Time To Turn The Tables: Moments Where Lawyers Knew They Were About To Win Their Case

So I used to work for social services (or whatever you call the government body that addresses neglected and abused kids)

The witness/respondent/defendant looked "tired" and swore up and down she never did drugs (despite us having numerous positive drug tests). On cross I essentially asked about it in such a way that the judge ended up asking if she was tested right now if she would come up negative

"of course judge" ...well bad luck has it that someone was already on hand for this to test her (for reasons....) spoiler alert she failed.

Admittedly my witness/the social worker was the one who knew she would fail but had to let me lay the trap in court.

When I practiced insurance defense. Was handed a file to take over of a slip and fall. Guy tripped on a hose, tore his acl. The partner had taken the guys depo already so I read the transcript. I'm a Michigan football fan, watched every game for 20 years. This guy testified he was the starting safety for a certain rival for certain years. Also that he graduated with a double major that doesn't exist at that school.

I immediately knew this was false. Partner didn't understand. Dug deeper, lied about so much stuff unrelated to the fall for no reason. Eventually found high school records from football injuries of head trauma, knee injuries, oh and a slip and fall injury a few months after ours. He also testified he rehabbed an ACL surgery after 1 month.

Motion for fraud on the Court filed, immediately settled.

So I’m in trial and we are down to the end. Two days left tops (out of 11 so far). The opposing side is saving their main star witness for the very end. The main issue had to do with whether or not a trust could be dissolved. Boring stuff, not going to go into it. During lunchtime I remember the dude had a different attorney from the very early days, nearly 3 years before. I text my secretary to get this discovery for me from those days. Question 18 of interrogatories: dude admits the trust can be dissolved and should be dissolved.

I sprint out of the court room (second chair so no issue). Run to the law library. Print the responses out. Judge rules in our favor citing the discovery as his main reason why.

So this is probably far and away the most complex legal case I ever handled, and even case law was sparse on several issues. For the sake of brevity and laymen understanding I'm going to cut out a lot of details, simplify facts, and try to avoid technical crap.

Client was seriously injured at work. Like permanent disability injured. I alleged that either this was a worker's comp thing or alternatively due to an OSHA violation by the employer. Defense had some pretty legitimate arguments that my client was more of a contractor than an employee (which in this case would have killed both of my claims), among other defenses that honestly were mostly pretty good. It was a really close case.

Basically, if my client was an employee and the employer had enough employees to need worker's comp, my client would get work comp. If there weren't enough employees, we were actually entitled to substantially more by proving the OSHA violation. If my guy was a contractor, we got nothing.

So a motion was filed and we had a hearing on this preliminary issue of whether or not my client was an employee for work comp purposes. (WC and OSHA kind of have different definitions of "employee", or at least did at the time.)

The judge decided that my client was NOT an employee for WC purposes. But he also didn't decide that my client was a contractor, either. He was a "casual employee" under WC law and was therefore not entitled to WC benefits.

That's bad for me and my client, right? WC would have been an easy win. It's basically handed to you if you're an injured employee. That's what opposing counsel thought. But it just so happens that a "casual employee" under WC law is just a regular old employee by OSHA law, meaning that the defendant owed a duty of care to my client. And it just so happens that maybe 20 years before my own father handled a case that basically created case law in my state to the effect that OSHA regulations establish a duty of care between the employer and employee, and that an injury caused by an OSHA violation is (very generally speaking) the employer's fault.

So the judge basically, if unwittingly, decided at that hearing that my client was not entitled to anything, was not limited to just work comp benefits, but was entitled to literally millions of dollars on a negligence claim.

This was in a case where we alleged that the defendant, former sales director, improperly solicited a bunch of his coworkers to join a competing company with him in violation of a bunch of contractual agreements. I joined the case after getting back from maternity leave, was told the case was pretty weak and we didn’t have much evidence, but I decided to dig in and was the first person to really start to work through the documents, emails, and timeline.

Found a bunch of emails from the defendant to the solicited coworkers sending research related to the new company, answering their questions about benefits at the new company (lol), etc etc.

Then I found a discrimination lawsuit from a former (female) VP at the new company, reached out to her, and she was willing to testify and gave us amazing info that all checked out. I took what seemed like a bad case and turned it into gold, traveling to conduct interviews while breastfeeding and feeling like a general bada. It was a huge win for me personally and professionally, and we got a fantastic settlement for our client. Those fun, fact-driven cases can be hard to come by, but they make the bad cases easier to deal with :)

Quiet title/recording false property documents hearing on behalf of old lady suffering from senile dementia; her grandson got her to deed her house over to him. D was as complete a scumbag as you'd expect. I had all sorts of evidence that she wasn't capable of understanding what she was doing when she signed the deed, but that point was contested. Ideally, we could invalidate it on a fact that the sides agreed on.

(Quick aside for non-lawyers: the most basic part of a contract is that each side gives or promises to give the other something of legal value.) On the stand, D testified that Grandmother had always promised him the house; on cross, I asked him what he promised Grandmother in exchange for the house. Dead, awkward silence, for a few seconds, and then he gave a fumbling, "I don't know; love, I guess." I knew right away we had it in the bag.

