On one hand Katie was happy to depart San Francisco. She’d had quite enough of the conspiratorial shenanigans. Sara Keating, and most of all Harry Harmer, who had scared the wits out of her before revealing in that hotel lobby that he was part of the coup, had kept her stressed and on edge for days.
She had not slept well since arriving in California and especially so the night before the legal tech conference. It felt like she had stumbled, semi-comatose through her panel role, although people came up to her afterward to congratulate her on the shared insights.
For some reason she had kept saying ‘A great change is coming, a great change is coming’. This raised eyebrows, but clearly some in the audience had liked the message. Katie replied to them that it was just a side-effect of having three double-espressos before walking on stage.
And on the other hand, she so wished she could stay out here on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. There was so much to see and explore. Even though she had been visiting the state since her early 20s, it still felt like she had only seen a small portion of this incredible region, which stretched from wild deserts, to snow-capped mountains, to glorious beaches, to amazing food markets, to cutting edge AI company bases, and a lot more besides.
‘Ah…..’ she sighed wistfully, and then also a little bit sardonically as she found her seat….
….in Economy.
‘Wow, thanks Smyth & Marmalade,’ she whispered as she stowed her things and strapped in for the long flight back. ‘You really know how to treat your people.’
A young lady arrived and sat next to her. They smiled at each other, but didn’t speak. Katie – exhausted by the last few days – closed her eyes and dozed until the first meal arrived. After that she felt a little more alive and noticed that her neighbour was looking at her knowingly.
‘I hope you don’t mind, but aren’t you Katherine Downer? I think I saw you at the conference.’
Katie was looking a bit different today. Gone was the business attire, now replaced with an old tracksuit and with her hair pulled back, fastened with a scrunchy.
‘Yep, that was me blabbering on stage,’ she replied, a little shy about the attention, but also quite flattered that someone had noticed.
‘I thought it was a great panel and I agree. You said: ‘There are firms with believers and there are firms who see AI as just another marketing game.’ You are so right,’ said the woman. ‘I’m Amita, by the way.’
After that they slipped into an easy conversation about all things legal tech. Katie was glad to just talk about something she didn’t need to be too guarded about and Amita was full of perceptive questions informed from years working in legal innovation roles at law firms in Mumbai.
Their conversation reached a natural lull as drinks were served. Both took a ‘why not?’ approach and accepted two mini-bottles each of the just about drinkable Chardonnay.
After a few sips, Amita had another question: ‘How did you end up in legal tech? You mentioned at the start of the panel that you were an M&A lawyer in a big firm.’
Katie was going to dodge the subject, but then considered that they had about another eight hours to go with very little prospect of sleep.
‘OK, you asked for it though,’ she began and gave her a wry smile.
Her first experience of ‘a lawyer’ was her aunt Glenda, who she idolised. Her mother’s sister was wildly glamourous for a young person growing up amid the quiet farming communities of Norfolk.
Glenda was mostly based in Cambridge, but her firm’s HQ was in the City of London. She worked with technology and pharmaceutical companies, and always seemed to be in the middle of a life-or-death deal.
She chain-smoked, swore like a trooper, and drank a bit too much. She also told the naughtiest jokes. Glenda was so full of life. People loved or hated her, but never left without an opinion of her one way or the other.
She always seemed to be incredibly excited about something, or on the point of exploding with rage at a subordinate, or a lawyer on the other side of the deal. Katie knew this because Glenda was perpetually glued to her phone when she came to visit, and when not speaking directly to someone on it gave a running commentary to anyone within earshot that the person on the other end of the line was an imbecile, or an ‘absolute angel!’ It was always one or the other.
That said, none of the negativity was ever directed at Katie, whom she adored.
When she was very small Katie mostly focused on the fact that Glenda, unlike her mother, or anyone else she knew, was permanently loaded with the most startling jewellery: huge pearl necklaces, chunky diamonds, dress rings sporting rare gems. And then the shoes! To a young Katie she seemed like someone straight from TV.
Her father was far less in awe. One day she heard him making a joke to her mother that ‘Glenda certainly wears her profits on her sleeve!’. She hadn’t understood the comment back then. Later she did, but didn’t care. Glenda was amazing. So what if she was loud in every sense of the word?
One Christmas – between another of her divorces – Glenda came to stay, or rather to work while her latest ex-partner was kicked out of her home.
As always, almost the entire time she was on her mobile. ‘In the middle of a big deal!’ she had whispered to Katie, then a teenager, as she chain-smoked and yelled through a transaction so important that she’d made sure her team of associates were in the office all through the holidays.
Her parents had not appreciated what they saw as her ever-increasing rude behaviour. It’s Christmas, her mother kept saying, as if that would make any difference to Glenda. When she answered a call just as the turkey was about to be carved, her father finally lost his temper. Plenty of shouting followed, then there was a seismic slamming of the front door, and Katie didn’t see Glenda again for several years.
