The only good Lawyer

Defense Fund, its “Liberty Award.” Radachowski pressed another key and said, “Got it,” into the telephone, followed by, “My direct dial? For the voice mail—if it’s working—use five-one-three, two-two-oh-five.... Right, bye.” She hung up. “Sorry, John.”
    “The wonders of modem technology.”
    “When they’re not on the fritz.”
    I gestured toward the computer screen. “You have your calendar in there?”
    “Yes, but more than that. The software I use for docket control lets me overlay projected court deadlines and appearances for any county I’ve got a case pending in. If a deadline changes, the program ripples the modification through like a dollar-item change on a spreadsheet. I want a printout of tomorrow’s—or next month’s—events, I just hit another button and carry that with me.”
    “And I remember being in an insurance office when the arrival of a mag-card typewriter was like splitting the atom.”
    A roar so loud and long it was literally a belly laugh. “I like that.” Then Radachowski leaned back in her chair, elbows on its arms. Clasping her hands and steepling the index fingers, she tapped the nails against her chin. “But you aren’t here for an update on office technology.”
    “No, I’m not.”
    “As Imogene brought you to my door, I was just finishing with Frank Neely. He said to tell you anything I wanted to about Woodrow.”
    Neely appeared to be a man of his word. “What do you want to tell me?”
    “First, that I believe your client killed my friend and partner.”
    “I have reason to think maybe not.”
    “So Frank said. But you should know that I’m speaking to you only because I, too, believe in the concept of ‘innocent till proven guilty,’ however... statistically inaccurate it might be.”
    I wondered if Woodrow Gant, the former prosecutor, had convinced her of that last part.
    Radachowski seemed to sense what I was thinking as she tapped her chin some more. “Woodrow was a fine lawyer, and we all miss him tremendously.”
    “Did you spend much time with Mr. Gant?”
    “It’s a small office, John, small enough that each person interacts with the others a great deal during the day. Staff meetings, lunches...” Her voice dropped. “In fact, I remember an informal brown-bagger all we lawyers had in the conference room a few weeks after the scene your client made there. Woodrow mentioned that he was glad the Spaeth case Was going to settle, because Nicole had told him about her husband being ‘fond of firearms.’ ”
    Nicole. “You worked with Mr. Gant on the case, then?”
    “No. No, because of Epstein & Neely’s size, we often bill hours on each other’s cases, but Woodrow and I less than most.”
    “Why was that?”
    “He did mostly domestic,” said Radachowski. “That’s divorces, as you probably know. I’m more civil litigation, with a little charitable organizations work thrown in.”
    “Not so little, from the Wall of Fame.”
    The belly laugh again. “You get involved with one, you get asked to speak at another. I’m proud of all, though.” Radachowski gestured toward the Lambda one. “Some more than others.”
    “I don’t know much about the Liberty Award, but it’s for legal work regarding the gay and lesbian community, right?”
    “Regarding discrimination against us.” Radachowski waited for a reaction from me, but I don’t think she saw one. “I got that award the same night as a congressman and a literary agent. You have any idea what it was like to be a woman—much less a lesbian—graduating law school twenty years ago?”
    “None.”
    Radachowski softened her eyes, bringing me into that cone of friendship I’d noticed before. Must work wonders with a jury.
    “Today it’s different, John. Many law schools are almost fifty-fifty male/female, with a number of female faculty. While women comprise only ten or fifteen percent of the partners in most large law firms, that will change as today’s female graduates move in and up by sheer force of numbers and ability. Back in my time, though, there were literally more black males than women of any color in my graduating class, and only a handful of declared gays or lesbians.” Radachowski seemed to go inside herself for a moment. “The fall of my senior year, all the big Boston firms interviewed me, mainly because, one, I had the grades and, two, my law school had a placement policy that forbade overt discrimination based on gender or sexual