#attorney problems

The best part of my job is (arguably) meeting with the kids I have to represent.  Since most of the time it’s custody petitions, there’s not a lot I have to get too heavy in to.  I have basic questions that I ask, but in a variety of age-appropriate ways.  But I always end my interview by asking the following questions:

Do you have any questions for me?  It doesn’t even have to be about this.  I’ll answer any question you have.

Most of the time, the kid won’t take me up on that.  When they do, it often involves the court process.  But every now and then, I will get random questions.  I was interviewing an eight year old girl today and she asked me:

What is your favorite emoji? (She had also asked me what was my favorite food, dessert and store at this point.)

I responded that I didn’t really have one, since I was 42 years old and didn’t really use them.

She was aghast.

I then told her:

When I text, I use complete sentences and proper punctuation.

Because when I grew up there weren’t cell phones.

At my first job I sold cell phones, and they were flip phones (the old Motorola ones) and people didn’t text on them.

In fact the phones we had were connected to the wall with cords.

And in order to dial it, you really did have to dial it. (I explained how to use a rotary phone. “Like the ones they have on baby toys,” she said.)

No, I didn’t have an iphone to use to listen to music, but I did have a Walkman and you had to use cassette tapes.

And when I was her age, the TV was nowhere near the size of the LCD TV behind me (I didn’t even get into how massive they were.)

And we only had 6 channels, and no, that didn’t include Nickelodeon or Disney Channel. (My parents didn’t get cable until I was 12 or 13 or so.)

If you wanted to change the channel you had to get up off the couch and turn the dial.

And maybe have to move the antenna a bit so it wasn’t THAT fuzzy.

If we wanted to watch a movie, there weren’t any DVDs, but large cassettes that you put into a large machine and you’d watch that and sometimes that woudl be fuzzy too.

I’m a litigation attorney - I spend most of my time on cases that will be argued in court. If you or anyone else reading are from a nation that distinguishes between barristers (court attorneys) vs. solicitors (client-facing, non-court-practice, and case-building attorneys) - my job is a combination of both. I work in two U.S. jurisdictions right now, though I’m being dragged kicking and screaming encouraged to get licensed in a third.

Starting out I did about two and a half years as a local criminal defense attorney, then five years of insurance/comp defense and BigLaw work (in BigLaw I did complex civil work, medmal defense, and other defense work for quasi-governmental entities). I have been a “general practice” attorney at a medium-sized firm for just under half a decade since. I handle criminal defense work, bizarre property and contract cases, tort (injury) cases, and (for better or worse) domestic cases, plus 20-ish percent other case types and the very occasional appeal. I swore I’d never do 75% of those things, and eventually just learned to never say ‘never.’

About stories: Attorneys in my jurisdictions may share certain information about their cases if that information can be “de-identified” enough to preserve confidentiality and make sure there is no reasonable likelihood the reader or listener can identify the client or specific situation. Otherwise, someone could link the representing attorney, legal theory, and client facts to figure out who we are talking about!

My “attorney problems” and “night court” tags have a few tidbits but I will leave you with three more. Some facts are changed to de-identify the cases and clients, but the general scenarios and punchlines are legit.

—

As a young attorney I had a client who faced several charges, including a felony charge, for breathing fire at several people who worked near a private alley behind the client’s home. One of my colleagues - now a close friend of many years - was also in the room when I first met with this client.

The client often practiced fire breathing, as well as fire-dancing and axe-juggling, in their private alley. I asked whether the complaining witnesses had ever been nearby during the client’s practice time before - all the time, the client replied, as they had been practicing for 3-4 hours each day to maintain their skill level since moving in years prior. This was the first time there had been “an issue.”

I dutifully asked if the client was a performing arts or cir-arts professional, hoping to work a job angle into negotiations to drop the felony count. The client looked at me as if I had grown a second head.

“Why the hell would you think that - what d’you think I work for, the goddamn circus? I’m in finance!”

At this point, my colleague completely lost his poker face and dropped a pen so he could duck out of sight to pick it up.

—

While working on a first-degree burglary case, my paralegal, another attorney and I all pored over a photo turned over by the State to eventually agree: that was indeed a live-steel, full-scale replica of the Lich King’s legendary blade Frostmourne mixed in with the dirty laundy at the bottom of the victim-witness’s closet.

—

During COVID lockdown I attended a status hearing for a civil case by videoconference. This particular court scheduled its status hearings on “dockets” - many cases all scheduled for the same block of time, “called” one by one for the participants to give some kind of update to the judge. You often have to watch/hear some of the other cases while you wait for your own to be called. In early lockdown, everyone who had a case on the docket entered the videoconference with mics off (unless speaking) but cameras on, and each camera feed stayed visible on-screen - the more participants, the smaller the feed size - which made hearings look and feel as though we all were contestants on Hollywood Squares.

My status hearing was scheduled as part of a mixed civil/criminal docket. One of the status hearings called before mine was for a case involving restitution money. Often, in a criminal case where a victim is financially damaged, a defendant who pleads guilty will be told to pay money back before they are sentenced, or risk a harsher sentence. In this case the prosecutor (we don’t call them that here, but it’s close enough) was supposed to give an update to the judge on how much had been repaid so far, but was having difficulty finding the payment ledger in his file.

The judge asked for a ballpark number while the prosecutor searched. The prosecutor, visibly flustered and still shuffling through his file, sputtered:

“Um - I - well, it’s over nine thousand, your Honor-”

Fully half of the thirty-odd people on-screen visibly reacted, ducked, coughed, choked, or pretended to look at something very interesting offscreen - including the judge. I had never been happier to be wearing a mask. This court runs closed-captioning for remote hearings and there was not a single person who missed “ITS OVER NINE THOUSAND” flashing across the bottom of their monitors in all caps. It is illegal to record or screencap those remote hearings, but to this day, I wish I had done it anyway.

