building was pretty much chock full of law firms. From the outside, like many downtown offices of the late eighties and early nineties, it was rather ugly, though the architects had adorned the building with lady of mercy nursing statues on the four pillars. On the inside, however, Derek’s employers had spared no expense in bringing opulence to their workplace. It’s an odd legal principle that the grander your office is, the more confidence your high-end clients will have in the firm. Never having been a high-end client, I can’t pretend to know how they think. I would think, however, that the more ostentatious my lawyer’s office was, the more I would want to scrutinize my legal bills to ensure I wasn’t being bilked any more than necessary.
Although it was Saturday, I knew Derek would be in the office, along with most of the other junior partners and associates who aspired to be one. Contrary to the popular perception of those outside the legal profession, lawyers, even high-priced, successful ones, often put in ridiculously long hours, working six day weeks in order to maintain their client load and an acceptable number of billable hours. For lawyers like Derek, financial necessity wasn’t so much the reason he worked on the weekend, because his family was wealthy long before he went to law school. Derek loved to work.
Rather than calling ahead to announce my pending visit, I opted instead simply to show up at the firm’s headquarters. Though it was unlikely Derek’s team of secretarial staff would be present on the weekend to intercept calls for him, it also meant there would be no one answering the phones. If there should be a secretary there, he or she would likely run interference for Derek also. Throughout last summer, in between finishing classes to prepare for my teaching career, I had managed at least once a week to drag Derek away from precious billable time to engage in such fruitless pursuits as running Stanley Park’s seawall or rollerblading in Mount Seymour’s demonstration forest on the North Shore. Not exactly serious lawyerly behaviour.
The security guard at the front desk of the building knew well enough by now to grant me access. When I arrived in the reception area of, there was no one at the front desk, though the main office doors were unlocked. Who would attempt to rob a law firm? Making my way past the floor-to-ceiling picture window with a spectacular view towards the port and North Shore mountains, I wound through the maze of hallways to the northwest corner of the building, where I could see Derek through the open door of his office, dressed casually in a golf shirt I knew was more expensive than the suits worn by some of the legal assistants on his staff.
“And I gave up all of this for teaching?” I announced as I approached his office doorway.
Derek looked up from the laptop at which he was busy hacking away. The modern day lawyer frequently does his own typing. “No, you gave up a scrubby little run-down office, where you invited society’s riff-raff not to pay you for your services,” he replied. Derek has a terribly disarming smile, nothing smarmy about it. But it was powerful enough to charm clients, juries, opposing counsel, even the occasional judge. At thirty-eight years old, Derek stands at over six feet tall and is a bit of a health fanatic. He runs about as much as I do, but whereas running has made me skinny to the point of concern, it has contributed to his muscular physique and all round “Adonis-ness”. It occasionally pisses me off.
“Yeah, but work, work, work. It’s all you ever do.”
“As if you’re here to try to take me away from all that.”
“What makes you think I’m not here to invite you to a rousing defeat in racquetball?” I asked him, though I was fully cognizant that by now Derek would be fully apprised of my legal relationship with Carl. Anyone who read a newspaper would be.
“Two things, really,” he replied, cautiously hitting ctrl-s on the keyboard to save whatever it was that had brought him to the office on a Saturday. I wondered why he didn’t just take it home with him. “One: you haven’t defeated me in racquetball in nearly two years and two: you’ve really plucked a ripe apple this time.”
“It was more like the apple fell onto my head as I was walking by.”
“People are wondering if you went into teaching to tap into a market of educators needing legal counsel.”
“People?”
He turned to face me again and smiled. “Okay, Sandi’s wondering that.” My continuing friendship with Derek since our divorce was a constant strain on the sibling relationship. Sandi believed her brother showed a profound sense of disloyalty by remaining a friend of her ex-husband. Derek thought it was terribly amusing to see his little society sister get so immensely pissed off. I wondered if our friendship hinged on Sandi’s lack of acceptance of it. “What’s up?” he asked.
I flopped into the chair opposite his desk. The chair caught me in a soft embrace, its distressed leather gently distributing my weight into the luxurious padding beneath. This lone chair was more expensive than my previous budget for my entire office. “I need favours.”
“Of course.” Derek hit a few more keys on his computer. I knew he was bringing up his calendar to determine just where my legal career was going to coincide with his. “What do you need? First appearance?”
“Yep.” It was amazing how much he seemed to know about where my case stood. I knew part of it was due to the media coverage; the rest was simply based on his instincts as a trial lawyer.
“Paper said he was arrested yesterday,” he continued, already formulating a plan in his head. “Couldn’t find a late night judge?”
“Nope,” I replied. At least some of the anxiety that had been building since Carl first came to me was beginning to ebb, knowing that Derek was taking an interest in the case. For a fleeting moment, I toyed with the idea of asking him simply to take over the defence altogether. Carl would certainly be in more capable hands than mine. I also knew I would be pushing the boundaries of both friendships if I were to attempt to offload my client now that he faced a murder trial.
“First appearance on Monday?” Derek was almost muttering to himself as he stared at the laptop’s screen, alternately clicking with the mouse and typing in a few quick strokes on the keyboard. I knew he was clearing things out of the way to devote a few hours of time to my case. I didn’t try to express it, but I really did appreciate it. We knew each other well enough that I didn’t have to say it.
“Eleven a.m.” Carl’s appearance had been arranged before I even got out the pre-trial centre’s doors the previous night.
“Can’t go getting all ‘Chartery’ on this one,” Derek murmured. Canada’s overarching Charter of Rights and Freedoms pretty much spelled out that an arrested person gets his or her first court appearance within twenty-four hours of arrest, unless it
