Lorna Keane was outside my office door at 7:05 with a process server and a motion that asked a judge to jail me.
It was Monday, November 23.
It was my first full week on Santa Fe Drive.
The hallway was narrow and smelled like toner.
About twelve tenants stood in it holding coffee.
There was a dentist's receptionist.
There were two men from a startup.
There was a woman with a yoga mat.
The process server was young and polite.
"Delia Reyburn?"
"Yes."
He handed me a stack held with a black clip.
"You've been served."
Motion for Order to Show Cause re: Contempt
The filing stamp read 6:12 AM.
Lorna wore a camel coat and no gloves.
She spoke to the hallway, not to me.
"Your neighbor's going to be held in contempt."
The woman with the yoga mat stepped back.
The building manager came out of the stairwell with a ring of keys.
He looked at the stack, then at me.
"Did she say jail?"
"She said contempt," I said.
"Punitive contempt can mean jail."
"Up to six months."
"A fine, disqualification, a referral to the regulator."
I said it the way I'd say it to a client.
He didn't look comforted.
He looked at his lease file.
Footsteps came up the stairs.
Jonah had a meeting with me at 7:30.
He was early.
He took in the hallway in one look.
"She's my lawyer."
"Excuse us."
The tenants found their doors.
The manager stayed a beat longer, then followed them.
Lorna walked into my office without being asked.
She looked at the radiator.
She looked at the tire shop.
I unclipped the stack and read it standing up.
The movant was Ostrander Keane LLP.
Lorna's sworn declaration was attached.
Paragraph four carried the whole motion.
Ms. Reyburn's chats reproduce sealed text that appears nowhere in the public version.
She had signed it that morning.
Five days earlier she had sat at Kavanagh's table.
She had leaned in to my laptop.
She had read page fourteen twice.
I turned to the exhibits.
Exhibit 3 was Clay's email, printed.
To: OK-All
It was one line.
There were no names under it.
"You were at Ambler Rusk," I said.
"You read page fourteen."
"I read a laptop," Lorna said.
"Laptops can be edited."
"It was the court's own docket."
She lifted one shoulder.
"Then the judge can sort it out."
Jonah stood by the window.
"Corvane counts 140 recipients, Lorna."
"Inboxes at my firm," she said.
"Bexley Harrow is family as of the eighteenth."
She said it as if that settled it.
Then she turned to me.
"You want to know why it's your chats?"
"Because they're on our servers."
"IT ran a keyword sweep on Friday the thirteenth."
"The word was sealed."
"You typed it to a court reporter at 10:31 at night."
"I had IT pull your chats."
"I'd do it again."
I thought about the times on Clay's printouts.
The complaint against me was filed at 9:31.
His email went out at 9:41.
Someone had reported me before there was anything to report.
Lorna unbuttoned her coat.
"I'm saving a hundred and thirty-eight jobs."
"One paralegal's feelings don't get to sink a merger."
"I take four million one hundred thousand at closing."
"Clay takes three million six."
"You think I'd let a typist cost me that?"
She laid one sheet on my desk.
Separation Agreement — Severance: $40,000
One sentence sat above the signature line.
I may have shared portions of the sealed brief with a third party.
"Forty thousand," Lorna said.
"Sign one line, we withdraw everything."
"The motion, the complaint, the demand letter."
"You keep your license."
"You keep your little room."
I had $5,232 and a December rent check to write.
I read the sentence again.
It was a confession to the breach Clay had committed.
"It's a false confession!"
Jonah said it loud enough to reach the hallway.
A door down the hall clicked shut.
Lorna didn't look at him.
She looked at me.
"No," I said.
I slid the sheet back across the desk.
She didn't pick it up right away.
"Forty thousand is more than you'll bill this year."
"Then I'll bill less," I said.
She folded the sheet into her coat pocket.
At the door she stopped beside the building manager.
"Good luck with your tenant."
Her heels went down the stairs.
Jonah sat in my second chair.
"She swore to something she knew was false," he said.
"She swore to it in a contempt motion," I said.
"Against me."
We worked until four.
I drafted the response.
He read it twice and changed nothing.
At 4:10 PM my inbox chimed.
Order Setting Hearing — Case No. 2022CV31847
The judge had consolidated both motions.
Corvane's against Clay.
Lorna's against me.
I read the last line out loud to Jonah.
"Courtroom 424. December sixteenth. Nine sharp."