Reasonable Accommodation

The letter said this:

"Dear Ms. Milagra:

"I write to you, as the managing partner of Dunbar, Warshein, and Masterson ("DWM"), on behalf of my client, Deirdre Reichert, one of your associate attorneys. Two days ago, you purported to "fire" Ms. Reichert from her job, without cause or notice.

"Your purported termination of Ms. Reichert's employment is an egregious violation of Ms. Reichert's rights under her employment contract with DWM, as well as a violation of state and federal laws against sexual discrimination and harassment, and, most notably, a violation of her rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act."

"Ms. Reichert intends aggressively to assert her rights under the law against DWM and will commence legal proceedings at once, unless this matter can be appropriately resolved to her satisfaction soon. I am preparing a complaint, as well as a press release, as you are reading this. I'm sure that the legal community and public will be very interested to hear how you and your office, which claim to vindicate the rights of those who are discriminated against, have threatened to ruin the career of this brilliant young woman, of whose potential lifetime income stream I do not need to remind you.

"Please contact my office at once so we can set up a meeting to discuss this matter right away.

"Yours very truly,

Arnold DiNovi."

Maxine, stifling a scream, crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it against the wall.

She stewed over the letter. It was absurd, without any legal justification. Sure, she could have handled the termination differently, after consulting her partners, but without doubt the result would have been the same. No law firm could be expected to tolerate what Deirdre had done.

She puzzled a bit over Arnold's reference to an ADA claim. What could that mean?

But Maxine didn't puzzle long. She punched the button on her phone.

"Ramona," she said to her secretary. "Get Arnold DiNovi on the line."

* * * *

Four days later, Maxine Milagra sat on one side of a long table in a conference room in the offices of DiNovi and Battle, LLP. Three other attorneys, members of her firm's managing committee, all men, sat on her side. Across the table sat Deirdre, Arnold DiNovi, and another man that Maxine knew well, and whose presence puzzled and unnerved her.

It was Bob Briarson. He was a forensic psychologist who made his living testifying as an expert witness in disability discrimination cases. He was well known in her circles as the most expensive and most valuable expert witness whore in the region. Briarson would testify to anything, given a high enough price. Maxine had used him as a witness in several cases, all of them successful. Despite his rampantly mercenary approach to his craft, Briarson nevertheless won over juries and helped clients win cases with his folksy, easy-to-understand manner. Juries loved him.

Maxine sat uneasily across the table from the three of them, waiting for things to get started.

"Shall we begin?" Arnold asked, his reedy, smarmy voice annoying Maxine like nails on a chalkboard.

"Yes, let's start," said Thomas Wilmore, III, a Dunbar senior partner to Maxine's right. They had agreed, over Maxine's initial objection, that he would take the lead in this mediation, because of his greater emotional distance from the dispute. Maxine gritted her teeth. It was vexing, once again, to be treated as an emotional female by my colleagues. But as the one who had fired Deirdre, she couldn't help but relent at the suggestion to let Thomas take over on the firm's behalf.

Arnold began what obviously was a rehearsed speech.

"Last week, Maxine Milagra, the managing partner of Dunbar, Warshein, and Masterson, without cause, and without any notice or process, purported to terminate the employment of my client, Deirdre Reichert. As all you know, I'm sure, Ms. Reichert had impeccable credentials and her work so far in her brief career at Dunbar—even in the words of Ms. Milagra here—was impeccable."

Thomas interrupted him.

"Arnold, nobody disputes this. For the purposes of this mediation, we will stipulate to Deirdre's qualifications. But she was deliberately, obviously, indisputably exposing her . . . well, you know . . . to other attorneys in the office while sitting in a conference room. That's totally unacceptable. Any firm would be within its rights to fire her, surely."

Arnold drummed his fingers on the table and stared at the attorneys across from him like a patient, predatory lizard.

"Actually, Thomas, that's not true." He turned to his side.

"Bob, why don't you explain?"

Bob Briarson adjusted his tie and cleared his throat.

"Yes, well, I've met with Ms. Reichert for several hours, examined her at length, and subjected her to a battery of tests. And it is my professional opinion that Ms. Reichert has a condition known as irresistible exhibitionism. She is compelled on a regular basis to expose her body. She cannot help it."

