Is every week like this? No, not really.

Let’s recap:

MONDAY – started trial, selected jury, gave opening arguments. Worked late getting direct examination of plaintiff ready for prime time. Prepped exhibits and supplemental Points for Charge. Prepared revised jury verdict sheet without counsel name and address in caption. Prepared arguments to accompany recent submissions

TUESDAY – conduct entire trial before Judge Allen. I think it goes OK for my client. Didn’t leave City Hall all day. Charge conference, closing arguments, Judge’s charge. Jury goes out and the waiting begins. By 6pm they haven’t reached a verdict and the Judge sends them home. Tuesday was really no problem. It can be fun to be on trial.

WEDNESDAY – the week ebbs and flows. I am at office waiting for call to come over and get verdict. Also busy preparing to select jury and begin next trial on Thurs. Client will not be present to receive verdict, although he did ask me to give him a letter that he would be out of work today. Jury comes back with a zero verdict, but they made a mistake with the Verdict Sheet. We have an appealable issue. I hit the roof. Emily is doing legal research and feeding me sights at lightening speed. Judge wants to fix it so we can just be done. Defense says a zero is a zero and law supports it. I disagree. I’m telling everyone that I’m asking for a new trial. I so don’t want a new trial. The case doesn’t have sufficient value. Back at office I give client bad news. He is his typical stoic self. Will wait to hear what I want to do. Up late preparing Points for Charge, Verdict Sheet and Proposed Voir Dire for next trial. Email to Loredonna, who prints and copies first thing Thursday so I can go right to Court.

THURSDAY – Off to Court to pick jury for the next trial. $125k in coverage and highest offer is $42k. Doesn’t look like we’ll settle. Jury panel will not be available till late afternoon. Whole schedule is thrown off. Wanted to prep family of decedent at my office, but now have to prep in Court in order to not waste time. Judge wants to settle. I want to settle, but not for $42. I’m not sure family wants to settle for anything ever. Judge takes defense counsel by ear and has private shat. Next thing I know, the offer is $82,5. I go out and make my recommendation. Family can’t decide. Don’t think they want to take it. I’m not happy. Call Joe for reinforcements, but he doesn’t have the leverage. Judge takes a shot, but she’s gotta go real easy. Family goes to lunch. I get back to work on prep. Family comes back and says no. I say why? They’re hemming and hawing and I somehow get inside the dynamic with the widow and two grown children. Once I’m there, it’s over. They take the $82,5. I run out. No for them to change minds. The Judge Rizzo is upstairs in foreclosure court. NBC nightly news with Brian Williams is interviewing her and the place is a zoo. We get her back downstairs and get the settlement on the record. Everyone leaves happy. I’m very happy.

FRIDAY – Tyer arbitration at 10:30AM. Get there 10 to prep client, if he’s there. He missed the last one. He is there and we get to work. Highest offer is $15k. Client does a nice job. Lots of collateral health issues, longtime HIV+ status. Get that done and back to office. Missed lunch. Get another case ready to settle for a nice number, maybe a little higher value than it should. Great. Need to OK with client, but she’s sometimes hard to get a hold of. Missed her last appointment without any explanation. Not cool. She calls and we’re good to go. Then I get cal from Judge in Chester County who wants to kill me. Lots of animosity and personal attacks. Very enraging, but I can’t say anything. Especially frustrating because its on a case I don’t want and have said so before. End work day very angry and riled up, but it’s been a good week.

FRIDAY NIGHT – first night off in a while. Indian dinner with friends at yummy Tiffin Store. Than back home with Em listening to new U2 record. Very good!

SATURDAY – find out win in the Tyer arb is $16, $1k over offer.

Wind ’em up and and watch ’em go!

I’m like a dog – I need my routine. I need tasks. Tell me what to do and let me do it regularly. there is great comfort in the predictability of routine.
Of course, that routine now means trying two cases next week, but, you know what? I can’t wait. I know the cases. I’ve got good judges. The clients are on board and we’re going to really have at it. The garbage truck case starts Monday and the grandfather-crossing-the-street-case will kick off with jury selection a week from today.

The subpoenas are being served, the shirts and suits are back from the dry cleaners and we are ready to go!!

Justice served

It’s not that big a deal, but this win feels nice. Basically, you have a home improvement contractor who is taking a bit too long and he gets fired. That’s my client. He sue the homeowner to get paid for the work and materials already put in to the project – in this case a custom kitchen. He then learns that he can’t sue because he didn’t have a written contract. Ooops! NJ law is a bitch that way. The contractor gets sued for failing to provide a contract and failing to do a good job before he got fired.

