Participants:
Scene Title | Rule #13 |
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Synopsis | Gibbs's Rules: Never, ever involve a lawyer. (Rule #51: Sometimes you're wrong.) |
Date | May 27, 2010 |
Silver's Office
When she steps in the door, Elisabeth is dressed in what amounts to her uniform these days — heavy black cargo pants, combat boots, and a heavy black jacket. Her blonde hair is the only spark of color in the outfit at all, and it offsets her deep blue eyes. As she stops before the receptionist's desk, she has to wait for a phone call to complete, but when the woman hangs up, Liz speaks immediately. "Hi. Elisabeth Harrison… I believe Mr. Silver is expecting me?" Her father mentioned that he'd call ahead for her.
Checking the calendar on her computer, the receptionist nods when she finds Elisabeth's name annotated and she smiles. "Let me inform him that you're here. You can sit if you want, though I don't believe he's with anyone at this time." Yeah, first day back, not a lot of business going on. She pushes a button, "Mr. Silver. Ms. Harrison is here for her 11am appointment." The call came early on his cell phone from Jared Harrison and James agreed to see his daughter on short notice. One because he owed Jared plenty for the chance to intern there during school, and second because, honestly, there wasn't a lot of business to be had at this time as folks are trying to get their lives back to normal after weeks long blizzard conditions.
She hangs up the phone, "He's on his way out." And that proves to be a truthful statement as Silver steps through the long hallway and smiles. "Ms. Harrison, I'm James Silver. If you want to follow me, we can see what we can do for you."
Reaching out to take his hand, Elisabeth smiles at the young lawyer. He's a bit on the unconventional side, clearly — that whole scruff thing is not usually what one finds in law offices. But then again, it keeps faces warm in the frigid cold, too. "I appreciate you seeing me on short notice, Mr. Silver. My father has a high opinion of the work you do."
She follows him back to his office and moves to unzip her jacket as the door closes behind her. A firearm is hooked to the right side of her belt, though it's not necessarily easy to get to with her jacket in the way. She takes the chair in front of his desk and says, "I don't think what I need will be terribly difficult. Mostly I want to file a few things with you on a just-in-case basis."
Silver's handshake is firm enough then he's leading the way back, closing the door behind him after allowing her in. He moves around to the other side of the desk, which is adorned only in a laptop and a big calendar with has nothing annotated on it. He sits in the chair and scoots forward, "Just in case basis?" He gives her a quizzical look and opens a desk drawer to pull out a yellow legal pad and begins to take some notes, starting with her name scrawled across the top with two lines drawn underneath. "Can I ask what you mean by 'just in case'?" He glances up across the desk at her.
"Anything I say to you from here on out is considered work product?" Elisabeth verifies. Because she hasn't paid the woman at the front yet. "So… " She pulls an envelope from the inside of her jacket, sliding it across to him. It's relatively thick, and the top sheet includes a printed version of her pardon, along with the names of her superiors and the people who authorized it. Obviously because it's highly classified, she doesn't actually have it in writing. "Just in case they decide to retroactively screw me," she tells him quietly. "I need to put a will in place, as well. Things have been decidedly more dangerous in my life lately, and there are some things I want taken care of."
Her tone is calm as she speaks, and Elisabeth watches him as he skims the paperwork. It details quite literally everything she's done for the past year and a half, notes the date of her pardon, and who gave it. It is basically her own confession, leaving out specific names of anyone associated with her — it's her actions.
Taking the envelope, James' eyebrow lifts up curiously at the mention of a pardon. He nods, "You are hiring me as your attorney, so anything you say to me will be priviledged information." Upon stating that, he opens the envelope and begins to read. He leafs through the confession within the documentation before he lays the documents face down on the desk, in case he needs to refer to it later on during this interview.
He picks up his pen again and starts a numbered list. "Okay. Here's what I need to know. If something were to happen to you, I need to know what actions you want myself, as your attorney of record, to execute." He finishes scribbling some things on the legal pad and reaches down into his desk for a folder and pulls it out and scribbles her name on the tab and slides that underneath the legal pad, then glances up at her.
"It would depend on the circumstances. If I'm killed in the line of duty, I want you to merely execute my estate," Elisabeth says. "I have a list of assets at the back of that information and to whom they should go. My life insurance and such are up to date. That's all simple. The complicated comes in if I'm not killed in the line." She considers her next words in spite of having worked on how to say this for weeks. "My duties in FRONTLINE occasionally require that I undertake missions that are off the books. Under the circumstances where I might go missing, I already know that my father's going to lead the charge." Most likely in conjunction with Cat Chesterfield. "What I want from you in the instance that anything …. untoward or unusual seems to happen to me… is to be a third-party, emotionally uninvolved attorney of record for me. And regardless of what the government may try, I expect that my assets are distributed the way I want them to be." She shrugs a little. "If anything ever happens that they file criminal charges against me, I wanted my pardon and a full accounting in the hands of an attorney who already had all the facts before all hell broke loose around me."
