Short answer is yes, Howard can make him do that. As a partner at a firm, Chuck is required to bring any potential clients to the firm first. He can only work on the case if the firm refuses the clients and consents to his involvement, and even then Chuck can only work on it if it doesn't interfere with his duties…

True. Although depending on the nature of any conflict, Chuck could conceivably argue, particularly given his sabbatical, that he's been sufficiently quarantined such that the firm conflict doesn't apply. I don't think that flies under normal circumstances for a partner, but Chuck's circumstances are hardly normal.

I kind of see it differently. Chuck is indifferent because he is the resident rainmaker and legal genius. He's never had to get down in the trenches and bother with the petty office politics because he IS the firm. He's been in the ivory tower of his corner office for so long that he probably barely even notices…

I think Chuck probably believes he can bring it to HHM and keep Jimmy on board working on it. He would actually be pretty good in a client liaison/legal grunt work/document review capacity, and I think Chuck sees that. I think Jimmy knows his place well enough to know that the heavy lifting - court appearances,…

I'd actually be curious to know if Sandpiper's attorneys would (or could) be called to testify as to what transpired at that meeting in a breach-of-contract proceeding. It's not privileged per se, but you could make a pretty strong case that it damages Sandpiper's interests to have the substance of a settlement…

OED lists ducket as a variant form of ducat.

Nothing worse than diving into what you thought was a dumpster, only to find out later it was a TrashCo. Waste Disposal Unit.

I suspect it's that Howard is insanely jealous of Chuck, and has no way to stick it to him other than being as big a dick as possible to Jimmy. He doesn't give a rats ass about Jimmy, but he's no doubt hated that he had to hire on Chuck's brother. He knew exactly what he was doing by going down to the mail room for…

But is he doing anything unethical? At this stage, Chuck can still reasonably claim he's simply acting as an advisor to Jimmy. The meeting with Sandpiper's attorneys makes that claim difficult to defend, sure, but until an actual filing shows up with Chuck's signature on it, the clients and therefore the case are…

It will be accidentally on purpose. There's no way 2 people can handle the work involved in a case like this. Chuck knows this. Poor Jimmy is too blinded by the fact that his brother seemingly wants to work with him, giving him the validation he has been craving from Chuck ever since he came back.

In the middle of the night, probably not. I don't think his office had a computer, let alone a printer. I guess it could have waited until morning, but there aren't a whole lot of places you can go and print out 1,000+ pages of case law. Not to mention, it's 2002 - there's no convenient way to get that many pages…

We've plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence.

He took a fee for laundering money through Walt Jr.'s website with the aid of hacker friends. Money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He also solicits much larger fees from Jesse for laundering through the nail salon or laser tag center, though neither comes to fruition. That might not…

Really crappy shredders manufactured in the 1990s might have. Hell, my little home shredder makes ribbons that wide; but it also crosscuts. I think non-crosscutting shredders really do produce ribbons like that. And maybe I'm just exceptionally good at matching patterns, but I think that given a rudimentary grouping…

One time where it definitely doesn't pay to be all about that bass.

In retrospect, I think this is what made this scene work so well. My initial reaction was that Chuck was going outside on one of his tolerance-building excursions, perhaps to test if he could withstand the EM fields outside and still focus on work, but the way the camera followed him, they framed it like something…

He didn't just go outside, he walked up to the mailbox, filthy with EM fields, and grabbed a remote opener which he operated to open the car. And was right under power lines.

I think it's very likely that Chuck is angling to get this to HHM. He and Jimmy couldn't possibly handle a case of this magnitude on their own, when you're talking the kind of discovery necessary to prove fraud against an entire class of people. They need HHM. Jimmy is not going to like that, particularly since…

I don't know, you start going around telling seniors and, more importantly, the families looking to inherit their money that Sandpiper has been skimming hundreds a month from their savings, you're going to drum up a lot of interested parties. And if you can get a class of plaintiffs certified, you don't even need to…

That'll give us a richer harmony.