I sobered up a long time ago.

I've just been busy.

So, my judge was a 90 year old slightly deaf guy who even a court officer told me "is crazy" when we broke for lunch the first day of trial. Awesome, right? He ended up precluding one of my witnesses who was supposed to testify regarding a BIG part of my overall theory. The judge was completely wrong on the law, and after a long argument on the record, he pretty much accused me of trial by ambush and he wouldn't allow it.

So that sucked. And totally freaked me out. But we kept going, and I recovered. My summation was kind of done on the fly because of the aforesaid hiccup, but the jury was still out all of 15 minutes before rendering a complete verdict in my favor. My heart was LITERALLY jumping out of my chest before the verdict was read. Afterward, the judge who had screwed me over winked at me. In hindsight, he probably knew the jury would go my way, and precluded my witness to either a) fuck with someone he knew was doing her first trial or b) assert his idiocracy on a somewhat basic point of law.

One of my firm's partners was in the courtroom when the jury came back, and although I was still in shock, I remember him giving me a hug afterward. Which is something I NEVER would have expected he was capable of doing, so it was pretty nice.

Our client was happy, and of course later told me she had been "a bit nervous" about it. Well, hell, so was I. But I proved myself at least on the first one. I'm sure the next one will be harder, but at least I'll have a base of confidence to go on.

In other news, a homeless woman on the subway today told me I was a "fucking fucking whore fucking slut" because I demurred when she asked for some change. Nice.

Not everyone wins her first trial.

But I did.

Details to follow when I regain my sobriety:)

It's not as bad as the night before the bar exam, but it still kinda sucks.

I'm revising my last analysis by a smidge after making certain other connections among the evidence, but I still feel...decent about it.

I'm having a glass of wine with dinner and I'm going to bed in one hour. I'm getting up at 6 to run, getting to court by 9 to meet my witnesses, and hopefully we'll start at 10.

Here we go.

A tip to future trial lawyers of America...

Always go visit the scene of the crime/accident/incident/lie/whatever before your trial starts.

You may discover something wondrous about your case...

Although it doesn't mean my nervousness has vanished, given this piece of information, if I don't win this thing I'm turning in my law license.

Uh, John McCain probably looks young to you too.

So I picked a jury. I don't think I looked like a total idiot, and I'm generally happy with the people I got, so that's that. Also! I can confidently say that I did not violate the Constitution. Yay. Now of course the hard part begins. Opening statements are next Thursday, but I have a shitload to prepare before then.

I did get called out for looking young. By a, literally, 95 year old judge: "Well, hello missy! And how long have you been practicing law?"

Internal dialogue: do not roll your eyes, do NOT roll your eyes, just smile nicely and respond.

Thankfully, this wasn't the judge who will preside over the case. If he were I'd be afraid he'd give me a damn lollipop on our first day.

Jury selection = a slightly racist* chess game

Or at least this is how is how the process sounds as described to me. Even though I really only have a rudimentary understanding of what I'll be doing tomorrow, I'm not overwhelmingly nervous, which is good. I had a few moments of impending doom and dread earlier today, but they passed. Now I'm simply resigned to my fate. You know, kinda like a prisoner heading to the executioner.

Whoah, a rush of dizziness just came over me. Maybe because I've eaten nothing all day but a cup of dry cheerios, a yogurt, a luna bar, and a couple hershey's kisses. I meant to eat lunch, but had a fucking deposition in the middle of the day and never got around to it because every other minute was taken up with trial prep.

So now I'm scarfing down leftover pasta and contemplating whether I should make some more notes for tomorrow or just give up and go to sleep.


*Note to future practitioners: always have "another" basis for striking someone just in case you're faced with a Batson challenge. Ahh, what a fantastic system we have.