Page 11 of Love Is an Art
Ben Kim—another employee at Capital Management—not involved in this fund.
I turn back to the document review to determine if the employees at this fund I’m defending wrote anything related to the fund or its risk. I open up the next email.
To: Zeger van der Zee
From: Ben Kim
Date: April 12
Is Brooke in Toronto with you?
To: Ben Kim
From: Zeger van der Zee
Date: April 12
No. But she is working on the North American Fund litigation. If you really want to spend time with her, persuade some plaintiff’s lawyer to file some bogus fraud suit alleging your fund misrepresented its risk. I spent all day with her yesterday discussing documents, including whether I store any off the main server. Quality time, my friend. She mentioned she was meeting our outside counsel today.
To: Zeger van der Zee
From: Ben Kim
Date: April 12
I want to date her—not discuss work.
Twenty-five more emails to read, and then I’m done with this batch. I open up the next one.
“This guy, Ben, really likes Brooke,” I say. “He wrote Zeger asking if she was traveling because he hadn’t seen her around. And Brooke clearly likes him back. She invites him for coffee every day.” I mark these emails as irrelevant to the litigation.
“Are they allowed to date?” Lakshmi asks. “Wouldn’t that be problematic if she had to defend his fund?”
“Maybe. Optically, it wouldn’t look good. But it would depend on Capital Management’s company fraternization policy. The client is the fund, not Ben.”
I mark this next batch as irrelevant as well. “I hope they’re already together by now. These emails are from last month. Ben is so open about his feelings for her, so he must have told her.” I click on another email. “Here it is. He wrote Zeger that he’s going to ask her out for dinner. What? Wow. Zeger’s response is unbelievable.”
“Let me see.” Lakshmi scoots her chair over to my desk and leans over to see my screen. I tilt it toward her to read the reply email.
To: Ben Kim
From: Zeger van der Zee
Date: April 12
Re: Don’t
Don’tdate a lawyer. Too competitive. And they work all the time. Date an artist. Someone who’s creative. Someone who is emotionally open. Not someone who is arguing over commas. And twisting the truth to fit their own reality. I would never date a lawyer again. Learn from my mistake. Brooke seems great, and I highly respect her as a lawyer, but don’t date her.
“What the heck? What a jerk!” Lakshmi says.
“Like lawyers can’t be creative,” I say.
“We do work all the time, though.”
“So do artists,” I say. “Anyway, Ben put Zeger in his place. Lucky Brooke.” I show Ben’s reply email to Lakshmi.
To: Zeger van der Zee
