Page 13 of Behind Frenemy Lines

This was a new side to the unflappable Farah. Even Charles, who presumably knew her well, looked concerned.

“What’s happened?” he said.

“You know our work experience programme—oh, Kriya won’t know about this.” Farah turned to me. “The firm runs anannual work experience programme for students from underrepresented backgrounds who are interested in law. First from the family to attend university, low SES and so on. Four weeks, they rotate around a couple of practice areas, they’re paired with a trainee, go to talks—Charles has kindly delivered a few in his time. The feedback is very good and we’ve had a number of excellent trainees come to us through the programme.”

“Sounds a great initiative,” I said.

“We have a new cohort starting today,” said Farah. “Fifteen students, all very promising. There was also an induction this morning for new canteen staff. The catering company did a recruitment drive recently, and there were fifteen new joiners.”

There was a silence as Charles and I joined the dots.

“Oh my God!” Charles coughed. “I mean…”

“Oh, I said much worse when I heard what had happened,” said Farah. “Apparently they had all been put in aprons and caps before the confusion was found out. I’ve got our DEI manager, Amy, lying flat on the floor of my office. She may never get up again, and she really is very good, you know.

“We must do something to remedy the situation before it all goes on RollOnFriday. And that,” said Farah, “is where you come in. Everyone has been put back in the right place. The work experience students are doing a moot this afternoon, but the partner who was going to be the judge has dropped out—wretched man. Can you step in? I’ll get Amy to peel herself off the floor to brief you, but there isn’t much to it. You merely have to listen and be encouraging. You won’t have to assess their performance, the Graduate Recruitment lot will do that.”

“Of course,” said Charles.

“Great.” Farah went on, a little too casually, “We’ve laid on a nice dinner for them on fourteenth floor after the moot. Once that’s over, I want you to take them to the wine bar across the street and charm them. I’ll give you a firm credit card to putbehind the bar and we’ll do our best to blot out their memories of the morning. Is that all right?”

“Oh,” said Charles, looking like a stuffed fish. “I, um, I might have something on this evening. Let me check my diary.”

“Charles.”

“But I’m notgoodat charming people,” Charles protested.

“You won’t have to do anything to charm them. They’re university students and you will be paying for their drinks. You can wrap things up by half nine, we don’t want them to bankrupt the firm.”

“But—”

“We have talked about the importance of soft skills,” said Farah. “Your technical skills can’t be faulted, but that’s not enough in a lawyer of your seniority. Isn’t that right, Kriya?”

I hesitated. If I said yes, wouldn’t that be an implied criticism of Charles? It didn’t seem fair to gang up on him with Farah.

Looking at his horrified face, I felt a surge of pity. I already knew Charles had no problem pulling late nights. Farah could have asked him to sacrifice his evening to the production of an advice note, or to a call with an overseas client, and he would have obliged without a murmur. But it was clear he couldn’t imagine anything worse than being trapped in a wine bar with fifteen university students.

“I can do it,” I said.

They stared at me.

Farah recovered first. “Would you? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I used to do a lot of outreach at my old firm,” I said. “Gave talks at schools, manned our stall at university careers fairs, that sort of thing.”

“You’re a star. That would be fabulous.”

“You don’t need to,” said Charles, looking stricken. “I don’t really—I mean, my evening plans can be rearranged.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m not doing anything else this evening. You can go ahead with your plans.”

Charles made a show of looking at his phone. “Looks like I got it wrong. It was tomorrow I was thinking of. This evening is free.”

“Perfect! You can both go,” said Farah. “Two lawyers to fifteen students is a much better ratio. Thank you so much for volunteering, Kriya. I’ll go and tell Amy. She’ll email you the details of the moot, Charles, and perhaps you can let Kriya know when you’re all done and ready to move across the road. You should know,” she said gravely, “that you are making one DEI manager very happy.”

She swept out of the room, leaving us gaping after her.

“Is she always like this?” I said.

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