The two people in life that you must always, always tell the truth to is your doctor and your lawyer. Naturally we should always tell the truth in general, but it's not life or death to lie to a priest or a friend (for the most part). Your lawyer is your champion, they can't rat you out and the more they know -good or bad, especially bad- will only serve you in the long run. So don't let them be surprised in the middle of a courtroom like it's an episode of "One Life to Live."
Redditor u/youngster_matt wanted to hear from officers of the court about the times they were blindsided by asking.... Lawyers of Reddit, what is the biggest "well you didn't tell me that" moment you've had in your career?Jawed!
shocked jaw drop GIFGiphyRecently had a client's fact witness (an employee of the client) reveal at his deposition that he had signed an agreement which pays him a substantial bonus if the client wins the lawsuit. Our jaws dropped. How can you possibly give believable factual testimony at trial if you stand to earn a windfall if one side prevails? Ugh.
In a What????
My wife's most recent: guy said his company fired him on a racial issue
Turned out the employer had an overtly racist, anti Asian culture
Oh, but the client also kept coming to work and threatening the employer with a hand gun
...in a funeral home.
The worst part?
When defense counsel asked my personal injury client, a tall, 50ish, leather-vest-wearing biker, to describe the worst part of the neck injury he suffered when his motorcycle was hit by a car, he calmly replied, "The worst part? That I can't give oral sex - you know, cunnilingus - as well as I used to."
After a long pause, defense counsel asked him to repeat the answer. My client did. He wasn't faking. He seemed genuinely sad.
It was the first time I'd heard about that from him. It was heartfelt, unusual, and interesting, on a number of levels.
Oh Maury....
GIF by The Maury ShowGiphyCame out in open court that my clients brother was her child's father. She'd been super dodgy about dad's identity and this was a restraining order hearing against brother.
by the stats....
I had a client who claimed she was discriminated against by her employer due to disabilities she sustained after a car crash. She said her disabilities were so bad she couldn't drive or sit at her desk for any amount of time, and her company refused to accommodate her by letting her work remotely.
Needless to say, it was embarrassing when opposing counsel told me my client played in a full contact lingerie football league and had telecast videos of her on Youtube playing, running, getting tackled, and dancing in the end zone on the very date her doctor (who lost his license) gave her a note saying she was bed-bound.
I showed her the footage and she continued to lie despite having a freaking stat sheet for receiving yards when she was supposedly in the hospital. Never been angrier at a client.
Teeth
I represented a client who was suing for jaw and mouth-related injuries. I retained her regular dentist to act as her expert witness. Two days before our impending trial, my client casually mentions that she will be arriving at the courthouse with her dentist because they had become romantically involved and lived together for the past a year. She had more than a year at her disposal to tell me this little bit of wonderful news.
And so I immediately became more agreeable to a last minute pre-trial settlement.
What the....
Had a client tell me that they had just signed a bunch of claim releases that ultimately tanked their case, after I had explicitly told them to let me look at all documents prior to signing since I had seen something similar that they had signed almost a year back.
They'd signed one of these while we were gathering documents and about to take a deposition and when I saw my client's signature on it, I just facepalmed because his signature ended up waiving away any rights they'd had to payment. Ugh.
I've Lost Count....
oh come on jim carrey GIFGiphyI had one client that failed to tell me about a DUI... his third or fourth. I found out when he was on the stand...
It was uncomfortable to say the least.
Playing Perry....
Obligatory not a lawyer, but I watched this unfold as the foreperson of a jury. Defendant decided to be his own lawyer; accused of pulling over and switching drivers in a car while being pursued by police for driving without a license while on probation for DUI (officer pursuing was the same officer who arrested him for the original DUI).
Playing Perry Mason, defendant put his buddy on the stand and asked point blank, "Who was driving the car that day?" Buddy replied, "you mean before or after we switched drivers?"
It was all we could do to keep a straight face.
Not so Public....
tiffany pollard knife GIFGiphyA client in a hearing for domestic violence, forgot to tell me that maybe, just maybe she had buried a knife in her husband's hand and that she had also forgotten that she used to threaten him in front of her neighbors, her family, colleagues and pets. It was a cool and crooked audience trying to defend the shamefully indefensible.
Don't Lift...
A bit of a legend, but I got to read the actual trial record when a guy who claimed total loss of the use of his right arm, testified for 45 minutes he had hurt his left arm. He even lifted his allegedly horrifically injured right arm above his head to demonstrate which appendage was screwed. One of his attorneys just packed up his crap and walked out.
'yes I made it up'
Public defender, doing a felony assault case with a twist - victim claimed that the very unique assault incident happened twice, identically, two days in a row (so imagine she claimed he threatened her with an icicle and she called her sister and the sister told her to eat a fruit snack or whatever but two days in a row).
During direct she was adamant that things happened this way twice, yes it sounds crazy, yes but it happened, yes she was so scared and he assaulted her etc.
She sounds pretty believable and I'm starting to get worried.
Cross examination - I start asking questions to set her up for an impeachment. Finally I ask '(victim name here) are we supposed to believe that these unbelievable made up sounding things, happened to you not once but twice?
