CHAPTER 3: THE LOUIS OPTION - PART ONE
Day eight at Pearson Hardman, and I'd learned the firm's real hierarchy.
It wasn't about credentials or case wins or billable hours, though those mattered. It was about proximity. Who you knew. Who vouched for you. Who let you into the rooms where actual decisions got made.
Harvey Specter's orbit: Mike Ross, two senior associates who'd been with him for years, and a rotating cast of junior associates he tolerated for specific cases before dismissing them back to the general pool.
Jessica Pearson's orbit: Senior partners, clients who'd been with the firm for decades, and the occasional associate she'd personally headhunted from law review.
Louis Litt's orbit: Empty.
I watched it happen in real-time that first week. Partners would assign cases, and associates would nod professionally, then immediately start scheming to get reassigned. Louis's work got passed around like a live grenade—everyone touching it just long enough to avoid looking insubordinate before finding an excuse to hand it off.
"Conflict of interest with my other case."
"My expertise is better suited for the Henderson matter."
"I'm already maxed on billable hours this week."
Lies, all of them. But lies Louis couldn't challenge without looking petty.
He knew it too. I could see it in how his jaw tightened when someone made excuses. How his voice got sharper with each reassignment request. How he ate lunch alone in his office instead of joining the other partners.
Desperate for validation. Brilliant at financial law. Systematically overlooked.
The System cataloged it automatically.
[BLACKMAIL ARCHIVE: LOUIS LITT]
[PROFILE BUILDING...]
[TRAIT IDENTIFIED: INSECURITY REGARDING PEER RECOGNITION]
[TRAIT IDENTIFIED: TEACHING CAPABILITY - HIGH]
[LOYALTY POTENTIAL: HIGH IF PROPERLY CULTIVATED]
I dismissed the notification and kept watching.
Thursday afternoon, Kyle Durant got assigned to help Louis with a securities filing. I overheard the conversation from my desk.
"This needs to be filed by Monday," Louis said, handing over a folder. "Standard SEC compliance work, but the client's nervous about disclosure requirements."
Kyle took the folder with visible reluctance.
"Of course, Mr. Litt. I'll make it a priority."
Two hours later, Kyle was in Senior Partner Brooks's office, somehow getting reassigned to a litigation case that had materialized out of thin air. The securities filing landed on another associate's desk, who immediately started looking for an exit strategy.
Louis stood in his office doorway, watching it happen, jaw working like he was chewing broken glass.
Everyone wants Harvey's cases. Nobody wants Louis's work.
I turned back to my computer, fingers drumming against the desk.
That's a mistake.
Louis Litt wasn't Harvey Specter—didn't have the swagger, the media presence, the closer reputation that made clients beg for his attention. But he had something Harvey didn't: actual expertise that went beyond charisma and improvisation.
Financial securities law. Corporate structuring. The technical, unglamorous work that kept firms running when the flashy litigators were busy giving interviews.
And he was desperate to teach it to someone who'd actually listen.
Opportunity.
I waited until mid-morning the next day—Friday, when the office was starting to wind down toward the weekend. Most associates were already mentally checked out, planning happy hours and dates. Louis was in his office, door open, stress-eating Cheetos while reviewing what looked like a merger document.
I knocked.
He looked up, orange dust on his fingers, expression shifting from irritation to confusion when he saw me standing there.
"Roden. What do you want?"
No preamble. No politeness. Just immediate suspicion.
I stepped inside, left the door open—less threatening that way.
"I'd like to learn financial securities law. Everyone says you're the best."
Louis's eyes narrowed.
"Everyone says that, do they? Name one person."
Fair.
"Senior Partner Brooks mentioned your work on the Eurotech merger during my interview. Said it was masterful structuring."
That caught him off guard. His expression flickered—surprise, then something that might've been pleasure, quickly buried under suspicion.
"Brooks said that?"
"Direct quote."
Louis set down the Cheetos bag, wiped his hands on a napkin with careful precision.
"So you want to learn from me. Why? Harvey won't take you on?"
Brutal honesty time.
"Harvey won't take anyone on except Mike Ross. I'm a first-year associate with solid credentials and no mentor. You're a senior partner who's brilliant at financial law and systematically undervalued by people who don't understand technical work."
His mouth tightened.
"So this is pity? You're doing me a favor?"
"This is pragmatism. I want to be good at something that matters. Harvey won't teach me. You can."
Silence stretched between us. Louis studied me like I was a contract with hidden clauses, looking for the trap, the manipulation, the angle.
I kept my expression neutral and let him look.
Let him see honesty. It's what he doesn't get from anyone else.
Finally, he leaned back in his chair.
"Financial securities law isn't glamorous. No media interviews. No celebrity clients. Just regulations, compliance, and making sure companies don't get destroyed by their own paperwork."
"I'm not interested in glamorous. I'm interested in useful."
Another long pause.
Then Louis stood, walked to his filing cabinet, and pulled out a folder so thick it could've been used as a weapon. He tossed it across the desk.
"Dennison Pharmaceuticals merger documents. They're acquiring two smaller biotech firms—complicated structure, international subsidiaries, regulatory approvals across three jurisdictions. Find anything that'll bite us in discovery."
