baby’s first trial?????

Just kidding. Kind of.

I’m at a plaintiff’s litigation firm. However, in this case, we were defense. The client was a past client of ours, and the claim brought against him was frivolous. Absolutely had no grounds to it. Anyway, we were set for a bench trial. I had been working with a partner and his paralegal on all the prep, and, based on discovery, it looked like there was truly no way we didn’t walk away from this with a more than positive ruling for our client.

The evening before, a hearing is scheduled. Opposing counsel asks to continue the trial. Judge denies, as it had already been continued once. Next day, we show up. OC shows up. I’m sitting in the well, knowing my job is to pull up the exhibits as we need them, so I’m opening up the million tabs on my laptop, hoping my Do Not Disturb on my Mac doesn’t randomly turn off, or my mom doesn’t call (as she tends to do at the absolute worst times), or the whole thing doesn’t crash. Judge calls us up, then boom. 

Plaintiff dismisses. 

At this point, everyone is annoyed. The judge is annoyed, the other people sitting in the room for their turn on the docket are annoyed, and our client is beyond annoyed. So, no trial. No big day in court for our client. No trial experience. But, still, technically, a favorable outcome.

And I think, looking back to that experience, my thoughts are that just because something feels disappointing in the moment – to the client who wanted to share their side, to me who was excited for trial, etc – doesn’t mean it wasn’t a valuable experience. I mean, the client had the claim against them dismissed. That’s good, that’s valuable. My computer didn’t have to run the million exhibits and crash and burn. That’s good, that’s valuable.

While the trial didn’t happen, I still learned a lot – about how to act, how not to act, how to deliver news to witnesses and other people who don’t know what all the legalese means, how to sit there with a straight face while the judge reams into someone. And, most importantly, how to stay connected to the client. 

The best thing to come out of that day was obviously the dismissal of the claim against our client. But the thing that has stuck with me the most was our client and their witnesses coming up to me, the paralegal, and the partner, and telling them they were so impressed with my attentiveness and how I handled things throughout the prep and (lack of) trial. They said the firm “better keep this one” and told me they thought I’d make a great attorney some day. 

As an intern/clerk, I expected to be invisible. But the fact is, I’m not. No one is, especially not to the people coming to the firm asking for help. And those are the people whose encouragement can, surprisingly, mean the most. So here’s to impacting lives and making differences.

Song of the day: It’s You, Peter Peter