Chapter 9: The Competition Announcement
Day 35 started like any other morning—me at my desk by 6:58, coffee cooling beside my keyboard, reviewing the Jameson Securities brief Louis needed by noon.
Then Senior Partner Brooks's assistant sent a firm-wide email at 9:15.
All associates report to main conference room. 9:30 AM. Mandatory.
Kyle Durant leaned over from his cubicle.
"Any idea what this is about?"
"No."
Jennifer Park was already speculating loudly with two other associates near the break room.
"Maybe they're announcing early partnership decisions?"
"Too early in the year."
"Layoffs?"
"The economy's fine. Stop panicking."
I saved my work and headed to the conference room with everyone else.
The main conference room could hold fifty people comfortably. All twelve associates from our class crowded in, plus a few second-years who'd been invited for reasons unclear.
Senior Partner Brooks stood at the front, tablet in hand, waiting for everyone to settle.
Louis was there too, leaning against the back wall with his arms crossed, watching us like we were lab rats in an experiment.
Brooks cleared his throat.
"Thank you for coming. As many of you know, Pearson Hardman has a long tradition of associate development through competitive excellence."
Here we go.
"Every year, we hold a mock trial competition. Eight first-year associates, randomly paired, arguing a constitutional law hypothetical before a panel of three senior partners."
The room buzzed with immediate interest.
Brooks continued.
"The winner receives a full afternoon with Managing Partner Jessica Pearson to discuss career trajectory, partnership track, and professional development."
That's the prize.
Direct access to Jessica Pearson. Unfiltered. Without having to navigate through Harvey or Louis or any of the senior partners who controlled access like medieval gatekeepers.
That was worth more than any case assignment or client meeting.
"The format is simple," Brooks said, pulling up a slide on the screen behind him. "Constitutional law hypothetical released tomorrow morning at nine AM. You'll have forty-eight hours to prepare. Presentations will be Friday afternoon before Partners Chen, Williams, and myself."
He tapped his tablet.
"Brackets are assigned randomly. Let me show you the matchups."
The screen changed, showing eight names arranged in a tournament bracket.
My name was in the second slot.
Scott Roden vs. Michael Ross.
The room went dead quiet.
Kyle Durant muttered something to the associate next to him that sounded like poor bastard.
Everyone knew Mike was Harvey's golden boy. The kid with the photographic memory who could cite cases from three years ago like he was reading them off a teleprompter.
Harvey's training. His mentorship. His protection.
I kept my face neutral, but the System activated reflexively.
[WIN RATE CALCULATOR: ACTIVATED]
[QUERY: MOCK TRIAL VICTORY PROBABILITY]
[PROCESSING...]
[OPPONENT: MICHAEL ROSS - HARVEY SPECTER MENTORSHIP ADVANTAGE]
[CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: NOT PRIMARY SPECIALTY AREA]
[RANDOM PAIRING: NO ADVANCE PREPARATION POSSIBLE]
[JUDGE PANEL: BIAS PATTERNS UNKNOWN]
[PROBABILITY: 34% (±19%)]
[ASSESSMENT: CHALLENGING BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE]
Thirty-four percent.
Better than a coin flip, but not by much.
Brooks was still talking.
"This is an opportunity to demonstrate your legal reasoning, oral advocacy, and ability to perform under pressure. Treat it seriously. Questions?"
Jennifer Park raised her hand.
"Are we arguing both sides, or assigned positions?"
"Positions will be randomly assigned the day of. You need to be prepared for either side of the hypothetical."
Of course.
More questions followed—logistics, timing, whether we could use research assistants (no), whether we could consult with our mentors (yes, but they couldn't do the work for us).
I tuned it out and focused on the bracket.
Mike Ross. Harvey's protégé. The fraud with perfect recall.
[BLACKMAIL ARCHIVE: ACCESSING MICHAEL ROSS PROFILE]
[KNOWN DATA: FRAUDULENT CREDENTIALS, PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY, HARVEY TRAINING]
[UNKNOWN DATA: ACTUAL LEGAL REASONING CAPABILITY, ARGUMENT STYLE, WEAKNESSES]
[RECOMMENDATION: GATHER INTELLIGENCE]
The System was right.
