While I was at it, I pulled out Darren’s file, as well, and discovered he was also going to be fired. Except that in his case they had hard evidence that he really had been doing consulting work for other clients. Worse, he had been doing it on law firm time. It seemed like I had been painted with the same brush. They knew he had been breaking the rules, and apparently assumed, even without any hard evidence, that I probably had been, too.