I picked up the folder, felt its weight.
Sixty hours of work, minimum. Maybe more.
"Due date?"
"Monday morning. Nine AM."
Thursday afternoon to Monday morning. Four and a half days, one of which was the weekend.
Other associates would've complained. Would've asked for an extension or tried to negotiate a more reasonable timeline.
I asked a different question.
"Any particular concern areas, or comprehensive review?"
Louis blinked.
He wasn't expecting that.
"What?"
"Should I focus on specific risk categories—environmental, IP, regulatory—or do you want comprehensive analysis across all potential issues?"
He stared at me like I'd spoken a foreign language.
"When's the last time an associate asked me that?"
"I'm asking now."
Another beat of silence. Then something shifted in his posture—straightened, focused, the brilliant lawyer emerging from underneath the defensive neurotic.
"Comprehensive. The clients are nervous about hidden liabilities. They want every rock overturned before they sign."
"Then that's what I'll do."
I turned to leave.
"Roden."
I stopped at the door.
Louis's expression was carefully neutral, but his voice carried an edge.
"Don't disappoint me."
Translation: Everyone else disappoints me. Prove you're different.
"I won't."
The associate library was empty by seven PM.
I'd claimed a corner desk with good lighting and spread the Dennison merger documents across every available surface. Three companies. Seven subsidiaries. Regulatory frameworks spanning the FDA, EMA, and Japanese pharmaceutical authorities. Stock options, IP transfers, environmental compliance records going back thirty years.
It was beautiful, in a way—a puzzle with a thousand interlocking pieces, and I had four days to find the ones that didn't quite fit.
[BLACKMAIL ARCHIVE: ACTIVE]
[ORGANIZING: DENNISON PHARMACEUTICALS DOCUMENTATION]
[CROSS-REFERENCING: REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS]
[FLAGGING: POTENTIAL LIABILITY CATEGORIES]
The System hummed in the back of my mind, not doing the work for me but organizing information as I processed it. Making connections I might've missed. Highlighting patterns that needed deeper investigation.
I started with the environmental compliance records—always a weak point in pharmaceutical mergers. Companies got sloppy about waste disposal in the eighties and nineties, and those violations had a way of surfacing decades later.
Sure enough, thirty minutes in, I found it.
A Dennison subsidiary in Ohio had acquired a small manufacturing plant in 1987. The acquisition paperwork showed proper due diligence, EPA compliance, clean environmental record.
But the footnotes referenced a cleanup agreement from 1986—one year before the acquisition—that never appeared in the main documentation.
Hidden liability.
I pulled the EPA compliance records and started digging.
My phone buzzed. Text from Kyle Durant.
Happy hour at Murphy's. You coming?
I glanced at the time. Seven forty-five. The associates would be three drinks in by now, networking over overpriced beer and pretending they weren't exhausted.
I typed back.
Working on a case. Have fun.
His response came immediately.
Litt's case? Dude, it's Friday night.
Yeah. Talk Monday.
I silenced my phone and went back to the EPA records.
By nine PM, I'd confirmed the environmental liability—a groundwater contamination issue that had been "resolved" through a settlement agreement, but the settlement terms required ongoing monitoring for twenty years. Monitoring that had stopped in 2003 when the subsidiary changed ownership.
Potential EPA enforcement action. Cleanup costs could run eight figures.
I flagged it, made notes, moved to the next category.
IP transfers. Always complicated when pharma companies merged—patent portfolios, licensing agreements, research data ownership. Any gaps meant vulnerability to patent trolls or, worse, legitimate competitors challenging their drug approvals.
The Thai food I'd ordered arrived at ten-thirty. I ate it cold while reviewing patent filings, barely tasting it.
By midnight, I'd found two more issues—an IP transfer clause that conflicted with EU regulations on data portability, and stock option timing that could trigger IRS scrutiny if the merger closed during a specific two-week window.
Not deal-breakers. But problems that needed addressing.
I leaned back in the library chair, rolled my shoulders, felt the fatigue starting to build behind my eyes.
[SYSTEM USAGE: MODERATE]
[MENTAL FATIGUE: 15%]
[RECOMMENDED: BREAK WITHIN 2 HOURS]
Not yet.
I pulled the next set of documents and kept reading.
Saturday morning, I woke up at my desk in the library.
Someone—probably building security—had draped a jacket over my shoulders. The merger documents were still spread across the table, my laptop screen dark.
I checked my phone. Six forty-seven AM.
Five hours sleep. That'll have to do.
I grabbed coffee from the break room—bad coffee, the kind that tasted like burnt rubber—and went back to work.
By Sunday afternoon, I'd analyzed every document in the folder. Seventeen potential issues total. Three critical, eight moderate, six minor. Each one documented with relevant case law, regulatory precedent, and mitigation strategies.
I built a color-coded binder—red tabs for critical, yellow for moderate, green for minor. Cross-referenced everything digitally so Louis could search by keyword if he wanted.
Thorough enough to teach from, I'd promised myself.