I needed to know how Mike actually argued cases, not just what everyone assumed about his abilities.
The meeting broke up at 10:00.
Associates scattered back to their desks, already forming study groups and trading speculation about the hypothetical.
I went back to my cubicle and opened my laptop.
Donna mentioned Harvey records training videos of Mike's client meetings.
It was a long shot, but worth trying.
I composed an email carefully.
Ms. Paulsen,
I'm preparing for the mock trial and wanted to review examples of effective oral advocacy. I heard Mr. Specter records training sessions with his associates. Would it be possible to access those recordings for study purposes?
Best regards,
Scott Roden
I sent it before I could second-guess myself.
Five minutes later, her response arrived.
Mr. Roden,
Harvey's training videos are stored on the firm server under /training/advocacy. You'll need partner authorization to access them. I've copied Louis on this email for approval.
- Donna
Louis's response came thirty seconds later.
Approved. Smart thinking.
- L
I logged into the server and started downloading files.
That evening, I stayed late in the associate library.
Most people had gone home by 7 PM. The office was quiet except for the hum of the HVAC system and the occasional sound of someone's phone ringing in the distance.
I pulled up the first training video—Mike handling a client meeting about a contract dispute, Harvey watching from the side and occasionally interjecting comments.
Mike was good. Genuinely good.
His recall was instant—he cited contract clauses without looking at documents, referenced case law from memory, built arguments on the fly that were creative and compelling.
But he also had patterns.
He led with emotional appeals. Built narratives around fairness and justice. Got passionate about client outcomes in ways that made him likeable but sometimes distracted from pure legal analysis.
And when challenged with cold, technical counterarguments, he got flustered.
Harvey had to step in twice during one negotiation when the opposing counsel started hammering Mike with procedural technicalities instead of engaging with his emotional framework.
[ARGUMENT CRUSHER: ANALYZING MICHAEL ROSS PATTERNS]
[PROCESSING...]
[WEAKNESS IDENTIFIED: RELIES ON EMOTIONAL NARRATIVE STRUCTURE]
[WEAKNESS IDENTIFIED: VULNERABLE TO SYSTEMATIC DECONSTRUCTION]
[WEAKNESS IDENTIFIED: TENDS TO OVERCOMPLICATE STRAIGHTFORWARD ISSUES]
[RECOMMENDATION: FORCE TECHNICAL PRECISION, AVOID EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT]
I watched three more videos, taking notes the entire time.
Mike fights like Harvey taught him—charisma, improvisation, building personal connections with judges and juries.
But constitutional law mock trials aren't about charisma. They're about legal reasoning.
I closed the laptop and leaned back in my chair.
Harvey taught Mike to be Harvey. I'll be something different.
I left the office at 10:30.
Mike was still at his desk, surrounded by constitutional law textbooks, frantically highlighting passages like he could absorb them through osmosis.
He looked up when I walked past.
"Hey. Good luck in the mock trial. May the best man win."
I stopped.
His expression was genuine—no sarcasm, no competitive posturing. Just sincerity.
He actually means it.
For a moment, I considered responding in kind. Building some kind of professional friendship. The human thing to do.
But friendship and competition didn't mix. Not here. Not when the prize was direct access to Jessica Pearson and a potential fast track to partnership.
I nodded once.
"Good luck."
I kept walking.
Mike went back to his textbooks, and I headed for the elevator.
The System hummed quietly in the background, organizing everything it had observed.
[OPPONENT ANALYSIS: MICHAEL ROSS]
[STRENGTHS: MEMORY, EMOTIONAL APPEAL, HARVEY MENTORSHIP]
[WEAKNESSES: TECHNICAL PRECISION, SYSTEMATIC CHALLENGES, OVERCOMPLICATION]
[RECOMMENDED STRATEGY: COLD LOGIC, STRUCTURAL ARGUMENTS, AVOID NARRATIVE ENGAGEMENT]
I rode the subway home, and the city lights blurred past the windows.
Forty-eight hours until the hypothetical gets released.
Forty-eight hours to prepare for the most important competition of my career so far.
The exhaustion from the pro bono case still lingered, but adrenaline was already replacing it.
This is different from fighting for Mrs. Chen. This is about my future.
I got off at my stop and walked home through streets that felt colder than they had that morning.
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