Taking plenty of notes, unlike his scruffy facade, James' penmanship is rather neat and tidy. He is trying to keep up with her and seems to be doing just fine as he puncuated the ending of one of the bullets and glances up at her. He's read her document so the fact that the government might want to indict her is not surprising. "I'll start doing some research into precedence that might be similar to your situation. See if there's some legal decision we can go back to in case they do try to retract your pardon." He taps his pen against the legal pad several times before he offers a smile. "As your attorney, I implore you to refrain from giving them anything new they could prosecute you with. You also need to spend some time thinking back to determine if you've done anything else in the past that might not be covered in your pardon that they could use against you."
Raising both her eyebrows, Elisabeth smirks at him now. "Wow…. you've barely blinked so far in terms of hearing that I've blown buildings and people up with this ability. I'm impressed, Mr. Silver." She can't help teasing him slightly. This is probably both unnecessary and useless, but it does make her feel like she's at least trying to cover her bases. "If they try to rescind my pardon, quite frankly…. It'll be time to go public about exactly what I know and name some names." She nods toward the sealed envelope in among the rest. "If push ever comes to shove, that's what that is for. And you shouldn't open it unless all other avenues have been exhausted and you are very certain that I'm getting screwed… because it could very well get you yanked to mutant Gitmo if you play that card." She is not kidding. It's highly dangerous out there.
"I've been doing this for a while now. As a favor to your father, I'm taking you on as a client. Whatever it is you've done, for whatever reasons — and bear in mind, I'm not asking — that's what you've done. If it ever gets to the point where you need defending then that's what I'll do as well. It's then I'll get into the reasonings behind it all." James picks up a large tan envelope and slides all the documentation inside. The sealed envelope is lifted up and he slips it into the folder. He then tears off the sheet of paper from his legal pad and slides it into the folder as well.
"For now, just keep your nose clean so they don't have any further reason to pursue you. I imagine as long as you're on their team, you're relatively safe. If at any time you feel as if you're done or they could change their tune about you, I need you to let me know. Until that point, I'll assume everything's working out just fine and you don't need me involving myself." James stands and walks over to his safe and begins to turn the knob until he pulls it open and files the entire set of documents away, closing the drawer and spinning the dial.
Elisabeth smiles slightly. "That's pretty much the bottom line as I see it, as well. Mostly this is about a will. I've needed one for a while and haven't gotten around to really doing it… figured everything would go to my father if I died before he did. But … I want to make some provisions for other people, so that requires a bit of forethought." She watches him put the envelope into the safe. "The classified nature of what I do means my nose will never be clean. I'm going to Hell, Mr. Silver, no two ways about it." Though certain of her acquaintances do believe otherwise. "I like life on the edge. We'll see how it plays out."
Making his way back to his desk, James retakes his seat. "Well, a will I can do in my sleep." He logs into his laptop and pulls up the required program and begins to type away. Typically, he'd have a clerk type this up, but due to the nature of things, he cranks it out himself, using his notes as reference and if there's anything to be clarified, he asks. Soon, his printer is spooling out page after page of the document, which he slides across the desk to her. "Go ahead and look this over. If you are happy with this, then I'll have someone come in and witness you signing the document and we'll make you a copy and certify both the original and the copy. You should keep one in a safe place, and we'll keep the original." He leans back in his chair as he waits for her to approve the draft.
Elisabeth seems completely at ease as he works on filling in the will. She doesn't fidget or otherwise act impatient. She answers his questions readily, and when he finally slides the will across the desk, she reads through it carefully. Nodding to him, she looks up. "It looks fine. Thank you, Mr. Silver… this is perfect." Now she finally feels like she's covered all her bases. It makes her feel … a little bit lighter. There is even a contingency in place for in case she should have offpsring at a future date and alters the bequests for that possibility. "I can't think of anything that needs to be added."
The signing process moves along without any snags or snares and the copies are certified and he slides one across the table to her, all packaged in a nice tidy manner. He smiles, standing and offering his hand to her. "Glad to be of service. Keep me in mind as you go about your business and you if think of anything further that you might need done, please don't hesitate to call." In addition to offering to shake her hand, he's placed a card there for her to take in case he needs to call her again. Plus, having the card of an attorney on her possession in case something happens, might give someone pause to call him. "If there's nothing further?" More of a question then anything else. Not that she hasn't given him plenty of work today, that for which he's thankful.
She takes his hand and Elisabeth smiles slightly. "Thank you, Mr. Silver. I appreciate your time." Her father was right — he's a pretty good guy. She takes her papers and leaves him to sort through the rest of his day.