"And it is my legal opinion," continued Arnold, "based on Dr. Briarson's expert psychological diagnosis, that Ms. Reichert's condition qualifies as a disability within the meaning of state and federal laws, and that the Dunbar firm therefore has an obligation to provide a reasonable accommodation for her disability."

Maxine could barely contain her outrage and fury.

"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard," she said, hands tightly gripping the edge of the table.

"On the contrary, Maxine," Arnold continued. "My legal opinion is based substantially upon the legal precedent Reese v. Wardell, Equipment, Inc., a case with which, as the successful plaintiff's attorney, you, more than anyone, should be well acquainted."

Maxine hissed. "That case has nothing to do with this."

"Oh, I assure you it does," said Arnold in reply, staring back at Maxine with a cold, satisfied, reptilian smile. "Thanks to that legal precedent, the definition of a qualifying "disability" within the meaning of the law expanded considerably, as did the employer's duty to take reasonable steps to accommodate the disability."

Maxine sat mute. As much as she wanted to dispute what Arnold said, he was right. Her own litigation efforts had significantly broadened the ability of plaintiffs to assert plausible disability claims for conditions not previously recognized as qualifying under the law.

Before she could reply, Thomas patted her hand, in a patronizing manner, signaling he wanted her to let him do the talking.

"Do you have an expert report to share with us?" he said, looking at Bob Briarson.

"We do, as a matter of fact," Arnold replied, pushing a 15-page, stapled paper report across the table to Thomas.

Thomas picked it up and scanned its contents for a minute, before putting it back on the table. He looked up from the table and across the table.

"What does your client want, Arnold?"

"We want Dunbar to rescind its termination of Ms. Reichert's employment, to pay her a reasonable sum for injury to her reputation for Dunbar's unreasonable and negative acts relating to her career, and to make her a reasonable accommodation."

"What do you mean," Thomas asked, "by 'reasonable accommodation?'"

"Just this," Arnold replied, and all Maxine could see was the thin-lipped smile spreading over his face, the rest of him disappearing like the body of the Cheshire cat. "Dunbar must accommodate Ms. Reichert's exhibitionism. To be clear, it must provide a reasonable time and place, during work hours and in the workplace, to display her body. Naked."

Nobody said anything at first. Maxine wanted to throw something, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to throw it more at Arnold or at one of her partners.

Thomas spoke up, finally.

"What if we let her take off her clothes at certain times in her office, with the doors closed?"

"That won't do," said Arnold. "As an exhibitionist, Ms. Reichert must have people look at her. She must have an opportunity to display herself, naked, to others in the office."

"I see," said Thomas. "Why don't you give us 15 minutes to discuss this?"

"Gladly," Arnold said. Arnold, Bob, and Deirdre left the conference room.

After the door closed, Maxine exploded.

"This is complete bullshit!"

She scanned the faces of her three male partners. They revealed nothing.

"You caused this, Maxine," said one of them named Baylen.

"What?" Maxine asked, barely containing her anger.

"You didn't go through the proper procedure," Baylen continued. "You had no authority to fire her on the spot. If we'd handled this the right way, we might not be in the spot."

"But we are in this spot!" Maxine said through clinched teeth. She wanted to add "asshole!" but didn't.

"Yes, we are," said the third partner, Jack, "Because of you. So, what are we going to do about it?"

"We stand on principle," Maxine said. "We don't buckle to this extortion. We stick to our guns."

"Well, that's easy to say, Maxine," Thomas said. "But we have the welfare of the firm, and all the attorneys and staff who depend on it, to think of."

"She IS an excellent attorney, after all," said Jack. "You told me yourself just the other day, Maxine."

"I've seen her work," said Baylen. "She's very talented."

"And a looker, too," said Jack. Baylen and Thomas nodded.

"What the fuck does THAT have to do with?" Maxine asked, furious.

"I'm just saying . . . if we're going to have a naked attorney in the office in the office, she might as well be a good-looking one."

Maxine was fit to burst.

"I cannot believe you are talking this way."

Thomas held up his hand.

"Maxine, we are in a pickle. You fired this smart, lovely young woman without going through our termination processes, which you, as you may remember, were responsible for setting up. If we don't resolve this, Arnold is going to go public. Whether or not he can win his lawsuit, the bad publicity for the firm would be devastating. Can you imagine what our clients will think? We have some conservative clients."

