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organic, but I’ll need a list of the chemicals you use on the oranges before I contract.”
    “And I’ll need a down payment on the order. After all, we ship most of our oranges up north, and we have standing contracts already. If you want to reserve a portion of the crop, you need to act quickly.”
    “Fine, you get that list of chemicals and I’ll bring my checkbook.”
    With that exchange of lies and fraud-in-the-making, we hung up the phone. I debated the wisdom of sweet-talking Olivia into running out to Sugar Bowl Road and leaving a bad check in exchange for a list of chemicals, but a list obtained that way wouldn’t be admissible into evidence at the trial, and, anyway, already I could tell Rayford Clothier was the sort who’d lie. So for half a second, I wondered how long he’d wait for me and my checkbook, then I went back to work.
    Being the List Queen of the law firm, I listed the things I wanted to know: all about Delilah Groves, Rayford the suave owner, phosphogypsum as fertilizer, and other such things, and then I listed the legal issues, which all pretty much turned out to be First Amendment questions. Because I hadn’t been a star student in constitutional law in law school, I was going to need help—especially since this was either a reduced-fee or a pro bono case. One of the unwritten rules of the successful maintenance of a partnership in a law firm is this: delegate any project that doesn’t earn big bucks. That meant law clerks. And law clerks, those entry-level peons who toiled in the library hoping to be noticed and promoted, meant a chance for error.
    To cut that distinct possibility for mistakes, I decided I’d put two of them on the case, and pit them against each other.
    With that plan in mind, I marched into the library, where, despite the bright, sunny Saturday, all the law clerks at Smith, O’Leary, and Stanley, were shoulder deep in fine print.
    Everybody looked up when I came into the library.
    “Anybody in here make an A in constitutional law?”
    Everybody looked down.
    Okay, next round. “Anybody make a B in constitutional law?”
    Two heads popped up, the rest looked farther down. One of the heads belonged to a young woman, who quickly asked, “Do you mean both semesters? Or would one B do?”
    The popped-up head that belonged to a young man retorted, “I got a B one semester also.”
    Oh, good, competition already.
    “Fine. If you two would come with me to my office.”
    They both hopped up, and I stood back and gestured that they should go in front of me. As they walked past me, I studied them for telltale hints of character traits that might suggest some competency.
    The woman, who was elegant to the point of irritation, looked like a young Whitney Houston. The man, with his sharp, pointed face and manic gestures, reminded me of a Jack Russell terrier.
    Once seated in my office, they introduced themselves and then both listened as I explained my basic queries—whether I could successfully defend Miguel and Angus against orange-defamation charges by claiming they had a First Amendment right to speak on what was surely considered a public issue? Would the New York Times v. Sullivan standard of willful malice apply? Was the veggie-defamation statute unconstitutional on the face of it, et cetera, et cetera.
    Okay, the real query was, could I win quickly (read: cheaply) with a motion to dismiss on First Amendment grounds, but I had to throw out a lot of big words in the process of asking that question to indicate that I might know what I was talking about. I shoved a copy of the complaint at Jack Russell and a copy of my list of legal issues at Whitney Houston and told them to make copies, return the originals, and get cracking.
    “You want us both working on the same issues?” Jack asked, a hint of a yippy quality to his voice.
    “Yes, this is very important, very important, big clients, and we need to know absolutely everything we can—state law and federal law. Very