Nice! Aren't those kinds of crosses fun? (Btw, what kind of law do you practice, if you don't mind my asking?)
I'm training a new lawyer in my office. She asked me afterward if I get nervous during trial. I told her no, not nervous; but sometimes bored, especially on direct. It's just so monotonous sometimes. Can't ask leading questions; it's your witness, you're just trying to give them the prompts to say what you both already know they need to say. Not exciting.
But objections, and cross ... now those are the least boring parts of a trial. On direct you're usually all nice, b/c it's your witness and you're just guiding them to say what you both want them to say. But on cross, especially when you've got good material (as I did today) to attack the credibility of just about everything they said on direct, it almost feels like you're an actor in a play or something. Theatrical, I mean. To me, at least. And once you get on a roll and they start to squirm, and their lawyer starts to squirm in his seat, it's downrght fun.
Btw, I also kicked ass w/ a couple objections today ... not just on your typical kinds of objections, either, about evidence and what have you. It was more that the lawyer himself on the other side was really annoying me. And he was acting so bad on his cross of one of my witnesses, being over the top theatrical and obnoxious and condescending and what have you, and crossing the line w/ her, cutting off her answers and accusing her outright of being dishonest, etc., that I actually was able to mention in one my objections (to harassing the witness) that "he took the same oath I did as a lawyer to act with civitility in the courtroom, to be civil while questioning witnesses," and that objection, the civility part of it, was sustained. HA! I loved it.
My protege new attorney totally enjoyed it, too. I told her, our trials often aren't like that, b/c of the type of law we do - they just aren't normally that way; but sometimes, man, it's actually kind of fun. (Much more fun than most of our days of just sitting in an office and having meetings and filing motions and giving legal advice to our clients, anyway.)
I am now celebrating with a nice big glass of wine. Reliving my moments of fun from today. It's so rare that my job isn't boring, I savor these kinds of days.
Those crosses are definitely the best. Having only been practicing in the real world for 15 months or so, I haven't had too many of them yet, but they definitely make it worthwhile.
Our firm does basically four things--corporate/commercial work, real estate/construction, estate planning/probate, and litigation relating to all three. I spend most of my time litigating the corporate/commercial/construction stuff. I don't do much transactional work (except to the extent you'd consider forbearances and the like transactional). I've spent a lot of time lately on trade secret/non-compete litigtaion, shareholder litigation, and other general commercial litigation. I try like hell to stay away from probate stuff.
I love that the civility objection was sustained. I recently had a prelim. injunction in a trade secret/non-comp case against with a guy who was more unprofessional than all other attorneys I've ever met combined--I met him at my client's business on a Saturday morning to go over some electronic discovery and essentially he opened the conversation by calling me (direct quote) "A real cocksucking asshole." In front of an employee of my client whom neither of us had ever met, no less. Ridiculous. (He lost on every count in our PI but one, by the way. The judge issued a 54-page decision that rejected every one of his arguments. Gotta love that.)
3 comments:
Me too! (Except yesterday.)
Nice! Aren't those kinds of crosses fun? (Btw, what kind of law do you practice, if you don't mind my asking?)
I'm training a new lawyer in my office. She asked me afterward if I get nervous during trial. I told her no, not nervous; but sometimes bored, especially on direct. It's just so monotonous sometimes. Can't ask leading questions; it's your witness, you're just trying to give them the prompts to say what you both already know they need to say. Not exciting.
But objections, and cross ... now those are the least boring parts of a trial. On direct you're usually all nice, b/c it's your witness and you're just guiding them to say what you both want them to say. But on cross, especially when you've got good material (as I did today) to attack the credibility of just about everything they said on direct, it almost feels like you're an actor in a play or something. Theatrical, I mean. To me, at least. And once you get on a roll and they start to squirm, and their lawyer starts to squirm in his seat, it's downrght fun.
Btw, I also kicked ass w/ a couple objections today ... not just on your typical kinds of objections, either, about evidence and what have you. It was more that the lawyer himself on the other side was really annoying me. And he was acting so bad on his cross of one of my witnesses, being over the top theatrical and obnoxious and condescending and what have you, and crossing the line w/ her, cutting off her answers and accusing her outright of being dishonest, etc., that I actually was able to mention in one my objections (to harassing the witness) that "he took the same oath I did as a lawyer to act with civitility in the courtroom, to be civil while questioning witnesses," and that objection, the civility part of it, was sustained. HA! I loved it.
My protege new attorney totally enjoyed it, too. I told her, our trials often aren't like that, b/c of the type of law we do - they just aren't normally that way; but sometimes, man, it's actually kind of fun. (Much more fun than most of our days of just sitting in an office and having meetings and filing motions and giving legal advice to our clients, anyway.)
I am now celebrating with a nice big glass of wine. Reliving my moments of fun from today. It's so rare that my job isn't boring, I savor these kinds of days.
Those crosses are definitely the best. Having only been practicing in the real world for 15 months or so, I haven't had too many of them yet, but they definitely make it worthwhile.
Our firm does basically four things--corporate/commercial work, real estate/construction, estate planning/probate, and litigation relating to all three. I spend most of my time litigating the corporate/commercial/construction stuff. I don't do much transactional work (except to the extent you'd consider forbearances and the like transactional). I've spent a lot of time lately on trade secret/non-compete litigtaion, shareholder litigation, and other general commercial litigation. I try like hell to stay away from probate stuff.
I love that the civility objection was sustained. I recently had a prelim. injunction in a trade secret/non-comp case against with a guy who was more unprofessional than all other attorneys I've ever met combined--I met him at my client's business on a Saturday morning to go over some electronic discovery and essentially he opened the conversation by calling me (direct quote) "A real cocksucking asshole." In front of an employee of my client whom neither of us had ever met, no less. Ridiculous. (He lost on every count in our PI but one, by the way. The judge issued a 54-page decision that rejected every one of his arguments. Gotta love that.)
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