About two days later we had a detailed ruling from the court in which he ruled the deed invalid, ordered D to pay my client's attorney's fees, and also ordered D to pay my client a statutory penalty of $5,000 for knowingly recording an invalid deed. And then we evicted D.

Had a kid called me up and he told me about this case he was being charged with. Shop lifting at Walmart. The kid says I have no clue why I’m being charged with this and that he didn’t do it. I’m like sure sure and pull the file. I read him back what was in the police report. I told him it looks like you stole some sharpies, some DVDs and a few other random things along with having a hypodermic needle.

He said he has no clue what I’m talking about. I said well there is video and told him to describe himself. He said he’s got a buzz cut, blonde, skinny white kid. I pull him up on Facebook and it fits with what he described.

I watch the video and see a very heavy set guy with long black hair and a neck tattoo. I describe this guy in the video and he has an Ah ha moment and explains that is his older brother who has a drug problem and frequently tries to use his name. Cops took his brother down to the station and he told them he didn’t have any ID and used his brothers name. He bails out and isn’t seen again.

Case was dismissed when the kid came in for court. Crazy thing is I was watching the news a few months later and saw some guy the cops nabbed for breaking into 80 some cars over the span of a few months. Name rang a bell and It was the older brother

I did pro bono work for a friend of mine. Domestic abuse, filing for a plenary order of protection. I was really hesitant to do it and only did it bc other friends begged me to. Went over everything and was ready to go. Show up to court, I exchange exhibits with the guy and there are tons of emails sent by my client begging to see him and one email literally saying, idgaf that the judge says there should be no contact, I want to see you now. I’m sweating and mad this lady lied to me. I did my direct, and on cross he is really digging in. I begin to flip through his exhibits and notice something. I smile the biggest weirdest smile ever. Even the judge notices. Then I put on the show. "Isn't it true you swore to tell the truth..." Answer - yes. "It's your testimony today that these emails came from my client." Answer - yes.

At this point, the judge knows I’m up to something. She tells him that if I can prove that any part of his evidence is not the truth he will be held in contempt. The guy continues his story and affirms it is.

Then I ask the judge to read the little URL code at the bottom of the emails we knew to be real (bc also included in my evidence package). Www.google.com/gmail/msg10457/inbox. I begin to explain that this url code appears on any page you print, that each piece identifies different info, etc.

Then I had the judge read the url code of the emails I said to be felonious and purgerous in nature. Www.google.com/msg10325/drafts.

There was an audible gasp in the courtroom. Dude went into drafts and made a bunch of emails to contradict my client then printed them out to make them look real. The judge asks again if he lied and made these. He admitted he did. The judge grants my motion, denies his motion, holds him in contempt and the bailiff carts him off to jail.

I represented a man in a maximum security prison, charged with 13 felonies (3 of which were life offenses) - basically pinned as “the guy” responsible for smuggling-in contraband (cell phones, and drugs - which led to overdose deaths). Prosecutor was cocky and didn’t even want to hear anything I had to say. That cockiness lasted strong up until he learned prison staff was responsible, and only my client and I knew who it was. Prison was shut down couple weeks later.

Prosecutor, in jury trial. Defendant is on the stand. Defendant had been all over the road after testifying to having "one beer" before flipped their car on a side street. Corroborated by an independent witness. The inadmissible preliminary breath test showed them way over the legal limit. So they were straight up lying about how much alcohol they had but I couldn't do anything about it.

Anyways, the defendant was going through the coached direct examination when a moment of honesty struck them. "Were you under the influence of alcohol that night?" The defense attorney asked.

"I was under the influence of alcohol.". The defendant said.

Incredulous, the defense attorney asked it again, and the defendant gave the exact same answer. I was so shocked I flipped around to make eye contact with a colleague in the back of the courtroom. I decided not to bring it up in my cross exam or closing argument, and the bailiff later told me the jury was shocked at the confession that they were yelling at each other in the deliberation room about it.

Haven't had a defendant get on the stand in a DUI case I have prosecuted since.

Here's a short one that happened two or three weeks ago: In a response to a motion to dismiss on some large litigation for a corporation dumping toxic chemicals, the attorney (probably intern) who wrote the response brief accidentally attached the wrong document as evidence.

Instead of something or another that would vaguely work as a defense to the motion, they irrevocably proved our side of the case true with some ownership documents for property in a trust.

It gets better though, because we had no idea these papers existed and if their attorneys/ the client wanted to hide it during discovery, it was entirely possible we would have never found out about this stuff.

Right after I got my license but before I had a job, I volunteered in Landlord/tenant court. Basically the first case I ever took to an evidentiary hearing, the landlord was trying to terminate the tenancy, meaning they didn't care if they got rent money, they just wanted the house back.The reason cited for termination was nonpayment of rent. That's odd because most landlords would probably file a nonpayment of rent case, but it's also a lease violation, so they can legally proceed with the termination.

