Feel-Good Story Short Stories & Lawyer Face Slapping Novels

On Thanksgiving, my husband Steven Mandel showed up with another woman. Not just anyone—Fiona Osborne, his first love. She had Alzheimer's and only remembered him. And yeah, he said she was moving in. Steven's eyes were ice. "Erica, I stayed away from Fiona out of duty. But I'm not wasting what time I have left without her." Happy 50th anniversary to me. No gift—just a slap-in-the-face love confession. Maya, my daughter-in-law, tried to talk some sense into him, bless her. Then Anton—my own son—cut in. "Mom already kept Dad away from Fiona for years. She's tied ME to you for half my life. Now Dad just wants to take care of the woman he loves—what's so wrong with that?" Steven stepped in front of Fiona like some kind of hero. "Anton's right. Erica, I let you play the wife role for decades. Now, I want to be with the woman I truly love. "If you can't handle that, let's just get a divorce." I stood there, frozen. I'd walked away from a powerhouse law career for this family after we had Anton. I thought I had given everything, and in their eyes, I would be a perfect wife and a perfect mother. But today made it clear—I was never enough. No matter how much I gave, it was never going to be enough. I turned to Maya. She was crying. "You wanna get divorced together?"

Xenia Lewis, the nepotism junior, is eager to craft an image of herself as a prodigy. To prove her talent, she requests to take the lead in court. But when confronted by the plaintiff's attorney's sharp questioning, she falters. Our defense unravels, instantly putting us at a disadvantage. After the verdict is announced, Xenia tearfully throws herself into the arms of my fiance, Zayne Scott. Her voice trembles with excuses. "The plaintiff's attorney was too harsh. It was my first time in court, and I was just too nervous!" Due to her incompetence, the defendant, who could have been acquitted, ends up behind bars. Yet, Zayne and my junior colleague, Hugo Wilkinson, indulge her with comforting words. "Don't be upset. No one wins every case." "With your cleverness, Xenia, you'll surely hold your own next time." Furious, I snap, "The court is a place to seek truth and uphold justice. It's not a playground for make-believe. Because of your mistake, an innocent person has been wronged. How can you live with yourself?" Feeling humiliated, Xenia breaks down, sobbing and threatening to harm herself. Resentful that I've hurt her, Zayne and Hugo distort the truth, shifting all the blame onto me. I end up as the scapegoat for her mistakes. Not only am I forced to resign in disgrace, but I also face disbarment. With nowhere to turn, my spirit shatters. While crossing the street, distraught and distracted, I'm hit by a car and killed. Then, when I wake up, I find myself reborn on the very day Xenia and I are set to appear in court.

I was the firm’s star. The one they called for the impossible cases. My latest miracle? The “Titan Project” patent case. I made the firm a billion dollars. My cut was supposed to be a two-million-dollar bonus. But today, a fresh-faced intern waltzed off with it. I thought payroll had made a mistake and stormed straight into the senior partner's office. “Preston. My two-million-dollar bonus. Tell me there’s been a mistake.” Preston didn’t even bother to look up. “Victoria, I’ve looked into it. We won this case because of Chloe’s client management.” “She was schmoozing clients. Late-night golf games. Weekend yacht parties. While you were what, exactly?” “You never showed your face outside the courtroom. Teamwork is everything.” I almost laughed. It was absurd. “She’s a rookie who can’t even recite the rules of discovery.” “Enough!” Preston cut me off. “The firm doesn’t make mistakes. I see what everyone contributes.” “If you're not happy, you can prove your worth somewhere else.” He tossed a severance agreement on the desk. My heart went cold. I signed it on the spot. Before I left, I got the last word. “Preston, next time the firm has a real fight on its hands, you’d better call your social butterfly, Chloe. Don’t bother me.” He blew a perfect smoke ring, smirking right through it. Unfazed. Soon later, my phone blew up. It was him. Begging me to come back and save his ass.

"I know you're an ace divorce attorney. Please help me!" A young woman who's holding a child suddenly barges into the law firm and gets down on her knees in front of me. I'm about to help her up to her feet when a few live comments appear in front of my eyes. "This really is a doomed story. I can't believe the FMC has to go through all sorts of torment before dying." "Once she gets caught, both she and her child will be dead. The MMC can only spend the rest of his life in eternal remorse." "The FMC is pretty naive, isn't she? She thinks finding herself an attorney can help her secure a divorce. The MMC is the richest man in Opalford at the end of the day, so there's no way she can file for a divorce successfully." When I spot the next comment, its contents sting my eyes immediately. "Unfortunately, this attorney is a throwaway character too. Not only does she refuse to help FMC, but she also fails to recognize her as her older sister, who has gone missing for many years."

Sitting here in the courtroom, I watch as my father is put on trial for a crime he didn't commit. He gets a heart attack and dies right before my very eyes. There's nothing I can do to stop it. As my heart burns with anger and resentment, a series of comments suddenly appears, floating in the air in front of me. [Poor Mason! He still has no idea it was his own beloved girlfriend, Christa Lowry, who served as lead counsel and used falsified evidence to incriminate his father.] [Christa teamed up with that scion, Todd Harlow. She sacrificed Mason's dad's life to net her first pot of gold!] Through these comments, I learn the truth. I wipe my tears away, tear up the acceptance letter I just received from the top art school in the country, and throw myself into the legal profession. After 15 years, I've finally been crowned the Grim Reaper of the criminal defense world, having never lost a single case. One day, my assistant comes to my office with a pile of top-secret case files. Christa is facing the death penalty for engaging in international money laundering, and I'm the only one who can save her. In the surveillance footage from the detention center, the once arrogant woman is now kneeling on the floor, begging in despair to be saved. At that very moment, those comments start appearing in my vision again. [Spoiler alert! The most satisfying moment of revenge is about to come!] [That awful woman is so deluded. She thinks that just by offering enough money, Mason will be willing to save her for old times' sake! What a joke.] [Quick! Refuse her, Grim Reaper! Send her to hell!] Reading the comments, I smirk faintly before tossing my pen into the trash. "Tell her I won't take on the case."

A former classmate of mine, Zack Lindell, is unlawfully fired by his company and denied a severance package. With nowhere else to turn, he becomes so desperate that he threatens to take his own life. I represent him entirely free of charge and run myself ragged until I secure a 500,000-dollar settlement for him. Yet on the day he receives the money, he comes to me with a 50-dollar parking receipt. "William, I drove my car that day, so I'll let the gas money slide, but the parking was because you had business at the courthouse, so that should be your expense, right?" Beside him, his wife, Helena Lindell, adds sarcastically, "I hear you big-shot corporate lawyers make insane money. Tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. You're not seriously going to stick us with a 50-dollar parking bill, are you?" As I watch the couple count their money, I lose whatever goodwill I still have toward them. I turn down an acquisition worth millions of dollars to handle his case, only to end up owing Zack 50 dollars for parking. I toss a hundred-dollar bill onto the table and block them. A year later, Zack sinks his life savings into a residential development that is never completed. When he can't find anyone willing to help him recover his money, he corners me with tears in his eyes. "William! Please, you have to help me! That money was everything we had." I have my assistant hand him a retainer agreement. "I can help you, but my consultation fees run at 5,000 dollars per hour, and my contingency fee is 30% of the total asset value. Those are my terms. Not a penny less."