At trial we proved that he was never given an opportunity to do the job right because he was fired and never advised of the complaints. Also, we proved that there were no ‘ascertainable’ damages which resulted from his failure to provide a written contract. Those ascertainable damages would have been multiplied by three (3x) if they were found to exist. So my guy started out hoping to get money and then was exposed to the possibility of having to pay $20,000 plus. He still is on the hook for attorney fees attributable to the homeowners’ effort to enforce the violation. We’ll see what that amount adds up to in January, but on the other high-ticket items, we were very successful today.

Black Mac (book)

New computer is integrating nicely into my work routine. It’s really cool having everything available all the time – that WAS the point. It’s kind of amazing how Outlook doesn’t export calendar at all and the export for contacts is so difficult that it might as well not be available. And this is from Office (windows) to Office (mac) – all Microsoft products. They just can’t get it right!

But everything is going swimmingly and, except for the import/export issues, I really like Entourage. the rest of Office is pretty much the same (Word, Excel, Powerpoint). The project management is keeping me on my toes.

The latest…

It occurs to me that every post could have this title…

I haven’t posted the next movie yet. We saw some great Phillies games and Em’s Dad is in town. She’s back on inpatient yesterday and today, so that’s really the focus of activity. She seems to be doing well at the moment, but we’ll see what the weekend holds, as the white count is a bit low.

Other than that, Passover is pretty much here, and Dorothy and her family will be following shortly. That should be interesting. We’ll see how much activity I’m up for, as far as Seders and what not.

Other than that, work has mellowed out a bit, but there’s a civil rights case that needs some TLC after yesterday’s plaintiff deposition. The client did well, but I want to set it up right. Maybe I’ll call my new friend Dr. Goldstein.

Frazier settled

OK – that’s nice. I’ll get to catch my breath this weekend. In the meantime, the number is not what I would have hoped for, but that’s the nature of compromise. If I’m learning anything, I want a case to be set up just right in order to take it to trial. What do we have for Sherwood? Looks like that’s next.

Trial Madness

Frazier might be about ready to settle. I know my reluctance is related to the bad outcome from Barsky, but this isn’t the right case on which to take a flyer. This isn’t the right plaintiff. On the other hand, if we have to go, I feel like there is a lot going in our favor. Plus, I’m curious to try a case with Kevin and Litsa – always a lot to learn.

As of now, we’re on for tomorrow. So I’m going to finish my Requested Points For Charge now.

OK – that could have gone better

Barsky trial was a defense verdict, with no viable option for appeal. Ugh. Client is obviously not happy with outcome, but, as disappointed as I am, I’m still glad for the experience of doing a jury trial in NJ. Now I’m ready for anything.

Which is good, because we’re picking a jury in Frazier tomorrow! That’s Philly, but the stakes are a little higher this time. Let’s put on a good show!

Woah, woah, woah!

Lots going on – no time to talk! Barsky trial is beginning thrid and final day tomorrow. We’ll see how things go for my first jury trial in NJ.

The new video is up. Here’s the link. I’ll embed it later and Em can send it around via email, planet cancer, etc.

Phils won today – beat the beloved (sic) Mets 5-3 today. Fantastic!

Ferrari pulled out the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday. Kubica choked on his start and let the Ferrari’s gobble him up. Nice to see Massa turn things around after a few problems in the first two races. Of course, neither he nor Kubica are on the fantasy team. Oh well…

Law Blog – Trial Season

There really is no ‘trial season’ per se, but I’ve got a few going now so it’s a bit hectic. About two weeks ago, I wrapped up a little car case where I got negligence but no causation. We had a binding hi-low, so we were protected, but it was a situation where everyone but the client knew we should have settled. When the verdict came in, we were vindicated, but we missed out on a few of several thousand dollars because we let the client have the final say. Technically, that’s requied, but that doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea.

So, it’s Wednesday and I have a trial on Monday – good onliability but bad on causation. This could be an instant replay of what happened a couple weeks ago. There’s not a lot of pressure (as in the previous case), but I still am aching for a win.

There’s a catch-22 at work here becuase I want to be as thorough as possible, but I also want this to be a bit routine, so I get more comfortable with trial prep. Still working on trying to get that balance