My clients didn't want to leave, they just wanted him to fix things, so we went to trial. Losing meant my clients had 10 days to move to prevent an eviction (if LL had filed nonpayment of rent, my clients could've prevented eviction by paying the rent). These cases are summary proceedings, which for me means if we can't settle we will immediately go to a bench trial where my only evidence is what my client brings with them. The case had already been adjourned once and I only met my clients minutes before the hearing was scheduled to start. I made one pitch for a settlement offer and the landlord basically refused to talk to me, so I had to make my case up on the fly, which might happen in movies, but isn't supposed to happen in real life practice of law. Thankfully, we were the last case on the docket and there was a union-mandated lunch break for the court personnel, so we were on the record for only about 10-15 minutes before we recessed and I had an hour to come up with a plan.

There were no technical problems with the complaint, so my only argument was that the termination was retaliatory. That was a tough case to make, because technically the law only specifically protects the tenant from retaliation for calling a government agency, which my clients hadn't done, so I'm trying to convince the judge to interpret the law against retaliation broadly. It probably won't work unless I can convince her the real reason the landlord wanted to terminate the tenancy was broader than just nonpayment of rent.

The landlord brought in his handyman as a witness. His testimony was basically that my tenant's complaint about the property were frivolous and that the house was in good shape. The only good tidbit I got from his testimony was that the furnace was installed incorrectly before he was hired and fixed it. So my clients' complaints weren't entirely frivolous, but this was now the middle of summer and the furnace now worked just fine. And now that he was the handyman, according to him, the house was in beautiful shape. I tried cross-examining the repairman and he turned out to be tough for me to control. I'd ask yes or no questions which he'd supplement with very technical explanations for how the furnace worked. He kept saying he took the tenants complaints personally because he felt they were attacking him personally for doing a poor job, and the reason he wanted to testify was to defend his work. I knew he'd be called to the stand again, but I decided not to cross-examine him any further the second time because he was such a good witness and too hard to control. He foreclosed the possibility of me making the case simply listing the repairs that needed to be made.

I didn't feel like it was going well for me until the landlord himself took the stand. The judge posed some questions (again, this is summary proceedings, so trial procedures are a little different), and to one he said he wanted them gone because he was tired of them always "complaining, complaining, complaining." Once he said that I immediately knew I had him. That's what I needed, an admission of his mental state when filed the case. My cross-examination was entirely focused on his frustration with them always complaining about repairs. He hanged himself with his own words. The judge wasn't very sympathetic to him because the landlord has a duty to keep the house in good repair. Because he said on the record that the reason he wanted them out was because they kept asking him to do his job, she held the eviction was retaliatory in nature and dismissed the case.

This was actually fairly recent. I was in a deposition of a fact witness to an automobile accident in which my client was killed. The defendant’s attorney had called the deposition and over the course of an hour and a half or so elicited a lot of testimony which seemed to place my client partially at fault, which would impact my client’s (edit: financial) recovery. After sitting quietly for an hour and a half I asked less than a dozen questions, the last of which was about the specific location of my client when he had first seen them. Based on his answer, it was clear that my client couldn’t possibly be at fault. I sent a follow up letter that same day and the case had settled within the next two weeks.

Was defending my client on a felony family violence assault case. My client and his girlfriend had been in the car together, and she claimed he beat the sh*t out of her, while he was driving them around, speeding, drunk. She had even called her mother during the drive, and made an outcry to her on the phone that he was punching and hurting her. She said he caused 2 wrecks, and he broke her nose and busted her head open. My client denied it all and was promptly arrested by the police.

She told a great story at trial, which was well received by the jury. Until I played the cell phone video my client had taken during the drive. Which showed that she was driving. That she was intoxicated. That she caused the first wreck, then drove off without stopping. And that she blew through a red light and caused the second wreck. And it showed that, while she was calling her mother and screaming about him abusing her, he was calmly sitting in the passenger seat, looking blankly at his phone, not moving, begging her to stop the car and let him out.

The judge stopped the trial, thanked and excused the jury, and directed a not guilty verdict for my client. He then had the girlfriend stand up and he mirandized her, telling her to find a lawyer to defend herself, as he would be recommending perjury charges against her to the district attorney.

My guy had been charged with assaulting the same woman 3 months before, and then charged in another county with violating a protective order she had out against him, and we used her perjury at our trial to get the other charges thrown out.

And yes, my client was a moron, who continued to date this woman.

I’m a trial lawyer. I have a ton of these. My favorite was probably a DUI where the cop was in a BWW with my client watching a fight. Like, the cop was standing at the bar in full uniform, then when my client walked by him to leave, followed him out.

Client was only actually going to his car to grab his phone charger because he was going home with the bartender (like, he hadn’t even closed his tab yet). Cop arrested him and charged him with DUI for opening his car door, then fabricated this story for his report about how client got in car, turned it on, and began to pull out of the space to leave the parking lot. He also denied being inside the BWW - on the stand, under oath, to my face.

Surprise! I talked to the bartender at BWW and got the security tape. It very clearly (like surprisingly good quality, don’t try to steal from a BWW btw) showed cop standing at the bar, watching my client walk out the front door, then follow him 30 seconds later. Parking lot cam also showed client barely touched the door handle before cop stopped him.

Since alot of people are seeing this, I’ll add; the cop underwent an “internal review” where the board determined he hadn’t done anything wrong. A few months ago, he murdered an unarmed man while on patrol. He also trains new cops now and tells young college girls he pulls over to call him “Tommy.”