I continually tell them: it’s not glamorous. No, really. It can be very fulfilling, but it’s definitely not a bunch of Perry Mason moments and it can be downright grueling. Today, my workday was ongoing from 6:30am to 10:20pm and tbqh I feel like I’ve been standing in front of a pitching machine repeatedly taking fastballs to the groin. An illustrative and very de-identified comedy of errors follows:

1) Left home at 6:30am for a ‘one hour’ emergency hearing, for a case I received on Friday because another attorney departed my office, for a type of hearing which should never have been set for one hour because it is very complex, cannot be moved, and is highly contested, and which requires the judge to apply BRAND new case law. Why was it set for one hour? Good question. It was scheduled by the departing attorney last Friday for today, TUESDAY. Said person knew I would be taking it over, knew it couldn’t be postponed, and knew he hadn’t asked me or looked at my calendar re: was I ok with this happening with two days’ notice. Okay. Fine. I’ve got this. I stop at the office to pick up my file and print two more things. I’m prepared, I have my exhibits with me, this is part of the job, let’s do this. Right?

2) Wrong. I reach the courthouse. It is pouring rain. I drop my file. All the exhibits are now wet. Fantastic. I’ve still got this, right? I’ve dealt with hearings during tornados and medical emergencies and with clients literally fleeing and being tackled to the floor and clients flipping tables and clients hysterically screaming while throwing things at the judge’s bench while we all dive for cover, so I can deal with some water. I tell opposing counsel and the courtroom clerk in advance, apologize that the court can’t scan the documents in until they dry. They say “hey it happens.” Cool.

3) The ‘one hour’ hearing does not even start until - at the court’s direction - two rounds of negotiation and a chambers conference have set us back by…an hour and a half. Okay. It happens. Usually, though, a highly contested hearing that requires testimony and evidence on three separate multi-factor tests/analyses and application of brand new caselaw is set in for more than one hour, so there’s time for all of that to occur if needed. Not so here, due to Murphy’s Law. So - now what? Oh, we’re still going to just…have the hearing anyway? The hearing which will definitely exceed an hour and probably exceed five hours? Okay. Cue all involved attorneys desperately trying to get coverage for their afternoon cases and reschedule everything else they’ve got going on. But this happens. It’s part of the job. So - I’ve still got this, right?

4) WRONG. Halfway through the now day-long hearing, I get an email: my boss is displeased about something and needs more info about the item ASAP. Got it. Addressed it ASAP on a recess from court. Fine, hopefully?

5) BUT WAIT! Just the opposing party’s case takes until about 3pm. Then it’s my turn! Neat. There’s an hour and a half left in the court day. The judge wants the case to be done. It’s not going to be done. I have three witnesses including my client. My client needs to go first and they are nervous as all heck. Not for lack of preparation - many people just are really nervous in court! That’s normal. But it means this client’s testimony can’t move at the warp-9.9 speed that I know the judge would prefer: they’re barely keeping a lid on their anxiety as it is. Predictably, we don’t even make it to their cross-examination. The one hour hearing, surprising NO ONE, went all day and isn’t done yet. It has gone on so long that the assignment clerks (who calendar hearings) have left for the day! So we don’t even know when we’re coming back. But I’ve still got this, right?

6) It’s now after five. I call about eight people who have had to wait to hear from me or who needed to have discussions or meetings rescheduled because court has run all day. I apologize to all of them and conduct all those meetings before and during my trip back to the office (an hour away). Okay. I have one more late evening meeting. I’ve got this, right? Right?

7) Before this meeting, I update my boss on the status of the thing leading to his earlier displeasure. Included in there that something boss indicated should be done could maybe not happen that way, and proposed an alternative solution.

8) The meeting begins. Imagine my surprise when it is a one and a half hour recorded session which was not calendared as such? When none of the participants had previously asked me whether it could proceed as such? I’ve been in trial mode - a state of constant hyper-awareness - since eight thirty am. Any recorded session also requires trial mode - I have to treat it like a deposition. It’s now almost nine PM. Insanity. But I can pivot. I can do this. I’ve still got this, right?

9) I don’t got this. In my inbox, halfway through the session: boss flatly rejects my alternative re: how to fix “we can’t address the source of displeasure the way boss has instructed without a few other things being authorized.” Okay. I make a second alternative proposal on a short break from this session. Boss is usually chill. Boss is not at all chill at present. Anxiety levels: high. Results pending.

10) I’m finally closing out that recorded session. Good. But what’s this in my inbox? Boss: displeased about something different? At 8:45 pm? NEVER GOOD. Long email to this effect? LESS GOOD STILL. However: upon closer examination, the something boss is displeased about involves…incorrect math, and not my incorrect math. Well, shit on a cracker. The last thing I want to do is gracefully point this out, but I have to. It’s not something I can let lie. It’s really important. So, uh, I…do. Anxiety levels: critical!!!! as boss was already annoyed and I’ve just had to cross boss for a second time. Not ideal. Not at all. It is now, absurdly, almost ten pm.

11) Then, driving home. Pouring rain still. Behind a cop almost the whole way. I get home. I think, this is the kind of day situational anxiety meds are made for. And then I realize they are…at the office. Where I left them this morning. So that I didn’t accidentally take them into the courthouse.

Great.

No. Being a lawyer isn’t glamorous. And today is an excellent example of why.

(It’s not all bad. My client/their family for the ‘one hour’ hearing: currently happy. Self-eval of my objection game today: pretty good.

Holy shit.