At 8:30 AM on Friday, December 18, the written order hit the docket.
I read it on my phone, on a bench outside Courtroom 424.
Clayton R. Haverty and Ostrander Keane LLP, jointly and severally: $64,800.
Corvane's lawyers had billed 144 hours at $450.
The judge had awarded every one.
The order took Clay off Attachment 1 in writing.
It referred him to attorney regulation.
It referred Lorna for paragraph four.
At 8:52 the firm filed its attestations.
There were 136 of them.
Each one swore that a sealed PDF was gone from one inbox.
Lines 61 and 62 had signed too.
Jonah sat down beside me with two coffees.
He handed me one and kept the receipt.
"Billable?" he asked.
"Six minutes," I said.
A letter from Thursday was in my bag.
The regulator had dismissed Clay's complaint against me.
The letter was two paragraphs long.
The only line I had "disclosed" was public record.
The client had written on December 1 that she never objected.
The box lid answered "misappropriated."
Ruth had never told me about her letter.
The regulator had quoted it.
At 9:00 the compliance call began in 424.
It lasted eleven minutes.
Lorna's counsel confirmed the attestations.
Kavanagh confirmed receipt.
Clay said nothing at all.
Then the doors opened and the hallway filled.
Clay came out with five Ostrander Keane partners behind him.
Lorna came out last, on her phone.
At 9:40 Ruth Bettendorf stepped off the elevator.
Jonah's associate walked beside her with a clipboard.
She walked past Clay and sat down on my bench.
"Substitution of counsel," she said.
"Ferris Calloway only."
"Ruth, think about this," Clay said.
She didn't look up.
"Are you sure?" I asked her.
"I'm sure."
She signed it in front of the partners.
Then she turned the form toward me.
One line was typed at the bottom, beside a blank.
The handwritten outline page dated 11/14/2022 belongs to Delia Reyburn.
Ruth wrote her initials in the blank.
They were in blue ink.
"I read the brief again this week," she said.
"It sounds like you in the car."
Jonah's associate carried the form to the clerk's office.
Clay watched it go.
Lorna lowered her phone.
"You read it to the room," she said to Clay.
"You put her chats on a screen."
"You told me to fire her," Clay said.
"I told you to fire her," Lorna said.
"I didn't tell you to email anything."
The partners behind them studied the carpet.
Clay turned his back on her and came to my bench.
He stood over me the way he had in 31A.
The partners could hear every word.
"Let's be smart," he said.
"Senior associate."
"A hundred eighty-five thousand."
"Today."
"You come back, and we call this a misunderstanding."
"Referrals go away when the story changes."
He was still the man who had won forty-one million.
He still needed someone to have typed it for him.
"No," I said.
He waited for a second sentence.
I didn't give him one.
At 10:15 the elevator opened again.
Conrad Peale got off alone.
He walked straight to Lorna.
"Section 6.4," he said.
"No equity partner under court sanction or referral at closing."
"You have two."
"Bexley Harrow terminates under 6.4."
Lorna opened her mouth.
Peale was already pressing the elevator button.
Clay said it out loud.
"The merger's dead!"
Nobody told him to lower his voice.
Lorna's $4,100,000 had been due today.
So had Clay's $3,600,000.
The elevator doors closed on Peale.
Lorna walked to the stairwell without a word.
The partners followed her down.
None of them waited for Clay.
For a moment he was alone on the carpet, empty-handed.
Then he went too.
Ruth patted my knee and left with Jonah's associate.
That left the two of us in the hallway.
I took a folder out of my bag.
"Final bill," I said.
Jonah opened it on the bench.
61.4 hours at $275: $16,885
Less retainer in trust: $5,500
Balance due: $11,385
He read every line, the way he'd read the engagement letter.
He didn't argue with any of them.
"Any questions on the entries?" I asked.
"One."
"Why only six minutes for the coffee?"
"I round down for clients who pay."
He took out a checkbook and wrote on his knee.
Pay to the order of Delia Reyburn — $11,385.00
He tore it off and handed it to me.
"Paid in full," he said.
I signed the closing letter under my own name.
Reg. No. 60592
Then I wrote the time.
Matter closed. 10:42 AM.