Monday morning, walking into Louis's office with the results, I felt the weight of it.
This is the test. Pass it, and I have a mentor. Fail it, and I'm back to Harvey's grunt work with no path forward.
Louis looked up from his breakfast—some kind of egg sandwich, coffee going cold beside it—and his expression shifted when he saw the binder.
"You're early. I said nine."
"It's eight fifty-five."
"That's still early."
I set the binder on his desk.
"Found seventeen potential issues. Three critical, eight moderate, six minor. Prioritized by deal-breaking risk and organized by category."
Louis stared at the binder like it might explode.
"You actually did comprehensive?"
Did he expect me not to?
"You asked for comprehensive."
He opened the binder, flipped to the first red tab. His eyes scanned the environmental liability section, and I watched his expression change—skepticism to interest to genuine alarm.
"Environmental liability from a 1987 acquisition?"
"Ohio subsidiary. Groundwater contamination, settlement agreement required ongoing monitoring through 2006, monitoring stopped in 2003. EPA could enforce with significant penalties."
Louis flipped through more pages, reading faster now.
"IP transfer conflict with EU law..."
"Article 17 data portability. The licensing agreement predates GDPR implementation but the merger triggers compliance review."
"Stock option timing..."
"Two-week window where closure triggers IRS scrutiny under Section 409A. Mitigation strategy includes restructuring the option schedule before signing."
He kept reading. Didn't say anything. Just absorbed information like a machine processing data.
Finally, he closed the binder and looked at me.
"Each finding includes case precedent and mitigation strategies."
"That's what you needed."
Louis stood.
"Come with me."
Senior Partner Brooks's office was on the executive floor—bigger than Louis's, better view, the kind of space that reminded you where you stood in the hierarchy.
Brooks looked up when Louis knocked, expression shifting to mild irritation.
"Louis. I'm in the middle of—"
"This is important. Dennison merger."
That got his attention. Brooks set down whatever he'd been reading.
"What about it?"
Louis pushed my binder across the desk.
"My associate found seventeen potential issues during due diligence review. Three critical."
My associate.
Brooks opened the binder, started reading. His expression went from mildly interested to genuinely concerned within thirty seconds.
"Environmental liability from 1987? Louis, this could tank the entire—why wasn't this caught in preliminary?"
Louis answered smoothly, deflecting.
"Preliminary review focused on recent financials. Roden went deeper into subsidiary acquisition history."
Brooks looked at me for the first time.
"You did this?"
"Yes sir. Mr. Litt requested comprehensive analysis."
He flipped through more pages, jaw tightening with each new issue.
"This is... thorough. Very thorough."
Louis leaned against the doorframe, expression carefully neutral but voice carrying weight.
"Roden worked through the weekend. Sixty-plus hours on a single assignment."
Brooks nodded slowly, still reading.
"Good work. We'll need to address these before signing. Louis, coordinate with the clients, get their environmental counsel involved immediately."
"Already planning on it."
Brooks waved dismissal, already pulling up his phone to make calls.
Louis and I walked back to his office in silence.
Inside, door closed, Louis turned to me.
"You made me look good. That matters."
I kept my voice even.
"That was the point."
"Most associates would've done the minimum. Found one or two issues, called it comprehensive, moved on."
"Most associates are trying to get reassigned to Harvey's cases."
Louis's smile was sharp and genuine.
"And you're not?"
"I'm building my own path."
He nodded once, opened his filing cabinet, and pulled out another folder.
"Securities compliance review for Morrison Financial. Due Friday. Same level of detail."
I took the folder.
"Any particular concerns?"
"Comprehensive."
By that afternoon, word had spread through the associate bullpen.
Kyle Durant approached my desk around three PM, expression somewhere between curiosity and disbelief.
"Heard you pulled a weekend all-nighter for Litt. That's... dedication or insanity."
I didn't look up from the Morrison file.
"It's leverage. Louis has a partnership vote. Harvey doesn't give associates that access."
Kyle laughed, but it sounded nervous.
"You're actually strategizing around Louis Litt?"
"I'm strategizing around competence. Louis knows financial law better than anyone in this firm. Learning from him means I'll be better than ninety percent of associates before my second year."
Kyle studied me for a long moment.
"You really think that matters more than Harvey's mentorship?"
"I think it matters when Harvey won't give you his mentorship."
Kyle left without answering.
I went back to the Morrison file, and the System cataloged another observation.
[REPUTATION UPDATE: ASSOCIATE PERCEPTION SHIFTING]
[SCOTT RODEN: "THE THOROUGH ONE"]
[LOUIS LITT RELATIONSHIP: POSITIVE MOMENTUM]
That evening, Louis stopped by my desk before leaving.
"Roden. Good work today."
"Thank you, Mr. Litt."
He hesitated, like he wanted to say something else, then just nodded and left.
I packed up the Morrison file, shut down my computer, and headed home.
The subway was packed with Friday commuters, all of them exhausted and ready for the weekend. I found a spot by the doors and let the motion rock me while the System ran quiet calculations in the background.
Not Harvey's mentorship. But it's something.
A foundation.
And foundations could be built on.
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