About ten years ago English litigation had an image change.   Out went aggressive tactics and court room bullying  and in came touchy-feely tecnniques like, “alternative dispute resolution” and ”case management conferences”.   Most litigators found it easy to get to grips with the new system, but The Boss isn’t ”most litigators”….

“It wasn’t like this in the good old days,” He tells me when I hand him an allocation questionaire.  “Men were men back then and opponents were crushed by the weight of my mighty reputation!”

If I had a pound for every time I have heard this I would have paid off my mortgage long ago.

“Really?” I play along.

“Absolutely.  It’s all namby pamby girly nonsense these days.   Look at this!” he gestures to the form. “We didn’t have to let the opposition know how many witnesses we had or what our costs estimates were.  Surprise was everything!”

Surprise, subterfuge and stealth.  The three S’s……..

“We bamboozled our opponents with surprise, subterfuge and stealth.  The three S’s!  They didn’t know what had hit em.”

 ”I bet.”

“Yes.  It was fantastic.  I won so many court battles I was known as: Alistair King Kong. ”

I have never heard this before: King Kong!  The urge to laugh loudly and hysterically is almost overwhelming.   I  jab my nails into the palm of my hand and clutch the edge of the table.

He mistakes my amusement for awe.

“Impressive eh?  One of my old assistants gave me that name.”

Even better!

“Really?”

“Yes.  They all looked up to me in those days.  They had respect for their elders.”

Another old chestnut: respect for their elders.  When was this? 1823?

“I respect you Alistair,” Sir.

“You don’t!  None of you do.  You all think it’s really easy being a partner.”

It is.

“That is not true,” I lie, “We have a great deal of admiration for anyone who has managed to last so long in this industry.”

“I haven’t lasted that long,” he spits. “You make me sound prehistoric.”

“Sorry.”

“But, you’re right,  things were very different when I was your age,” he goes on. “We looked up to our superiors.   If they told us to jump, we jumped.   If they told us to eat paper clips we ate paper clips.”

Another revelation.

“You ate paper clips?”

“Of course, we did!  And worse. ”

“Worse?”

“Much worse.”  He taps the side of his nose. 

What could be worse than paper clips? Staples? Tippex?  Sometimes The Boss makes Gene Hunt seem like a reconstructed metrosexual.

Jane is amused to hear this.  She thinks we should try making the same demands on the vacation placement students.  

“That irritating little brat from Bristol could do with a dose of Tippex poisoning,” she remarks.  “It might shut him up for  a minute or two.”

For the second, astonishing, year in a row, Jane is a “Vacation Scheme Mentor”.  The poor things turn up raring for a career in law and by the time she’s finished with them they’re joining The Foreign Legion.

“I hope you’re not being too nasty to him,” Liz warns. 

“I’m behaving towards him exactly as The Boss behaves towards us,” she smirks.

“Jane!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t thrown any text books at him yet.”

“Yet?”

“I’m saving that for Friday.”

Before I can upbraid her, The Textbook Throwing Tormentor himself  summons me to the conference room for an impromptu meeting with his vile friend, Philip Carlton, who epitomises all that is bad about “the good old days”.  

“Hello Ms Bailey,” he oils.  ”We were just talking about you.”

“Oh?” I flash him a steely look.

“I was just asking Al what he had done with his trusty young assistant.”

“Were you indeed?”

“I was.  I thought he might be keeping you away from me.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because of insatiable reputation.”

Did he actually say that?  I glance at his smirking face just to check but, yes, he did; he is smiling at me in a manner which is clearly intended to demonstrate his point!

The Boss laughs and slaps his mate heartily on the back.

“It’s funny you should mention that,” he jokes.  “I’ve just been telling Helen about my own!”

“Insatiable reputation?” Carlton flashes him a congratulatory, knowing look.

“N0!” he says quickly, looking at me. “No, I meant, my reputation  as a fiercesome litigator.  Back in the good old days,  I would regularly make opponents cry.”

Now he just restricts this technique to his staff.

“Did you really?” Carlton chuckles.

“Oh yes.  They would phone up and literally beg me to stop torturing them.”

His eyes light up. “Tell me more…”

He needs no encouragement.   “I used to make their lives hell: issuing injunctions, bombarding them with applications and making all sorts of nasty costs claims.  It was fabulous.”

“And it worked?”

“Oh, yes,” he nods. “It drove them mad.   A defeated opponent once turned up in Reception, threatening to kill me with a machete.”

“Here?”

“Yes, downstairs.  The Police had to restrain him.  The poor Receptionist didn’t know what had hit her.  She had to have counselling for months afterwards; still wakes up screaming about it sometimes. Ha ha ha.”

“Did she sue?”

“No.  There were no ambulance chasers then.  We sent her some flowers and gave her a day off but dealing with a few lunatics was all part of the job.”

“And they were just the partners!”

“Exactly!”  They chuckle in unison. 

 ”I miss the old days,” Carlton sighs. “If a partner wanted to sack an assistant he could; he didn’t have to worry about minding ridiculous employment laws.”

“Life would be simpler if it was still like that,” The Boss agrees, “although, of course, I would have fewer cases!”

“I suppose that’s true,” Carlton concedes, with a grin. “We would all be far less busy if we didn’t have all these pesky laws to deal with.”

“And far less rich.”

“True!”

“Vive la regulation!”

“Vive la regulation!”

“Except, if we weren’t so busy, we’d have more time to indulge our idiosyncrasies.  We used to have one old retainer who spent the afternoons at Ladbrokes, and insisted we go and fetch him if anything urgent came in.”

“That’s the life,” Carlton laughs.  “We had one who would spank his trainee with a ruler.  You can’t do that now either….”

“No…….”

