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It's cold out! Yesterday it was eighty degrees and a bit more, and I had the air conditioner on in the afternoon. Today, at 11am, it's barely cleared 60 degrees. WTF, planet? Why you gotta even do a thing? I was going to go this morning and do another day of courtwatching, but I decided it was too depressing. I spent all day yesterday getting four hours of courtwatching time, and those benches are the worst ever. They were designed by some descendant-in-spirit of the Marquis de Sade, but without even the fun parts. After a couple hours on those things, the gallery is reduced to helpless squirming to reduce ass-pain. Or to reduce the mental anguish brought on by the horrible horribleness of the attorneying. The clients in this civil lawsuit apparently went to the Lawyer Outlet Center and got a good deal on slightly irregular attorneys.
There's the plaintiff, who didn't think to prepare his client to testify (or whose client has the retentive powers of a goldfish), and who doesn't understand the rules of trial procedure and evidence even a little bit. He also had a little wet throat-clearing noise that he punctuated every sentence with, and it made me want to cry a little bit during his opening statement. Then there was the defense attorney, Mr. Hostile, who began making objections in the opening statements and basically never stopped. Court was in session in the afternoon for two hours (morning being for jury selection) and in those two hours, we saw opening statements and two witnesses. In that time, he made twenty-three objections. Argh! The entire jury was just staring at him by the end. This was actually quite a good lesson, as most of his objections did have a solid basis and weren't just tactics to break his opponent's rhythm. That would've been useless as there was no rhythm, and very little rhyme.
The problem was that there was absolutely no tactical sense to some of the objections, and it makes the jury not like you if you're objecting more than ten times an hour. You look like a bully, and like you've got something to hide. If there's something objectionable, but it's not going to be a problem for your case, just let it go. Be the bigger attorney. And absolutely don't make objections in opening statements unless it's something truly catastrophic. Because no matter how valid your objection might be, objecting during the opening statement makes you look like a douche, and you don't want the jury's first impression of you to be as a douche. That just makes things harder.
So anyway, I think I got as much as could be gotten out of those two exciting practitioners yesterday, especially since I know for a fact that this morning was going to start off with a rollicking one-hour video deposition of one of the five doctors involved in the case. And much as we all love sitting on benches and listening to depositions we can't see because the TV is pointed at the jury (::headdesk headdesk headdesk::) I decided to forgo the pleasure in favor of an extra hours sleep. A wise move that I continue to applaud myself for. Now it is time to go do some homework and get a shower before class, and type up a less snarky version of my courtwatching experience for my professor. Ta!
There's the plaintiff, who didn't think to prepare his client to testify (or whose client has the retentive powers of a goldfish), and who doesn't understand the rules of trial procedure and evidence even a little bit. He also had a little wet throat-clearing noise that he punctuated every sentence with, and it made me want to cry a little bit during his opening statement. Then there was the defense attorney, Mr. Hostile, who began making objections in the opening statements and basically never stopped. Court was in session in the afternoon for two hours (morning being for jury selection) and in those two hours, we saw opening statements and two witnesses. In that time, he made twenty-three objections. Argh! The entire jury was just staring at him by the end. This was actually quite a good lesson, as most of his objections did have a solid basis and weren't just tactics to break his opponent's rhythm. That would've been useless as there was no rhythm, and very little rhyme.
The problem was that there was absolutely no tactical sense to some of the objections, and it makes the jury not like you if you're objecting more than ten times an hour. You look like a bully, and like you've got something to hide. If there's something objectionable, but it's not going to be a problem for your case, just let it go. Be the bigger attorney. And absolutely don't make objections in opening statements unless it's something truly catastrophic. Because no matter how valid your objection might be, objecting during the opening statement makes you look like a douche, and you don't want the jury's first impression of you to be as a douche. That just makes things harder.
So anyway, I think I got as much as could be gotten out of those two exciting practitioners yesterday, especially since I know for a fact that this morning was going to start off with a rollicking one-hour video deposition of one of the five doctors involved in the case. And much as we all love sitting on benches and listening to depositions we can't see because the TV is pointed at the jury (::headdesk headdesk headdesk::) I decided to forgo the pleasure in favor of an extra hours sleep. A wise move that I continue to applaud myself for. Now it is time to go do some homework and get a shower before class, and type up a less snarky version of my courtwatching experience for my professor. Ta!
