Plot Twists Short Stories & Lawyer Workplace Novels

My adoptive parents' long-lost daughter came back. She's a wellness influencer. She eats from crystal bowls she "cleansed." Sleeps with a white noise machine. She will only ride in a custom, climate-controlled car. That's not all. She filled our family's Manhattan law firm with Himalayan salt lamps and energy crystals. The espresso in the conference room? Replaced with gluten-free, organic dandelion root tea. "The energy here is so murky," she'd say. "We need to cleanse the world with love and light!" My guilt-ridden parents gave her everything she wanted. Even my fiancé told me, "Ava, you stole twenty years of her Upper East Side life. Can't you cut her some slack?" The day of the final hearing for our firm's biggest case, the entire court had to wait for her to finish her "emotional cleansing meditation." The judge was furious. I stood up. Delivered a flawless closing argument. I won our client $500 million and secured the future of the firm. But at the party, she had a drunken breakdown, fell into the pool, and drowned. My parents and my fiancé blamed me for everything. "You always have to win, don't you? It was a simple, open-and-shut case. You couldn't even let her have that?" They had me committed to a psychiatric hospital. They destroyed my law license and my reputation. They even had me injected with a fatal overdose of sedatives. I died full of hate. The next time I opened my eyes, I was back. Back to the day she was crying on her Instagram Live, begging for the case. This time, I walked straight into our rival's law firm. This "sure-win" case? I'm going to make you lose everything.

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."

My mother was beaten into the ICU, and I signed six critical-condition notices in one night. When I was at my lowest, my girlfriend disappeared without a trace. Only after my mother died did I stand in court as the plaintiff's attorney in her case. My girlfriend, gone for two months, appeared at the defense table. She was defending the man who killed my mother.

The day my parents skipped town with my younger sister, Tiana Miller, they used me as collateral to pay off their debts. "The kid's got a screw loose," my mother told the debt collectors, gesturing dismissively toward me. "Always hugging books and mumbling nonsense like an idiot. Take her if you want her. If not, sell her for all I care." Tiana's bright, cheerful laughter drifted up from the stairwell. "Mom, isn't Sylvia coming with us?" "Be a good girl. We're leaving her behind." I had heard those words a million times. Ever since Tiana was born, everyone in our house revolved around her. When I ran over just to take a look at the baby, my mother shoved me away. "Don't touch your sister. Your hands are filthy." From that moment on, I was the extra piece nobody wanted. When the loan shark kicked my front door open, he found me huddled in the corner reading a massive textbook on criminal law. "Kid, your parents bolted," the boss sneered, looking down at me. "How do you plan to pay off their debt?" I calmly closed the book. "Mister, I analyzed the voice recordings of your strong-arm collection tactics. “Twelve parts of them can easily be argued down to civil disputes. If you follow my strategy, you can avoid prison time entirely." He froze. In less than an hour, I broke down their past three years of criminal records piece by piece and drafted legal loopholes for them. The heavily tattooed kingpin assistant, Hanks Phil, stared at the paperwork, his jaw dropping before he let out a sharp curse. "I've been in the underworld for twenty-six damn years, and today's the first time I'm learning you can actually collect debts legally.”

A gorgeous new lawyer named Charlotte Lowell joins our law firm and claims she has been reborn. One day, a publicly listed company offers us a massive ten-million-dollar case. Charlotte warns our boss, Levi Howard, that the company has major issues. If we accept the case, we'll lose in court and be hit with a huge payout. Levi isn't sure if she's bluffing, but in the end, he listens and passes. The next day, that very company collapses. And the rival firm that took the case is hit with a compensation claim worth tens of millions of dollars. To celebrate dodging the bullet, Levi asks me to book a restaurant. But Charlotte immediately tells him not to go to that restaurant because that place is about to have a gas explosion. Hours later, the restaurant blows up just as she mentioned. News of it hits the trending list. After those two incidents, Levi is all-in on believing Charlotte's claim of having been reborn. In order to keep Charlotte, he gives her the executive position that was initially promised to me. When I hand in my resignation, Charlotte urges Levi to stop me. "If Yelena jumps to another firm, she'll use the resources she gained here to crush us. A year from now, we won't even have a firm left." Upon hearing Charlotte's words, my boyfriend and colleague, Finley Smith, steps forward to back her up. "Charlotte's right. I saw a job offer from Vera Legal in Yelena's email. She's really petty. If she joins Vera Legal, we'll surely face her revenge." Levi believes them and rejects my resignation. I file for labor arbitration, but it's no use. In the end, I'm demoted to a janitor at the firm. Driven by resentment, I fall into depression and end up hanging myself at the entrance of the firm. When I open my eyes again, I've gone back to the day Charlotte claims she has been reborn.

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.