Bit of a soap box: cops don’t need a reason to lie about what you say, do, or didn’t say/do. I read hundreds of police reports - none of them are 100% honest. Cops lie under oath ALL THE TIME - this story is just fun cause I got to prove him wrong and save my client from a conviction. If you are stopped by a cop for any reason, make sure you know your rights - do not offer information. Do not consent to a search. Do not have lengthy contact without a lawyer present or asking if you’re under arrest.

I had a client who was accused of taking a young woman's car and then crashing it/fleeing the scene. The girl testified at trial that she had given him the keys that night because she was drunk and "would never, ever drink and drive". Apparently she was not aware that I had requested and obtained a copy of her driving record which showed she received a DUI a month after the incident.

I still remember the look on her face when I handed her driving record to her and said "Except for that one time you got caught a month later, right?"

The look on the judge's face was equally memorable.

TL;DR Plaintiffs attorney forgets to send notice to my client to testify. Can’t make $35k case with his sh*te witness. Gets smackdown for not knowing local rules.

I did a quid pro quo case for a guy who was doing my firms website. It was a breach of contract case for a credit card. The debt had been sold and at the time of trial, the ad danum was something like $35k.

The client brought me in late in the game. He’s already gone to mandatory arbitration and lost. I get the case a week before the bench trial and when going through the pleadings, etc, I realize that the plaintiff never sent a “237 notice.” This is when one side tells the other that they need to make available either tangible evidence or a party witness at trial. Think subpoena, but less bite. So the plaintiff forgot to send this notice to the defendant that he needed to appear at the trial.

Normally, if a defendant doesn’t appear at a civil trial, you get the obvious - the judge only hears one side of the story and def loses. When a 237 is given and the defendant doesn’t show, the judge is supposed to infer that def didn’t show because his testimony would have hurt his case (“negative inference”).

But, because this was a debt buyer, plaintiff had no actual knowledge that this credit card bill and charges belonged to my client. All they get is a single page print out from the original debt holder saying they sold this debt, and if they’re lucky, some copies of statements. They could easily have proven it by calling my guy as a witness. Even if client denies charges, plaintiff can make a good case because defendants name is on the bill, it’s to his address, the restaurant charges are for the sub shop on his block, etc. and all that would come out when the called def as a witness.

So, I tell my guy wait down the street. We do pre-trial motions and plaintiff asks for my client. I point out their procedural error and they panic. They put on their witness, who is some account rep at the debt buyer and I object to hearsay on EVERYTHING they try to get in. She has no knowledge, can’t lay foundation for statements and the only thing she can remotely testify to is her own business record - the single page showing a debt sale. Not enough.

Then plaintiff attorney gets a “bright” idea. He starts to ask his witness about the arbitration hearing. I see where he’s going and let it play out a bit. He’s trying to get in an “admission of party opponent.” Basically, witness can say that at the arbitration hearing, my client admitted this was his debt.

But this is an out-of-town attorney. He doesn’t realize that because arbitration is mandatory and has very relaxed evidentiary rules (all evidence comes in if you tell the other side what you’re going to use) - that this county considers arbitrations to be the equivalent of settlement conferences and the testimony isn’t admissible at trial except to impeach.

Result: Directed finding for my client, who saved himself a $35,000 judgment. Judge praises my defense and I get to make super fake small talk in the tiny elevator with the plaintiff and his witness after trial, where I walk out to hand my client the court order in his favor. Most satisfying win, ever.

Had a public intoxication/DUI double whammy, which was a weird one to get. How would the cops have gotten someone for being drunk both outside of an automobile AND inside an automobile?

Turns out, the cop who wrote the ticket for the public intoxication (really should have been a public urination, but the vagaries of municipal laws are here nor there) was the same cop who wrote the DUI. Weird, right?

Turns out, the way it went down, the officer got our guy leaving the bar and turning into an alley to take a piss, but after he wrote him up, he asked him how he was planning to get home. Client told the cop he was gonna drive, and the cop gave him an affirmative go ahead. So client walks back to his car, starts it up, and as soon as he starts to pull out of the parking spot, the cop lit him up and wrote him a DUI.

By law, the cop didn't do anything wrong, but a jury disagreed and washed the DUI. We knew going in there was no way a jury would convict on that kind of behavior. Good reminder that cops have no obligation to actually "serve and protect" and oftentimes are just a different way for the government to generate revenue.

I knew the cops beat up my client and framed him. They described a knife in his possession that “caused them to fear for their safety.” Oddly, they never seized it. We won the criminal case and filed a civil rights case. While deposing one, he described the knife in detail. No more than three minutes later, he slipped up and claimed his partner told him my guy had a knife, but he never saw it himself.

I told him, “that’s not what you just said,” and saw him panic. His lawyer panicked too and asked to see me outside. When we got in the hallway, I withdrew my settlement demand, and the case settled for a substantially larger amount within 45 minutes.

