Chapter 4

It had been a while since Steve Casey watched Kevin Reeves walk out of his office thinking he had just shaken hands with a young man who had the possibility of becoming a billionaire. He remembered what followed after his having those thoughts about Kevin. If Steve’s prediction of what this innovation Kevin had come up with to extend the driving range of an EV was adopted by the automobile manufacturers, they would be paying Kevin handsome leasing fees for installing Kevin’s innovation. Steve also mentally computed what his ten percent of this invention could amount for him and couldn’t help but have a big smile on his face. He needed to do the work to have Kevin’s idea patented before someone else came up with the same idea.

Steve phoned Perry Landers a retired draftsman, and said he would be over shortly to give him photos of something he needed to have him sketch out. That sketch would be attached to the patent applications. Perry said he was going to be home all day and it wouldn’t hurt if Steve would stop by Manny’s on his way over and pick up some corn beef sandwiches.

That was an excellent suggestion thought Steve and he made it a point to get to Manny’s before the large lunch crowd would normally be there.

In dropping off copies of the pictures he took of Kevin’s invention along with the sandwiches at Perry’s, Steve took the time to explain to him what these pictures showed. There was also time to do a little kibitzing with Perry before Steve headed back to the office.

At the office, he started to fill out the applications for the patents he was going to apply for in a number of countries. While the forms differed slightly for each country, it was a similar procedure to apply for these patents. Steve used the translator program on his PC to translate what he wrote into the language of the country he was applying for the patent. He was also going to apply to China for a patent but had the thought that doing that would probably be an exercise in futility. There was some time, effort, and expense involved, in doing and submitting these patent applications for Kevin Reeves, but from what Steve envision, he thought it was going to be well worth the effort to do it.

Steve had graduated from UT Austin with a mechanical engineering degree. He attended law school at UT intending to become a patent attorney. He decided to do that after his perusal of the Yellow Pages in regard to patent attorneys showed only a few listed. He thought this was an area he could do his practice of law in and one that would be profitable.

While in law school he became friends with Anthony Jenkins, or Tony as he was called. Tony was a nice guy whose goal was to become a trial attorney. Tony’s father was an attorney and was not in good health because of suffering three heart attacks. The father told Tony that once he graduated and passed the bar, he was giving Tony the law practice and the father was retiring.

Because of the friendship that developed between Steve and Tony, they decided to form a law practice. It was just after one month that they started their law firm that Tony’s father passed away because of having another heart attack.

Over the years, their law practice grew to where it was comprised of ten lawyers and the support staff. The predominant big hitter of the firm was Tony who was good in the courtroom in front of a jury. He was able to receive sizeable injury damage awards. Steve was successful in having a smaller but growing patent application practice. Besides those areas, they had associates who handled property and estate law.

Steve had a few clients who agreed to have Steve’s fee in applying for a patent be a percentage of what the approved patent would generate in the way of funds. This one with Kevin Reeves came at an opportune time in Steve’s life as he thought it would be the big moneymaker he needed for a number of reasons.

While his law practice was going well, that had not carried over to how Steve’s personal life had developed. Steve had married Claudia Sterling two years after of law school. She was a beautiful lady who attracted Steve. The first couple of years were enjoyable but over time Steve learned the hard lesson that there needed to be more in a marriage other than physical attraction for a marriage to last. It was in the sixth year of their marriage that Claudia brought up the subject of their getting a divorce. Per her suggestion they had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for the past five months before she mentioned divorce. She said she had met someone she loved and was looking to become this person’s marriage partner.

Steve agreed to the divorce which gave Claudia a good portion of their wealth. He at times laughs to himself thinking, “It could have been worse.” That would have happened if she had wanted a share of his law practice.

The time following the divorce was a lonely time in Steve’s life when it came to female companionship. While he did meet women both in his work and in his social activity, he was leery of developing more than a social relationship with any of them. He thought and maybe rightly so, that they were looking for a “sugar daddy” and Steve was it.

That changed when Lorrie Collier, his legal secretary gave her notice that she was leaving the law firm because of a promotion her husband had received at his work. They were moving to Atlanta, Georgia. Steve told her she was going to be missed and not to hesitate to use him for a reference if she ever needed one.

Lorrie told him she would do that and also said that she would recommend Amy Talcott, a friend of hers who was a legal secretary at another law firm to replace her. Amy she said was looking to leave where she was working because the attorney’s wife that Amy was working for was extremely jealous because of Amy’s good looks which were causing problems. Lorrie said she would give her strongest recommendation for Amy to replace her.

What Lorrie said about Amy caught Steve’s interest. He was aware that there could be problems among the support staff if Lorrie wasn’t replaced by someone from the present staff. That was because Steve’s and Tony’s legal secretary positions were considered to be the two highest paying positions in the office for non-attorneys.

Steve made a decision and he asked Lorrie to set up an interview with Amy. He now almost breaks his arm patting himself on the back for asking her to do that. He feels that way because Amy by any stretch of the imagination was drop-dead-gorgeous and he was not the only person who had that opinion. He could tell by how the women and the men in the office reacted to seeing Amy when she first came into Steve’s office.

Steve knew without Amy saying a word that he was going to hire her. He also knew because of his marriage experience that he needed to be careful and not have Amy’s attractiveness cloud his judgment. The interview went fine and he offered her the position of being his legal secretary which she accepted.

In a short time, he found out that Amy was more than just a pretty face. She was an intelligent and a highly organized individual which caused her to become a valued employee. She was all an attorney would want in a legal secretary.