One day she arrived out of the blue at her digs at university and took her to lunch at a super-posh restaurant only the dons usually went to. There had been another divorce, she had lived in Spain for a while, life was messy, but very exciting still.
‘So, what do you think you’ll do?’ her aunt asked.
‘I have no idea. But I was thinking about becoming a lawyer.’
Glenda had liked that answer a lot. It was only after she had qualified as a solicitor and was a few months into her first year as ‘a real lawyer’, that it struck Katie that she didn’t want to be one. Not really.
Talking one Sunday afternoon with her soon to be husband, she had pondered how one could work so hard to enter a profession that if you were frank about it, you’d have to say you really had no passion for. Yes, the pay was good and all that, but she was not, at least at this stage in her life, going to make life choices just for money. There were student debts, a future mortgage to save for, indeed. But, that could wait, she told herself.
Her proto-husband, Toby, had not needed to ruminate on that for long. He chuckled at her apparent lack of self-awareness. ‘It’s Glenda. You know, you talk about her more than your own parents.’
That was when it hit her, she had not been that interested in the law – it was intellectually stimulating for sure – but her heart was not in it. It had been the excitement that her aunt had permanently exuded that had acted as the magnet. This image she projected of always being in the middle of something very, very important. That was what had attracted her.
She also noted now – after all this time – that Glenda herself had not once mentioned an interest in the law. It was ‘the deal’ – always winning in a negotiation, that she was focused on. Toby observed that although he had never met her, it seemed like she could have been a tour-de-force in any sector, a deal-maker whether she had been in the law, banking, or any other area.
That in turn led Katie into further soul searching. She wasn’t that excited about doing deals either, if she were honest with herself. Sitting at her desk at midnight on a Friday, proof-reading a 300-page document for the fifth time (just to assuage a more senior associate’s paranoia) had not yet made her feel any great sense of excitement.
Plus, she had to admit she had not met a single person anywhere close to Glenda’s personality so far. She’d heard rumours of ‘old-timers’ at the firm who had been like her: screaming obscenities at staff and with the distinct odour of vodka on their breath from lunchtime onwards, but if there were still partners like that at the firm they had never crossed her path.
Toby suggested that the reality was that these ‘larger than life characters’ had slowly faded out from the City of London, at least among the large law firms. HR, compliance and firms’ fear of getting into trouble had slowly driven them away, into retirement, into consulting jobs, or niche firms that would put up with their behaviour.
And then one afternoon, a few weeks later, it finally dawned on her: she had become a lawyer in part to annoy her parents, who since that Christmas all those years ago had made it clear they never wanted to see Glenda again.
Toby, to her surprise, nodded in agreement: ‘You know, ever since we first met, you’ve never once said a nice word about the day job. You’re very professional. You do what needs to be done. And do it well. But, that’s it. It’s like you’re working undercover.’
She had resigned the next day.
Amita didn’t seem that surprised. ‘The reasons why we become what we become….’ she said, half to herself. ‘But, the thing is that if we continue in our madness then eventually we find the right path.’
Katie agreed. She had eventually found her path, which to her surprise was legal technology, an area she had never considered before, and one for which there was no particular influence. Yes, her aunt had done deals for tech companies, but that was of no consequence. They could have been selling sausages. Only the deal itself was worthy of her aunt’s attention.
Once Katie had resigned, the partner who she was most familiar with in her practice group made it clear the firm didn’t want to lose her. They were just starting to build a group around ‘innovation’, and needed people who had been lawyers and who knew something about the complex realities of working on major deals.
‘But, I can barely get my laptop to start. I know nothing about technology.’
‘Don’t worry, we’re looking for people with an entirely fresh perspective. You’ll be wonderful.’
That was back in 2015. Eleven years later, here she was, apparently at the top of the game. Plus of course, now part of a coup and helping to plot a global merger with an AI-focused American law firm, all behind the managing partner’s back – something that if things went wrong, would result in her immediate termination, and potentially end any chance of her working with a major law firm ever again.
‘So, are you still enjoying the job?’ Amita asked, a bit concerned at the expression on Katie’s face.
‘Oh yes,’ Katie replied with a sudden grin. ‘I’m having the time of my life!’
—
Previous Chapters of ‘The Innovators’
- Part 5 – The Conference
- Part 4 – ‘Civil War’
- Part 3 – ‘Press Conference’
- Part 2 – ‘Project Rubicon’
- Part 1 – Introduction
[ Copyright © 2026, Richard Tromans, Published by Artificial Lawyer Limited in the U.K. All rights reserved. This work of fiction may not be republished or reproduced without permission. The moral right of the author has been asserted. All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to any persons living, dead, or virtual, is purely coincidental. ]
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