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Five-day trial. I knew it was going to be difficult with She Who Must Not Be Named (who, in various email exchanges with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brumeier and work G-chat messages with a faithful and supportive secretary, became Lady Voldemort and finally Lady V). I didn't think it was going to devolve into the circus it finally did devolve into, because I honestly didn't think people did that in real life.
Turns out, they do.
So, without further ado, some pro tips for the next time any of you go to trial:
1 - Discovery should be disclosed by the appropriate discovery deadline. In the event that someone does not disclose by the appropriate deadline, but instead dumps a 3-inch binder of evidence on you the first day of trial, the appropriate thing to do is to take it home and review it that night, before the next day of trial. Whining about not having seen a piece of evidence does not make the judge feel sympathetic for you or convince the judge that your interpretation of the facts is more meritorious. Arguing with the other attorneys about whether or not a piece of evidence in your binder was disclosed in a previous proceeding is also not helpful to your case. When the judge informs the attorneys that any evidence used at trial should be exchanged during discovery, continuing to argue that you disclosed pieces of evidence at prior proceedings is not helpful to your case. (Whisper-screaming to your poor paralegal to find out when things were filed is also not helpful to your case.) Whining that you haven't seen a piece of evidence on any day after the first day of trial when you had time to review the other parties' evidence binders does not make the judge feel sympathetic to your side. It just makes you look lazy and unprepared.
2 - Sending an email to a non-retained expert witness the night before she is supposed to testify and basically saying that you'll do everything to ensure she loses her professional license and her job if she testifies is, in fact, witness tampering. Don't do it. And don't have the gall to tell the judge you weren't trying to intimidate her. Sending the email to the witness without copying the other attorneys in the trial is poor form. In the middle of a trial. Also, telling the judge that you were just reiterating your concerns about the parameters of her testimony makes you look even worse. If you've told the witness your concerns beforethreatened to get her fired before then why did you feel the need to do so again the night before she testified?
3 - Shouting at a poor, innocent pediatrician while he's simply testifying about his medical care for a child - and the fact that you might have called his office the Friday before trial and screamed at his office manager - is unprofessional. Especially when you're supposed to be asking him questions. As soon as you're arguing with a witness, you've lost control of the witness examination.
4 - You know you're in trouble when the judge summons all counsel to the bench and tells off you and only you for being unprofessional.
5 - Not knowing the names of your own witnesses before you call them is a sign that you're unprofessional, unprepared, and likely did not disclose them to the other parties before calling them. Be more subtle about asking your client a witness's name before calling them. At least do it where the judge cannot hear you.
6 - Having your client get on the stand and be irrationally critical of someone who does the same job that the judge used to do before she became a judge does not help your case.
7 - When the other attorneys don't ask your witness any questions, you haven't won or scored a huge point. The other attorneys know your witness did nothing for your case and consider their testimony incredible and also irrelevant.
8 - Having your client get on the stand and slander the judge who previously had the case, in front of a judge who likely knows and likes the previous judge, does not help your case. It makes your client look irrational and also possibly stupid.
9 - When your client gets on the stand and declares her distrust of a respected professional because she read something about them on Google that makes her distrust them, especially when said item she read on Google is untrue, makes her look irrational and, again, possibly stupid.
10 - know the rules of evidence. Know what hearsay is. Know what leading a witness is. P.S. If the other lawyer got away with it, it wasn't because his questions weren't leading or invoking of hearsay, it's because no one objected. If you're generally a whiny and disrespectful person to the other attorneys, do not be surprised when they object to you leading a witness and asking questions that invite hearsay responses. Also, evidence is cumulative if a witness has testified to it before, even if it's not the witness you currently have on the stand or even if it wasn't you asking the question. Whining that you didn't get to ask the witness a specific question makes you look, well, whiny.
11 - It's a bad sign when both of the other attorneys object to your question at the same time for the same thing.
12 - when the judge tells you to move on from a line of questioning, do not continue to pursue the line of questioning.
13 - you look stupid and unprepared when you have two people helping you but you cannot keep up with the exhibits and evidence while the attorney who is by herself and taking copious notes can keep up with exhibits and evidence.
14 - when an attorney makes an objection and the judge sustains it, do not turn around and then bicker with the attorney because she made an objection. If the judge sustained the objection, what you did was objectionable. Move on. If you lose whole tracts of evidence because a single objection was sustained, you were not prepared enough. Always make sure there's at least two ways to get a piece of evidence in.
15 - also, LISTEN. To what the other attorneys say to you. To the questions asked. To the answers given. Do not think you can get away with misrepresenting what another attorney said in open court, especially if that attorney is right there and the other attorney witnessed what was actually said.