"Can you imagine what our conservative clients will think and do when they find out we have a naked woman attorney working in our office, showing off her you-know-what to everyone who walks by?"

"Well, now," said Baylen, "There's a way of dealing with that, I think."

"What's that?" Maxine asked. She looked at Thomas and Jack. They didn't mirror her skepticism; they looked eager and curious.

"How about setting a time each day for her to work in the conference room on the 34^th floor? It's mostly taken up by the law library and the tech staff, but we could, you know, set up a portion of the hallway with the conference room that would be cordoned off, accessible only by, you know, authorized personnel." He glanced at both Thomas and Jack, who nodded. "She gets her kicks, nobody but some authorized attorneys are the wiser, and we avoid all this unpleasantness."

With disgust, Maxine noticed that both Thomas and Jack were nodding at Jack's proposal.

* * * *

A week later, Deirdre was back in her office. The dispute had been discreetly settled. No lawsuit had been filed, and in exchange, the Dunbar firm had agreed to give Deirdre her office back, paid her a five-figure sum, and agreed to let her exhibit herself for an hour a day in the 34^th floor conference room. It had been a bit tricky figuring out how to pull it off. The firm's management didn't want women associate attorneys or staff members to know what it had agreed to, so it limited access to that portion of the floor to carefully selected male attorneys, who, since Deirdre's return, found reasons to visit that section of the 34^th floor, where they could watch Deirdre doing her work in various stages of undress.

Maxine stewed in her office. Deirdre, her intended protégé, should have been hers, but somehow, everything had gone wrong. Maxine refused to visit the 34^th floor, but she knew that at one point or another most of the firm's male attorneys visited that section of the floor to spy on Deirdre. She knew from reports from one of her inside staffers that in the conference room Deirdre would splay her legs high and wide, revealing everything under her skirt. It drove Maxine crazy to think about it.

Fortunately, she still had her secret cameras to spy on Deirdre in her office. It was 7 pm on a Tuesday evening, and Maxine was staying late to work on a legal brief, and she knew Deirdre would be staying late too to finish research requested by one of her male peers.

With the tap of a few keys, she opened the streaming windows into Deirdre's office. Deirdre sat in her chair, posture upright, in a creamy blouse and a tan skirt. The loveliness of her figure and face, framed in that tight, blond bun of hair and those black sunglasses, made Maxine tingle inside. It should have worked out differently.

In the camera, Maxine noticed Deirdre look up. Somebody had entered her office. Not one person, but three—three young male associate attorneys. She didn't know them well but recognized them as associates in the business acquisitions department. She wondered what they would be doing visiting Deirdre at such a late time of day.

She found out, soon enough. The three men gathered around Deirdre, and she pushed her chair back from her desk.

Deirdre began unbuttoning her blouse. Maxine looked on, incredulous, unable to turn away.

Deirdre pulled her blouse open and unsnapped her bra from the front. Maxine barely stifled a groan when the plump fruit of Deirdre's breasts sprang free. Her desire turned to disgust when the three men drew closer to Deirdre and took turns grabbing and massaging those breasts.

Those should be my hands, Maxine thought.

The men pulled Deirdre out of her chair, and then they were upon her, with their hands, their mouths, their grinding hips. Maxine couldn't stand it, but she couldn't stop watching. Those disgusting male hands fumbled over Deirdre's skirt, until, at last, it lay on the carpet below. Deirdre, of course, wore no panties, so she stood completely naked in her office with the three young men fondling her. Deirdre's labia lay bare, and Maxine looked on, appalled, as the men's hands snaked down her torso and caressed her there.

One of the men hopped up onto Deirdre's desk, and he fished his penis out of his fly. It stood hard and upright, waving at the ceiling. He patted the desk. The other two men lifted Deirdre by the hips and positioned her nude body on top of their colleague's lap. Maxine saw his penis disappear between her legs.

Maxine couldn't stand it, but she couldn't fight her arousal. Her hand disappeared beneath the waistband of her pants, until it touched her vulva.

Maxine groaned.

Meanwhile, Deirdre, seemingly impaled on the cock of her colleague on the desk, lifted her face to the ceiling and closed her eyes and opened her mouth. Maxine had no audio feed, so she could only wonder what noises the four of them were making in the office. The only sound Maxine heard was the sound of her hand on her own pussy.

