“Binding Arbitration” (S02E09)

Big Head finds a prototype Nucleus phone left behind at a bar by the “brogrammers” and, stunned at how bad Nucleus really is, provides it to Richard to use as leverage against Belson as thanks for helping him advance at Hooli. It is revealed that all of Pied Piper’s new developers quit and Richard has low hopes for the company’s survival. After negotiations, aided by their lawyers, Belson agrees to drop the lawsuit in favor of binding arbitration to prevent the press from finding out about the phone. Ron suggests disbarred lawyer Pete Monahan to represent them, who is willing to work on spec because he is no longer allowed to practice law in a real court due to suspected sex crimes. During discovery, Monahan discovers that Richard had used a Hooli computer to run a single test of Pied Piper while his personal laptop was being repaired, which is referred to as his “girlfriend”. Per the terms of Richard’s employment contract, that would mean that Hooli owns the rights to Pied Piper. At the arbitration, Hooli’s lawyers don’t appear to have a real case, and instead try to build up Big Head as the modest genius who actually invented Pied Piper. However, an unintentional slip by Bachman leads Hooli to realize that the “girlfriend” that Richard said in his emails that he had “dropped off at the Apple store” was actually his laptop, meaning that he must’ve used a Hooli computer. Hooli calls Richard as a witness and, unwilling to lie under oath, Richard admits that he used a Hooli computer. Meanwhile, the museum providing the video of the condor egg decides to remove the camera due to low viewership numbers, but the technician taking it down falls and becomes trapped with the camera in a ravine. Suddenly, viewership of the feed spikes while the team awaits the results of the arbitration.