A Few of the Funny Things That Have Happened To Me While Practicing Law
While waiting for my case to be called one day in court, Judge Conklin noticed from the docket sheet that he and one of the Defendants shared the same last name. Curious as to whether they were related, the Judge asked if any of the Defendant's relatives were genealogists. The Defendant replied, "No, all of my relatives are truck drivers." The Judge then announced that he did not think that he and the Defendant were related. I thought this was hilarious!
In another recent case, the Defendant, God forbid, had been arrested on a warrant and was brought over from jail in his green jail uniform to face the charge of having his car windows too dark! I commented to another attorney, "That sounds like a shady deal," and, "I think he has to be not guilty because he had no criminal inTINT."
Sometimes, things happen in our practices that do not seem funny at the time which actually become funny later.
In my first jury trial, the Defendant was charged with second degree burglary. I ran out of time before I wrote my voir dire. I borrowed then-Greene County prosecutor Tom Mountjoy=s typewritten voir dire from a capital murder case, thinking they were interchangeable. They were not. Reading the voir dire for the first time in front of the jury, I said, "The testimony you will hear today will come from the witness stand. Point to the witness stand." (After saying that, I pointed to the witness stand.) When I got to the part on the maximum penalty for the offense I did have the wherewithal to NOT say that the maximum penalty for second degree burglary was the death penalty! (No Lon Hocker award from me that year!)
No matter how good you are, things will go wrong at a trial or at the office from time to time. How you react to those problems can save your sanity.
Once on an overnight trip to a trial, I accidentally packed a black shoe and a burgundy shoe. When I discovered this, I could have blown my cool, got mad and thrown a fit. Luckily, I did not. I just calmly said, "Let=s see if anyone notices it." I tried the case that day in a burgundy shoe and a black shoe and no one noticed! I was later told about a friend that once tried a case in two left shoes, which would feel a lot worse!! (At least I had a right shoe and a left shoe!)
All of these stories are examples of how important it is to keep your sense of humor while practicing law. We are all in a very serious business with huge stakes for our clients, our careers and our families. Sometimes I think we take ourselves too seriously. If we all try to keep our sense of humor, we will enjoy our lives and our practices more and be easier to live with at home, in the courtroom, and at the office.
P.S. This article has a few of the funny things that have happened to me while practicing law. We all have them. Some of you are thinking, "I have a funnier story that that!" My response is, "Great, let us hear from you." Write down your funny stories for posterity and send them to the SMBA and we can take the funniest ones and include them in the bar news.