The California State Bar hearing room on South Grand Avenue was smaller than I remembered.
Not physically, the room was exactly the same dimensions it had always been, the same long rectangular table, the same paneled walls, the same slightly oppressive institutional lighting that made everyone look like they hadn't slept properly in weeks, which in my case was accurate. But I had sat in rooms like this as the lawyer, the one holding the brief, the one whose presence represented someone else's fighting chance. Sitting on the other side of the table as the subject of the hearing rather than its architect made the room feel compressed in a way that had nothing to do with square footage.
I had been in this building four times in my career. Three times to file motions. Once to attend a disc
