Wednesday, June 13, 2007

More attorney word mastery



All spoken by the same lawyer during a hearing:

- "Your Honor, if I may inject for a second..." [interject?]

- "...given the Penelope of the circumstances..." [panoply?]

- "...as the saying goes your Honor, 'a bird in the hand is worth one in the bush.'" [two in the bush]

Saturday, June 2, 2007

If THESE people passed the bar exam...

Well working for Judge X thus far has been a very valuable experience. I've been privy to some pretty piss poor lawyering performances--one guy used horrendous grammar, made up words and didn't even know the law regarding the charge for which his client was on trial. Furthemore:

Judge X: MR. Z, these requests for jury instructions appear instead to be some sort of a closing argument. Did you actually have any instructions you wanted to submit?

Mr. Z (Inept Defense Counsel): [staring vacantly] Uh, no... your Honor.

In another trial, a PD was virtually inaudible throughout the duration, missed huge points and connections, and irritatingly swayed back and forth in one spot during her entire closing argument. There have however been some impressive performances as well, but the bulk of the experience has been great due mainly to the fact that the judge is fantastic. Judge X goes to great lengths to answer any questions I have and to explain any points of procedure or law I may be fuzzy on. I also recently went with Judge X to a lunch meeting with one of the Justices of our state's Supreme Court, which was obviously pretty cool.