Then she quietly says 'yes' and I push 'yes, what?'
'yes I made it up'
This admission put me in such a shock I didn't even know what to say. I asked a few more questions and sat down and the DA attempted to redirect the question as if I had intimidated her. Client walked on the felonies but went down on a misdemeanor time served assault even after all of this. But I never again had a victim admit they they were making things up on stand.
Get another Hustle...
hustling wolf of wall street GIFGiphyI worked for [insert major airline] and found out through a mind-numbing contract review that they were double dipping.
They had entered into an exclusivity agreement with one [insert major airline repair provider] and, without telling me that had asked me to engage in a separate exclusivity agreement with another provider so they could get a second, $25mm rebate. They intentionally had 2 separate attorneys for each transaction so we wouldn't know about the double dipping. I don't know if $25mm sounds like a lot to you, but when you're talking about airplanes, which cost $, I am not going to get disbarred so you can make a little extra money. Quit on the spot.
Cuffs in 15....
The most common is that they don't have prior arrests or convictions. That usually ends when you hand them an inch thick catalogue of their activities since their 18th birthday.
The post violation phone calls are fun.
Someone will violate their bond or a protective order before trial, they will get caught, they will then call and attempt to explain that everyone was lying.
One guy showed up for a status on probation date, something that only happens with people who have a habit of getting violated, and he reeked of weed. I informed him he was going to be dropping that morning. He stated that he would drop clean. I said mess it.
Probation took him down. He was back and in cuffs in 15 minutes. He had tried to poke a-hole in a condom filled with clean pee to beat the drop. The probation officer was looking in a mirror at this guys meat as he pulled the pee condom out of his boxers and tried to create a stream with a needle. His pants were covered in someone else's pee because that's how stabbing condoms works.
Forged...
Not me, but I just read about the recent disbarment of one of my law school classmates.
Apparently he told his client that they won the case. They did not win the case. In fact, the case was languishing from inaction on the part of the lawyer. He then created fake documents saying they won the case. Forged the judge's signature on the fake documents. Then had the audacity to bill the client for the time it took to "win" the case.
Imagine the surprise of the client when another lawyer at the firm called her up and said "remember how you paid your lawyer for a bunch of legal work and he said you won your case? Yeah, none of that happened."
So yeah, he got disbarred. Weird that it happened to somebody I know.
"Ms. Smith"
Client intake working pro-bono in a fair housing clinic. Have a really solid case based on what "Ms. Smith" has told us. Her Landlord "John" was calling her a "good for nothing N," - "worthless piece of blah," etc... I think we have a really good case to ensure this woman won't have to pay her current landlord (or any landlord) any rent for a LONG time.
I ask the question that ALWAYS has a bad answer, how long has it been since you paid rent? It had been a few months, but I can work with that.
25 minutes of listening (a lot of venting is going on) and documenting the case later, I start getting all of the final information. I ask for the landlord's address. "Ms. Smith" lets me know it is the same address. I'm surprised. I ask if it is a duplex. "Ms. Smith" says no.
I ask for the landlords full name. "John Smith."
The rest of the conversation went something like this:
Me: "Ms. Smith, is John Smith in any way related to you?"
Ms. Smith: "yeah, he my dad."
Call me X....
Sexy Secret Agent GIF by MadonnaGiphyFriend and classmate of mine was parked downtown, which is not a great neighborhood. Someone comes up to her window to carjack her. She slowly rolls down her window, and in her most disappointed voice is like "Come on X, I just got you out on bail"... X then proceeds to apologize and walks away.
Flames Away...
Kinda the opposite of what you meant, but what's a good lawyer story if it doesn't follow the letter of the law while breaking the spirit of the law?
My grandfather was a lawyer for a big oil company. They ordered a whole bunch of steel pipe for a new pipeline, and when the construction workers tried to work on it, they found it was somehow magnetized.
The pipe was so magnetic, their blowtorch flames didn't go straight, so they were having a really hard time welding the pipe sections together.
My grandfather tried to sue the pipe manufacturer, but they just said that nothing in the original contract specified the pipe couldn't be magnetic. So the lawsuit fell through, and from then on, they had to specify in every contract that the metal not be magnetic.
Seriously?
Standing outside of the courtroom, first on the docket. Matter is for a divorce order, after having to get substituted service because the other party was hiding out in another country. Client says to me "Oh, I think I am already divorced in [country]. I got some papers a month ago."
Matter is called 30 seconds later. I explain to the judge that I've just been told this at the door. Judge gives me a look that is half piteous, half "are you freaking kidding me?", then reschedules the matter with instructions to confirm whether the client was divorced elsewhere. Turns out that they were.
Client proceeded to leave a bad review because we couldn't get her a divorce order, despite the fact she was already divorced.
devil the deets....
judge GIFGiphyIn criminal law, most of the time the story I got from my client and the story I got from the police reports were vastly different.
For example, I had a client charged with armed robbery. His story was that he needed money and the guy was going to give him some money but never did and it was all totally innocent. The other guy said he took $500 at gunpoint.
The police reports revealed that he was arrested a couple hours after the alleged incident and had $360 in cash on him. He didn't understand how that detail was relevant.
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Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.