The trial was set for June.
Paula's firm was small, four lawyers and a paralegal and an office in Oakland with a view of a parking lot. It had no art and no pale wood and no coffee machine, and I loved it immediately. Paula herself was sixty, with gray hair and reading glasses and a manner that reminded me of my mother, which is to say she did not care what you thought of her.
"Halbrook," she said on my first morning. "Tell me the truth. Can we win?"
"Not a sure thing," I said. "Ardenne has good lawyers and a lot of money. But we have the timeline. We have the staffing logs. We have the emails where their regional director said the staffing cuts were 'aggressive but survivable.'"
"Survivable," Paula repeated. "Eleven people."
"Eleven that we know of."
She nodded. "Good. Then we treat