Ah man, I’m late to this thread! But I hope it gets read. We were in a five week jury-trial on a civil case. Big business dispute. About 15 witnesses later, the plaintiffs call their last witness, their damages expert. The guy talks about his damage analysis, which was about the lost profits my clients allegedly caused this company. All the whole time, the guy has a PowerPoint slide up which shows his damages figures. But as lawyers know, it’s just an aid for the jury and not actually evidence.

Examination comes and goes and the plaintiff passes the witness to us. I look at my boss. He looks at me. The witness literally never read his damages number into the record. There was no admissible evidence because even though he showed the number on the screen, he never said the number, nor admitted it into evidence.

We didn’t ask the damage expert a single question. Plaintiff rests. We move for a directed verdict (asking the court to rule as a matter of law when there is no evidence) that they had submitted no evidence of any monetary damages. We won. It was more than $10 million. Simply because he didn’t read the number.

My client was riding his motorcycle on a relatively calm street when this guy exited his garage, without looking, and run over him. In deposition, the guy brought a witness that was with him on the passenger seat. The whole time, the witness maintained that my client was driving too fast and that there was no time to brake the car. I asked him the same question a few times in different ways, making him tell the story again. In the fourth telling, he, already a bit frustrated, let it slip: “- Look, I’ve already told you. We were exiting the garage and, as soon as I lifted up from getting my cellphone on the car’s carpet-” “Wait. So you didn’t even see the crash?” There was no coming back from that.

I’m arguing a motion for summary judgment in front of a judge who has never ruled my way on anything ever. I was expecting to go home with nothing. He’s holding the hearing in chambers so we’re all sitting around a conference table.

I make my arguments and say, “and I have six recent cases all supporting this.”

He says, “And you brought cases! That’s amazing.”

I thought he was being sarcastic, and he was, but not for the reason I thought. While I thought my motion was dead in the water, he was a step ahead of me. He didn’t need to see my precedent.

I finish my ten-minute presentation and then it’s the opposing counsel’s turn. She starts arguing, and when she’s done, I say: “May I have one minute for rebuttal?”

The judge says, ”You’re not gonna need that.”

And just like that it clicked. He was ruling in my favor. In fact, he’d known all along my motion was solid because he’d read it. He’d denied my last two motions on discovery matters because he knew where this case was going. He knew he was going to grant summary judgment and there was no point.

He granted my motion and that was it. I won the case, no trial necessary. It’s rare to get summary judgment in my area of practice and I was stunned. Excited, but stunned.

That was my last hearing with him before he retired. It made me rethink how I size up judges. My expectations were completely wrong and I should have given him more credit walking into the hearing.

I worked on a case involving defective processors. In discovery we got emails from the defendant’s engineers that had worked on the processors. They were in an Asian country but the emails were in English because they were going to US executives. One of the more senior engineers basically laid out the exact defect we were suing over, explaining what the problem was and why it was their fault, and finishing with “this is big problem, we ship CRAP to customer!”

Needless to say we hit them over the head with that in mediation, and they settled shortly after.

Parent termination case I was prosecuting. Dad went on how he has changed his life around and worked the AA program. Asked him what step he was on, and he proudly proclaimed 3. Asked him what step three is, he had no idea. Then asked him step two was. Again, no idea.

Parental rights terminated.

Obligatory, not mine but my Moms story. She was fighting for custody on behalf of the father, trying to prove that the kids were living in subpar conditions with their drug addict mother in spite of the ample child support provided. It was a tough case because courts are so hesitant to pull kids away from their moms. Then the mom burst out that she had been feeding the kids cat food as proof that she wouldn’t let them starve. Needless to say, the judge didn’t take that as a good reason for the kids to stay with their Mom.

I represented an elderly Indian couple, who didn't speak English very well and owned a rental property. They had a tenant at the time who had not paid rent in over six months. They had tried to evict her on their own, but when they got to court, the tenant produced some hand-written notes which they had given her the year prior thanking her for payment (but they failed to date the notes.) Of course, the tenant added recent dates herself. The tenant also produced a partially certified check receipt, but most of it was illegible. Anyway, because of their poor English, they had difficulty understanding the questions and giving intelligent answers, so they lost the initial case. They hired me to help address all of the various lies that the tenant was putting forth.

Anyway, we refiled. I had my clients pull the banking records, so we could show the date that the certified check was actually deposited into their account. The plan was simple, let the tenant make the same arguments and then present the banking statements showing the deposit date. My clients also found a photocopy of one of their notes, but it was undated (unlike the copy the tenant presented the last time).

Well, when the judge finally understood that the things the tenant had presented occurred the year before, his cheeks turned bright red and he asked the tenant "what year did you make this payment?" The tenant started saying something like she couldn't be exactly sure when... and the Judge cut her off again in a very loud voice "what year?!" Needless to say, the clients got their eviction granted.

Bonus content: When the tenant arrived at court I watched as she got out of her car, walked to the back and pulled out a wheelchair and proceeded to stay in that wheelchair until the case was over. Once the Judge left the courtroom, she folded up the wheelchair and carried it to her car mumbling that she "hates f###ing lawyers." Anyway, that was a very satisfying day.

I was prosecuting a convenience store owner for luring a young girl, who regularly came into the store, back to a part of the store to grope/fondle and kiss her (child enticement). It was the only section of the store without surveillance camera coverage. They were in the backroom for about two minutes and seventeen seconds, per the time stamp on the videos.