16 - Repeatedly protesting that this is only your third trial ever, you're working for free, and apologizing for the poor quality of your trial prep does not make you more sympathetic or make the judge more inclined to feel sympathy for you and your client. It doesn't even make the other attorneys less inclined to object vigorously when you do objectionable things. Also, if the attorneys don't object, it's either not worth it, or they're letting you hang yourself with your own rope.
17 - Strongly discourage your witnesses, your client, and her "supportive" relatives from engaging in theft right outside the courthouse and across the street from the police/fire station.
18 - if your witnesses are going to scream at a witness called by the other side, at least make sure that they wait till the judge's bailiff is not within earshot of the witness being intimidated.
19 - make sure your witnesses are not stoned, high, or otherwise under the influence before they testify, especially with a judge who used to be a law guardian, because they can spot that kind of thing.
20 - if your witnesses are going to call other witnesses liars, at least make sure there's some kind of rational basis for those other witnesses to be lying, or else your witnesses look paranoid and irrational and also untrustworthy.
On top of five days of trial, me hauling around massive evidence binders, typing notes for hours on end, and spending hours and hours being angry and frustrated at the total insanity that was this trial (witness tampering! attorneys arguing and being unprofessional in open court! one side stealing from the other side!), my poor husband had to write a paper and deliver a presentation to his dissertation committee, so we barely saw each other. He'd go to the lab after dinner, I'd go to bed, I'd get up in the morning when he was going to bed, and we were both stressed out and strung out and crazy. Not good. I still have to write my closing. I've got the bare bones of an outline done, and a pancake effort at some more substantive arguments, but I need to go and fill in the law and the facts and re-organize it, so it sounds rational.
Had some fun times this week, though. Baked cookies with the cub scouts. Went dancing. Went shopping and out to dinner with a friend. Experimented with choreographing a duet dance, maybe for a later show. Good times!
Back to the regular grindstone this week.
That one dude attorney turned out to be pretty friendly. I let him get away with a lot of objectionable stuff because we had the same goal, which sets a bit of a bad precedent between us, but I think now that he knows I'm not stupid and also not a pushover, we'll have a better working relationship going forward. I honestly think She Who Must Not Be Named is probably a fun, nice person when we're not in trial or involved in a case that triggers something super crazy in her. But I think it would take a lot for me to like her after what has happened over the past two years.
brumeier and work G-chat messages with a faithful and supportive secretary, became Lady Voldemort and finally Lady V). I didn't think it was going to devolve into the circus it finally did devolve into, because I honestly didn't think people did that in real life.Turns out, they do.
So, without further ado, some pro tips for the next time any of you go to trial:
1 - Discovery should be disclosed by the appropriate discovery deadline. In the event that someone does not disclose by the appropriate deadline, but instead dumps a 3-inch binder of evidence on you the first day of trial, the appropriate thing to do is to take it home and review it that night, before the next day of trial. Whining about not having seen a piece of evidence does not make the judge feel sympathetic for you or convince the judge that your interpretation of the facts is more meritorious. Arguing with the other attorneys about whether or not a piece of evidence in your binder was disclosed in a previous proceeding is also not helpful to your case. When the judge informs the attorneys that any evidence used at trial should be exchanged during discovery, continuing to argue that you disclosed pieces of evidence at prior proceedings is not helpful to your case. (Whisper-screaming to your poor paralegal to find out when things were filed is also not helpful to your case.) Whining that you haven't seen a piece of evidence on any day after the first day of trial when you had time to review the other parties' evidence binders does not make the judge feel sympathetic to your side. It just makes you look lazy and unprepared.
2 - Sending an email to a non-retained expert witness the night before she is supposed to testify and basically saying that you'll do everything to ensure she loses her professional license and her job if she testifies is, in fact, witness tampering. Don't do it. And don't have the gall to tell the judge you weren't trying to intimidate her. Sending the email to the witness without copying the other attorneys in the trial is poor form. In the middle of a trial. Also, telling the judge that you were just reiterating your concerns about the parameters of her testimony makes you look even worse. If you've told the witness your concerns before
3 - Shouting at a poor, innocent pediatrician while he's simply testifying about his medical care for a child - and the fact that you might have called his office the Friday before trial and screamed at his office manager - is unprofessional. Especially when you're supposed to be asking him questions. As soon as you're arguing with a witness, you've lost control of the witness examination.
4 - You know you're in trouble when the judge summons all counsel to the bench and tells off you and only you for being unprofessional.
