Richard Hale had filed a formal motion in limine to exclude every accounting schedule I’d submitted to the clerk.

The motion argued that my wire transfer summaries broke the court’s discovery rules because they hadn’t been independently certified by a licensed accounting firm.

If Judge Whitmore granted Hale’s motion on Thursday afternoon, three months of hand-built compliance audit work would be tossed out before the trial even started.

I sat down at my little dining table and got out the yellow audit ledger.

I pressed my thumb to the inside of my wrist as I reworked the wire columns down the right margin.