“More’s the pity.” 

They stare, wistfully at the table.

I may be mistaken, but, I’m sure I catch Carlton winking at me, no doubt thinking of all the fun he could have with that ruler….

An involuntary shiver passes down my spine.

“Enough about that,” The Boss decrees. “We’re here to discuss your case.  What would you like to begin with?”

Carlton leans back laconically in his chair. “I’m not sure;  it’s all a big irritation.”

“I know, and I’m afraid it will only become more so as it progresses,” The Boss warns. “There will be pleadings to prepare, documents to be exchanged, statements to sign.  All very time consuming and expensive.  It would be cheaper to pay her off.”

“No!” Carlton exclaims. “She would see that as a victory.  And The Press would too.  I am not about to be labelled a lech’ by some jumped-up school girl.”

“Then, unless there’s some way she can be persuaded to drop her case,  I’m afraid, we’ll have to fight it and win.”

Carlton seizes this idea.  “Do you think she might be persuaded to drop her case?”

“Not without a pay off, no.  She clearly believes she has grounds for complaint or she wouldn’t have brought it.  It will be hard to convince her that there is no merit to it and difficult to convince her that she has no chance of winning…”

“Not even if we throw all our resources at it?”

“Even then, we can’t stop her bringing a claim.  All we can do is defend it.”

“What about other means of persuasion?” Carlton cuts in.

“Sorry?” 

“Isn’t there some other form pressure which could be applied?”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know,” he flashes a mischievous, challenging look.  “You’re the fiercesome litigator Alistair, you tell me.”

“Well, we’re doing everything we can.  We’ve lined up statements from all your key personnel, we’ve gone through her employment records with a fine toothcomb and we’ve taken her pleadings apart.”

“There must be more you can do…..”

The Boss looks from me to Carlton; Carlton to me; as if determining how far to go.  I raise my eyebrow but say nothing.

“I’m afraid our options are much more limited than they might have been twenty years ago,” he shrugs. “We didn’t have data protection or human rights nonsense back then.  If wanted to discredit our opponents we went through their dustbins and tapped their telephone calls. We can’t do that now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“But there must be something more subversive we can do, without attracting attention?” Carlton presses.

We are not The KGB.   

“I’m not sure…..”

“It’s all very well threatening her with injunctions,” he goes on, “but it doesn’t seem to have had much effect.  Perhaps a more direct less litigious approach is required.”

What, like poisoning her with polonium?   

There is a pause as The Boss tries to assess how “subversive” his friend wants to be.  I have a feeling this is not th first time he has dabbled with the dark side.

“We could approach a private detective,” he offers at last. “See if he can uncover anything we could use.”

“That’s a start,” Carlton smiles.   “Do you know anyone?”

“Yes, there was a man I used to instruct.   He was good at extracting information from unorthodox sources.”

“He sounds like just the chap.  I vote we see if he can dig up any dirt.”

“When you say “dirt” what, exactly, do you mean?” 

“Sleaze, corruption, wrong doing… you, of all people, should know what I’m talking about.”

“Of course I do!” he laughs. “But I think we should start with information relevant to the case.”

“Absolutely, we’ll move on to general filth later.”

So much for all his big talk earlier, The Boss seems uncomfortable.  Perhaps his friend is even more fearless than King Kong?  

“Ok, well, then, in that case have you any specifics in mind?” he asks.  “I mean, are there any particular areas of concern you would like him to investigate?”

“As a matter of fact, there are.  I suspect Amelia may be in league with people within the firm, I want to know who they are.   I also want to know who her contacts are amongst her ex colleagues; what steps she is taking to find another job, and anything else which might help us to portray her as a scheming little witch.”

He has clearly given this a lot of thought.

“Assuming we can obtain this information, what do you plan to do with it?  It will be tricky to use it in Court.”

“Pah!” he laughs. “Who cares about Court? No.  We invite her to a meeting, tell her what we know and invite her withdraw her claim.”

“And what if she refuses?”

“Tell her we’ll pass it to our PR people and let them work their magic.”

“Isn’t that tantamount to blackmail?” I glance up from my notes.

The whip round to face me.

“Of course not!” Carlton exclaims. “It’s business!  Blackmail is an nasty word, Helen.”

“Not to mention an illegal one,” The Boss adds, with a look which tells me to shut up.

I flash him a tight smile but say nothing.

“Any information we obtain will be used only for strictly legal purposes, ” Carlton smiles. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything unethical, never mind illegal…..”

Except groping his assistants. 

“Helen knows that,” The Boss assures him. “She’s just making sure we don’t slip back into our old school ways! Aren’t you Helen?”

No.  I’m making sure we don’t get arrested.

“That’s probably a good thing,” Carlton concedes. “We need a strict young lady to keep us under control.”

I doubt I’m the sort of “strict young lady” he’d really like.

“Helen will keep us on the straight and narrow,” The Boss agrees. “She won’t countenance anything untoward.”

Little does he know.

“Then we’ll make sure we don’t tell her!” he laughs then, seeing my appalled expression, adds: “That was a joke.  You will be fully included in anything untoward we do!”

“Ha ha ha!” they laugh in unison.   

“That too was a joke,” adds The Boss, no doubt fearing an employment claim of his own.

“Yes,” Carlton nods.  “We need you to keep us on our toes Helen, and, besides, it will look good in Court, if we have a female on the team.”

“Absolutely,” says The Boss,  “We don’t want them thinking that this is a case of the Old Boys’ versus the New Girls’ network, do we?”

Although, of course, that is exactly what it is.

“That would be terrible,” Carlton agrees. ”As everyone knows how much I appreciate my female employees.”

The trouble is, I suspect, he “appreciates” them a little too much.

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