One of the attorneys unzipped his fly and approached Deirdre from behind. His hands spread Deirdre's ass cheeks open, and his cock disappeared inside the crack between those cheeks.

The other man circled around to the side of the desk, and he too unzipped his pants, and his cock sprang forth. Deirdre, with a cock in her pussy and a cock in her ass, bent down so she could receive the final cock in her mouth.

Maxine, appalled yet fascinated, watched the four-way, spellbound, while her hand moved furiously over her own pussy. She came right away.

"Deirdre, Deirdre," she called to nobody and nothing but the diplomas on her wall as her body shook. "So unfair."

When her body was still, her desire abated, and her resolve stiffened.

She left her office in a fury and took the stair steps three at a time to the floor beneath her.

In a minute she was at the door of Deirdre's office. It was closed, of course.

Maxine threw the door open, to witness the depraved scene of Deirdre moaning with ecstasy as three men plundered her holes.

"Stop this at once!" Maxine cried.

Her order had its effect. All three of the men pulled away from Deirdre, and one of them tripped over a chair and fell to the ground. They looked at Maxine as though stricken. Deirdre looked disappointed.

"Get out of here!" Maxine cried. "Leave and never come back. Now!"

All four of the attorneys fumbled with their clothes, left the office, and retreated from Maxine down the hallway.

* * * *

Two days later, Maxine received another letter. It was addressed to her, and to all the individual members of the firm's managing committee. It was from Arnold DiNovi, demanding another meeting.

Maxine threw it in the waste can, but 15 minutes later Thomas Wilmore III knocked on her door.

* * * *

Three days later, Maxine and her three colleagues sat across the table, once again, from Arnold DiNovi, Deirdre, and Bob Briarson, in a conference room at DiNovi's office. It was all Maxine could do to keep herself calm.

"Arnold," Thomas began. "We agreed to everything you wanted before. But this is too much. Surely, you cannot justify Ms. Reichert's behavior."

"She's turning the office into a brothel," Maxine growled.

"Let me handle this, Maxine," Thomas said, patting her hand. Really, it was insufferable.

"Actually, Thomas," Arnold said, in his most reptilian tone of voice, "We can justify it. Dr. Briarson?"

"After this last episode, I, uh, conducted more tests of Ms. Reichert," Briarson said. "It seems that Ms. Reichert is not just an exhibitionist, but a full-fledged nymphomaniac. To put it simply, she needs sex all the time. She is not able to last the entire workday without it."

Maxine wanted to explode. She wanted to throw a chair at the conference room window. She wanted to take Arnold DiNovi's lizard face in her hands and crush it. It took every drop of self-control she had learned as an attorney to master her wants. She deferred to Thomas, hating herself as she did so.

"I assume you have prepared a report on this . . . condition . . . for us to look at?" he asked.

"Of course," said Arnold, sliding a neatly stapled sheaf of papers across the table.

"Hmmm," said Thomas, without looking at the papers. "What do you want?"

Maxine felt as though she was being stabbed in the gut as Arnold DiNovi described what his client wanted.

Fifteen minutes later, Maxine and her three partners, Thomas, Baylen, and Jack, sat alone in the conference room to discuss what had been proposed.

"We can't do this," Maxine said. "We must draw the line. This is insane. He wants us to give his client—this . . . woman—the right to expose her body and to have sex with other attorneys in the office. It's nuts. Please tell me we cannot take this seriously."

Silence.

Thomas broke the silence.

"What's sane and what's insane, Maxine? As attorneys, we must consider that if there's a reasonable prospect that the law will recognize Ms. Reichert's claims, then her position is sane. I don't want to rub this in, but as you know, you helped create the legal landscape that makes these claims . . . at least plausible."

"Bullshit," Maxine said.

"That's not your most measured legal judgment, Maxine," Jack said. He turned to his two male colleagues.

"You know, there might be an upside to this."

Maxine looked aghast. Thomas and Baylen looked at Jack curiously.

"Just hear me out," Jack said. "We have a lot of attorneys working long hours. They're not getting home to their wives. They're frustrated. Their frustration might . . . negatively impact their performance. Maybe Ms. Reichert's . . . condition . . . is a solution. Kill multiple birds with one stone. I'm just saying."

Thomas and Baylen nodded.

"You're saying a sexually satisfied attorney is a more productive attorney," Thomas said.