Of the many arguments the defense put on, one was there was no way there was enough time for anything to happen. In my rebuttal on closing, I asked the jury to imagine what could happen in the room in that amount of time, and I asked them to all close their eyes while I timed out 2 minutes and 17 seconds on my watch, in silence. After about 60 seconds two of the jurors started crying. Knew it was going to be guilty right then.

I had a client charged with battery. The alleged victim didn’t really support the prosecution’s case and in any event was reluctant to testify. They still had another witness though, and she said that my client was hitting the alleged victim, so it wasn’t looking great. The prosecutor and I were talking before court started, hanging out by the courtroom doors, when the witness walked in. She looked right at my client (who was sitting not five feet from me), then scanned the room and said “where is [client name]?” The prosecutor and I looked at each other for a minute, and then he said he needed to check on something. When I saw him a few minutes later, he told me he was dismissing the case

My client was accused of brutally murdering a dog. Cop testified that there was no testing of the blood, no body ever found, and admitted it could have, in fact, run away. The eye witness said she could see the killing down the hallway from the dining room. Cop testified there was no hallway and the dining room was on a different level of the house than the killing supposedly took place.

Then the person who was leading the lynch mob against my client around town for the last year testified that she had been in the apartment between the two visits by the cop to evaluate the scene. No body, a compromised crime scene, witness who couldn't see anything, and admission that there was no proof the dog was dead. Closing argument lasted 3 seconds: "Your honour, I'm asking for an acquittal".

I was reviewing the transcript of an interview with a child. The child made incriminating statements against my client. At one point, when discussing the allegations, the child used an odd word, but I didn't think much of it.

A few days later, I was watching a video of the child interacting with their grandmother (who hates my client) from about a week before that interview. The grandmother used the exact same odd word in the exact context the child later used it. At that moment, it became clear that the child had been coached. It was the first real "ah ha!" moment of my career.

I had a plaintiff who wanted compensation for some injury. He was saying he couldn’t work and had back injuries after a minor car accident. He also adamantly denied being able to work out or doing any lifting during his deposition. It was a big lie.

Then I found a video on Facebook of the plaintiff squatting 300 pounds the month before his deposition. That was a good one. I sent the video to his attorney afterward the deposition and the case immediately went away.

So I was on the defense side of a case, my client was facing a big judgment being imposed against him after the plaintiff testified in deposition that my client caused his injuries due to the accident and he would never recover and be the same. His life was ruined and he could no longer enjoy life.

The doctors involved and everyone else, including me, thought the plaintiff was going to win big if the matter went to trial. So in order to protect my client against a big verdict at trial I agreed to allow the case to go to mediation knowing my client was going to have to pay up a lot of money.

A few days before mediation I get an email from the plaintiff’s recently ex-girlfriend telling me that the plaintiff was faking and trying to get a big settlement. The best part was she attached pictures of the plaintiff climbing up a 30 foot ledge and jumping off into the water below, hiking, biking, and horseback riding during times he testified he couldn’t do anything.

Fast forward to mediation and plaintiff and his attorneys having no idea what I received a few days before start off demanding everything under the sun including things beyond my client’s insurance policy like assets and real property.

I meet with the mediator privately and tell them the story and show them the pictures. I then say all I am offering is a nominal sum with the promise of its accepted at mediation I won’t refer the file to the DA’s office for perjury. It was a HOLD IT MOMENT.

We had some huge issues with a landlord (trying to enter without letting us know beforehand, not answering to fix issues, very aggressive when talking with us) when he decided to sell the place.

He didn't check with us about the visits and just showed up randomly with potential buyers. We told him to get lost, he eventually left but called us the same evening to threaten us. We sent emails to remind him of our rights as tenants and he answered by threatening us some more, in an email.

We eventually end up in small issues court (not from the US, don't know the name) and he fabricates a story about how we are terrible tenants and we try to discourage buyers.

We just showed the judge the emails as well as the open complaint to the police we filled a few days earlier, the judge couldn't believe it and gave him a formal warning, gave us 3 free months of rent.

In the end the guy just used a real estate company to sell the place, all went smoothly and we still live there with lovely landlords that aren't completely bonkers.

I had a ton of these when I used to do Family Law. Off the top of my head: my client's husband was alleging she had been high and nude in public. As I'm crossing him I get him to admit that she was in fact changing out of her bathing suit at the beach and covered by a towel at all times. He says: "well, she was naked...under the towel," I come back with: "just like you're naked under your clothes right now?" Even the judge chuckled.

Not during trial. Happened to me personally.

I got into a car accident, another driver crashed into my car. The driver was such a jerk, talking tough, blaming me, saying that he knew a bunch of lawyers, and here's the kicker--he threatened that he was going to take me to court. I'm a laid back dude in contrast, and I was cordial to him. We went to the police station and made our statements to the traffic investigator.

I didn't have a dashcam (at the time), but a day later I got a copy of the CCTV footage that was looking directly at the scene of the accident. I showed the investigator the video, and he was absolutely stunned how wrong the other guy was. At that point, I told the investigator that I was an attorney, and that I'd decide if I wanted to take the matter to court.