5 - Not knowing the names of your own witnesses before you call them is a sign that you're unprofessional, unprepared, and likely did not disclose them to the other parties before calling them. Be more subtle about asking your client a witness's name before calling them. At least do it where the judge cannot hear you.
6 - Having your client get on the stand and be irrationally critical of someone who does the same job that the judge used to do before she became a judge does not help your case.
7 - When the other attorneys don't ask your witness any questions, you haven't won or scored a huge point. The other attorneys know your witness did nothing for your case and consider their testimony incredible and also irrelevant.
8 - Having your client get on the stand and slander the judge who previously had the case, in front of a judge who likely knows and likes the previous judge, does not help your case. It makes your client look irrational and also possibly stupid.
9 - When your client gets on the stand and declares her distrust of a respected professional because she read something about them on Google that makes her distrust them, especially when said item she read on Google is untrue, makes her look irrational and, again, possibly stupid.
10 - know the rules of evidence. Know what hearsay is. Know what leading a witness is. P.S. If the other lawyer got away with it, it wasn't because his questions weren't leading or invoking of hearsay, it's because no one objected. If you're generally a whiny and disrespectful person to the other attorneys, do not be surprised when they object to you leading a witness and asking questions that invite hearsay responses. Also, evidence is cumulative if a witness has testified to it before, even if it's not the witness you currently have on the stand or even if it wasn't you asking the question. Whining that you didn't get to ask the witness a specific question makes you look, well, whiny.
11 - It's a bad sign when both of the other attorneys object to your question at the same time for the same thing.
12 - when the judge tells you to move on from a line of questioning, do not continue to pursue the line of questioning.
13 - you look stupid and unprepared when you have two people helping you but you cannot keep up with the exhibits and evidence while the attorney who is by herself and taking copious notes can keep up with exhibits and evidence.
14 - when an attorney makes an objection and the judge sustains it, do not turn around and then bicker with the attorney because she made an objection. If the judge sustained the objection, what you did was objectionable. Move on. If you lose whole tracts of evidence because a single objection was sustained, you were not prepared enough. Always make sure there's at least two ways to get a piece of evidence in.
15 - also, LISTEN. To what the other attorneys say to you. To the questions asked. To the answers given. Do not think you can get away with misrepresenting what another attorney said in open court, especially if that attorney is right there and the other attorney witnessed what was actually said.
16 - Repeatedly protesting that this is only your third trial ever, you're working for free, and apologizing for the poor quality of your trial prep does not make you more sympathetic or make the judge more inclined to feel sympathy for you and your client. It doesn't even make the other attorneys less inclined to object vigorously when you do objectionable things. Also, if the attorneys don't object, it's either not worth it, or they're letting you hang yourself with your own rope.
17 - Strongly discourage your witnesses, your client, and her "supportive" relatives from engaging in theft right outside the courthouse and across the street from the police/fire station.
18 - if your witnesses are going to scream at a witness called by the other side, at least make sure that they wait till the judge's bailiff is not within earshot of the witness being intimidated.
19 - make sure your witnesses are not stoned, high, or otherwise under the influence before they testify, especially with a judge who used to be a law guardian, because they can spot that kind of thing.
20 - if your witnesses are going to call other witnesses liars, at least make sure there's some kind of rational basis for those other witnesses to be lying, or else your witnesses look paranoid and irrational and also untrustworthy.
On top of five days of trial, me hauling around massive evidence binders, typing notes for hours on end, and spending hours and hours being angry and frustrated at the total insanity that was this trial (witness tampering! attorneys arguing and being unprofessional in open court! one side stealing from the other side!), my poor husband had to write a paper and deliver a presentation to his dissertation committee, so we barely saw each other. He'd go to the lab after dinner, I'd go to bed, I'd get up in the morning when he was going to bed, and we were both stressed out and strung out and crazy. Not good. I still have to write my closing. I've got the bare bones of an outline done, and a pancake effort at some more substantive arguments, but I need to go and fill in the law and the facts and re-organize it, so it sounds rational.
Had some fun times this week, though. Baked cookies with the cub scouts. Went dancing. Went shopping and out to dinner with a friend. Experimented with choreographing a duet dance, maybe for a later show. Good times!
Back to the regular grindstone this week.
That one dude attorney turned out to be pretty friendly. I let him get away with a lot of objectionable stuff because we had the same goal, which sets a bit of a bad precedent between us, but I think now that he knows I'm not stupid and also not a pushover, we'll have a better working relationship going forward. I honestly think She Who Must Not Be Named is probably a fun, nice person when we're not in trial or involved in a case that triggers something super crazy in her. But I think it would take a lot for me to like her after what has happened over the past two years.