Following day, I got a call from the guy who hit me. Apparently, he said he also saw the CCTV footage, and he had called to settle things. I was just shocked because this dude who was previously Mr. Alpha Male, did a total 180 and was suddenly polite and respectful.

Amazing what an impact video has.

Still in my training days, I questioned a key witness in a civil suit. The witness had a speech impairment and explained he had had a stroke. I asked if and how it affected his memory as the matter we discussed happened a long time ago and he seemed to remember it in perfect detail, which was odd in itself. He said he had trouble with anything from the past and couldn't even remember his wedding day. He cried a little saying that.

I asked how it was possible that he could remember events if he couldn't remember his wedding day. In complete naivety, he then told the court plaintiff had told him that's how it went down back then. I asked when they had been in contact with each other. The witness went on to say that he, off course, had no memory of events, but plaintiff had visited him weekly and daily up to the day before the hearing reassuring him that these were the facts and that was what he should learn by heart and tell court.

You could hear plaintiff cringe.

At a restraining order trial it was essentially my client's word versus his, regarding a sexual assault. He did a good job dressing up and acting very appropriately during most of his testimony.

But then he was asked a series of open-ended questions and he said something to the effect that, "She kept coming up on me" (allegedly during a lecture) and as soon as he said it a look came on his face and the judge's face and everyone knew the ruse of respectable young gentleman had failed. I won.

I represented myself as a 17 year old kid in traffic court. Contested the ticket hoping for "the cop won't show for the court date and they'll throw it out" trick. Ticket was for tailgating ("following too closely") while executing a left-hand turn at a light.

Cop showed for court date. Oh snap. Judge called me up and cop is on the witness stand. Cop starts giving testimony sounding super official, because... he's a cop. Times of day. Badge numbers. Road conditions. Says my speed was approximately 12 miles per hour. Point of view angles. Recollections of questions to and answers from "the driver."

A floaty-head surreal out-of-body-type-feeling ensues as nerves kick in and I have no idea what I'm doing. The Judge thanks Officer Professionalism for his testimony and asks if I have any questions for the officer. Uh. Oh snap! I have to talk.

I ask, "How fast was the car in front of me going?" . . . he answers . . . "Approximately 15 miles per hour." I begin to feel a headrush. I've got this.

"Your honor, how could I 'follow too closely' a car that was moving faster than I was and therefore pulling away from me?"

Judge laughed. Thanked me for taking the time to represent myself and thanked me for respecting his courtroom (I had dressed "really fancy" for a 17 year old... I think a suit leftover from my grandpa's funeral). Judge threw out the case and dismissed us both.

Cop walks out from a side door as I walk out of the courtroom. Totally expecting him to be a sour loser. He shook my hand and thanked me for keeping him on his toes. Told me I did a good job.

Client was charged with assaulting his ex-girlfriend. Her story was that he nearly ran her off the road, then opened her door and started punching her. His story was the opposite - that she nearly ran him off the road, and started punching him through his window (US, so driver on left side). We get to trial and she describes all these injuries, but doesn’t have any pictures of anything with her. I ask the stupid question “well, if you were so injured, where are the pictures??” “On my phone.”

She shows all the pictures. Which shows bruises up and down her right arm, split knuckles on right hand, cuts on right wrist, etc. NOTHING on her left side or face or body. “I didn’t take pictures of those injuries,” she said. HOLD IT!

Took the judge about 30 seconds to rule Not Guilty. The evidence supported my guy’s story 100%.

Custody case. We all knew Mom had drug issues but I was actually asking about another subject at the time, and I brought out a letter she had at some point written to the judge across town begging for her license back, claiming she had gotten sober and cleaned up her life now. This letter was in the public record in the other case.

As a complete surprise to me, she freaks out, asking me where I got this letter, claims someone must have broken into her house and stolen her diary, and says, "you can't hold that against me, i was high when i wrote that!"

So yes, if that wasn't clear, while she's currently on the stand swearing to one judge that she's clean and sober, she admits that she recently lied to another judge about being clean sober in an official court document. And apparently was so high she doesn't even remember submitting the letter to the court and accuses me of stealing it from her diary.

When I was interning at the criminal court for a judge I observed a pre-trial hearing for a murder case. The defendant allegedly murdered his grandmother because she wouldn’t give him money, then stuffed her in a closet and had a hook up in the bed right next to the closet. Horrifying stuff.

During the hearing the defendant’s lawyer, prosecutor, and judge went through some typical procedures, then the judge asked the defendant if he had anything to add. The defendant smugly said yes, actually, I don’t think I’m mentally fit to stand trial according to article x under the criminal procedure.

The judge let him finish, looked him dead in the eye, and said: “The fact that you just told me this shows you’re perfectly fit to stand trial.”

So I filed the lawsuit in January. We exchanged "discovery" (each side sends questionnaires and gets carefully worded answers) over the next few months, and I file a motion for summary judgment, meaning I'm asking the court to let me win the case without a jury because the case is so obvious.

Right before I file this motion, I figure let's review the discovery materials and see if there's anything I missed. And what do you know, the other side made a massive mistake on literally just the fourth out of 100+ questions that I asked. It's a dog bite case, and every single time I asked about the bite, the response says something along the lines of "we admit to this and that, but we deny that our dog was involved in any dog attack."

Well, Question 4 asks whether they admit that their dog was not leashed on the day when it bit my client, and they simply answer, "Admit." Meaning, they admit their dog was not leashed, AND they admit that their dog was the one that bit my client. That was the ONE thing that was genuinely in dispute.

They tried to argue at the hearing that it was a mistake and they only meant to admit to the lack of a leash, but the judge held them to their word (most likely because the other evidence made it clear it could only have been their dog anyway).

In a gun possession trial. The defendant, his mom, his sister and his friend all said the gun was in a bag that belonged to the defendant’s dead father. The father had died three years before the arrest.

I looked at the bag and noticed it had a date on it after the dad’s death, it was an Under Armor bag. We contacted Under Armor, they sent a rep to us. When it was our turn to rebu, the Under Armor rep testifies, we didn’t start making that bag until two months before the arrest.

Defendant already testified everything else in the car was his aside from the bag and gun.

I was an attorney for an insurance company defending a lawsuit where the plaintiffs were two girls who claimed they were irreparably harmed and their lives would never be the same because severe back injuries kept them from being active. They forgot to set their Instagram accounts to private and the accounts were full of pictures of them riding jet skis, dancing, and pictures of them at the gym. The underage drinking pictures were just icing on the cake.

We had a defendant on trial for DUI. We had already completed jury selection and one witness had testified when we broke for lunch.

Our witness coordinator (who was sitting in the back of the courtroom) said she thought our defendant looked impaired during the morning proceedings (fumbling with her purse, falling asleep etc.) So we mentioned it to an officer who followed her out of the parking lot....straight to the liquor store a mile from the courthouse.

She got back in her car 10 minutes and this time, when driving back to court, she was weaving and driving 15 below the speed limit (which was only 30mph, so already pretty slow). She didn't respond to the lights and just moseyed on into the parking lot, parked weird, and was eventually contacted.

Jurors were coming back to the courthouse while officers had her perform roadside maneuvers. She was promptly arrested. Her attorney tried to cut a deal right there, but we politely declined and the judge declared a mistrial since the defendant could not be present to assist in her defense.

My grandfather was a small town Georgia Lawyer and he told of a time he was representing an insurance company in a civil suit after a car accident. The plaintiff claimed to have received “whupneck” from the accident, supposedly caused by my grandfather's client.

Pop asked him what exactly he meant by whupneck, and the plantif, wearing a neck brace, proceeded to answer: “It’s when you can’t move your head like this” and then he shook his head back and forth. The judge promptly dismissed the case.

The plaintiff was being deposed in the lawsuit she filed alleging sexual discrimination. She was claiming her boss had made some inappropriate innuendos and overtures.

The defense attorney asked her if when the alleged statements or events took place, was she shocked?

“No.”

Was she offended?

“No.”

Was she damaged in any way?

“No.”

“So why exactly are we here?”

“Well, honestly, I’d rather not be.”

Meanwhile her attorney stared straight down scribbling notes/doodling. We ended the deposition there and asked her attorney if this was going away now. We got a call later offering to settle for $1000 and a letter of apology.

My best guess is she was pressured by a friend or family to talk to an attorney and the lawyers ran with it without really talking to their client.

It wasn’t at trial, but during a deposition on a case where two former employees decided to start their own company in a VERY niche market, but decided to make their plans on company laptops they unsuccessfully tried to brick. One of the defendants was the one being deposed. She said she “answered to a higher power than the company.” When pressed on what that meant, she said “herself.” That got reused prominently at trial.

Back before we were lawyers ourselves, my law school classmate got to take lead on a case under the supervision of a public defender. (I think it was over a car being stolen, but I'm only about 90% sure.) The lady whose car was stolen (or whatever it was) had previously said that it was definitely the person who was there as the defendant.

I was observing because it was cool that he got this opportunity, and it got even cooler when the plaintiff was on the stand and responded to "Do you see the person that [stole the car or whatever] here today?" with "No." The defendant was clearly within her field of vision and yet she said she didn't see the perpetrator, so the case was now a slam dunk. There was that moment where my classmates and I just looked at each other like "Did she really just say that?" My friend got to give the closing argument and everything. I thought it was pretty neat.

Watched my lawyer have this moment last time we were in court. Short version: my ex abused my kid, I withheld visitation and hired a lawyer. I offered supervised visitation with a plan to integrate regular visitation once he completed anger management and parenting classes as well as had 6 months clean of all substances.

When he was on the stand he mentioned that he had been taking prescription meds for 10 years. (To illustrate that he’s been on meds for a decade and never had a problem being a “good” dad.) Lawyer asked what meds, and he listed off a bunch; meds like methadone, klonopin, Vicodin, OxyContin etc.

She asked why he began taking those particular medications. He replied “well I messed up my back last year riding my quad” She asked him to repeat himself. He said it again. The look on her face was amazing. She said “So, you’ve been taking large amounts of meds for 10 years?” He said yes. She said “10 years of major medications due to an injury that happened two years ago?”