Different Place... Different Troubles....
Lawyer GIF by memecandyGiphyI'm a lawyer and the biggest mistake I see people make is assuming the law is the same everywhere. There is a reason we need to be licensed in every state to practice there. Furthermore, if it's not your specific area of expertise, a general knowledge of the law is probably not enough.
In Bad Faith
Not r/legaladvice but r/exmormon for legal advice. I remember the time someone was mentioning they were gearing up for a divorce but didn't have enough money to retain an attorney for the proceedings. Someone on the sub gave them the advice that they should get consultations with all of the top divorce attorneys in the region. The reasoning was that if the attorney has consulted with one side in a case that they are obligated to not be able to represent the other side. They wanted the spouse to also not have access to an attorney.
Comes out later that OP actually took that advice & consulted with 30 divorce attorneys. None were able to take the case so spouse has a hard time hiring one. Eventually the spouse & attorney found the thread on reddit and were able to tie the account back to OP.
Judge not only rules totally in favor of the spouse but OP was also ordered to pay part of the attorneys fees due to abuse of process, acting in bad faith, etc which made things more expensive for her.
"not a lawyer"
In a thread asking about the legality of physically assaulting people who don't wear masks in public (Big surprise, its still assault) the general consensus was "Feeling strongly enough about something means laws don't matter."
I tend to notice its common on reddit to have this weird, psychotic power fantasy going on where you can respond to minor rudeness with immediate and overwhelming violence and be applauded for it while doing so.
A lot of advice in r/legaladvice from "not a lawyer" types seems to advocate blatantly illegal and often violent behavior in reprisal to some pretty minor slights. The mod team is pretty good at taking down these types of comments, but you still see a lot of them.
Looking....
Looking Jim Carrey GIF by Golden GlobesGiphyThe only half decent advice I've ever seen come from that sub was what kind of lawyer you need to look for. It's safest to assume that everyone else is a cop or a maroon.
100% Wrong
It was regarding a noncompete or some kind of employment contract. All of the advice in the thread, including from quality contributor flared posters, was saying "looks like you're stuck, it's a contract and you agreed to it, consider it a life lesson."
With 2 minutes of research I found an appellate case directly on point from the relevant jurisdiction saying "employers can't enforce this contractual clause because it's against public policy." Meaning that everyone else giving advice in the thread was correct generally, but 100% wrong for the OP.
Lexis/westlaw searches (the way lawyers research the law) are obscenely expensive, so I don't expect anyone in r/legaladvice to be doing them out-of-pocket to help internet randos. But I found it with google. Either way, if you're posting there giving advice half-cocked, not knowing the full facts or law, I feel like you're violating your ethical obligations as an attorney.
Not Reddit
I'm a lawyer. So much of it is straight up garbage. It's pretty clearly full of folks googling away. The best answers are often downvoted lol. I followed legal advice for a few days or something and bounced as fast as possible.
Don't rely on Reddit if you need advice.
Great Ponds
I'm not a lawyer but I really enjoyed the person talking about my state's Great Ponds law. The question was asking what to do about people trespassing on OP's boat ramp at their summer cabin. According this poster, the Great Ponds law says there needs to be access, so therefore OP is out of luck. In reality, the law says that the town must provide public access to lakes or ponds over a certain size, not that you can just walk through anybody's property to get there.
Basics
viola davis side eye GIF by ABC NetworkGiphyIn my opinion, there are only three actual pieces of advice from that sub.
- Call the police
- Get a lawyer
- You're screwed. MooKids
Have a Nice Life
I'm not a lawyer, but I used to browse r/legaladvice. A year or two ago, there was a girl who was looking for options to prevent her parents from taking her back to the ancestral third-world country for a year for "school" or something. The post was chock-full of red flags; from the context it seemed pretty likely that the actual reason was far more sinister (I don't remember the specifics, but it seemed likely she would be married off, and in any case would not be returning to the USA at any point).
As I recall, she seemed reluctant to leave her friends for "a year" and didn't look forward to the trip, but she seemed oblivious that there might be something worse in store. Specifics aside, everyone was justifiably scared for her.
Nobody had any particularly useful legal advice, because it turns out there's not really anything illegal about leaving the country with your minor/dependent child with a good cover story, and her few preemptive legal options would have required more money and freedom than she had.
People did, however, have a lot of practical advice. Things like, "under no circumstances should you get on the plane," "talk to a teacher ASAP," "if you can't avoid going to the airport, pocket something that'll earn you a private interview with security and tell them you're being trafficked," etc. Again, I don't remember all the specifics, and maybe not all the advice was useful. But some of it was stuff the girl probably needed to read.
The comments section got ripped apart by the mods. It was just a graveyard of deleted posts followed by "This comment has been removed because it does not contain any legal advice." And the post itself was removed later with a short note to the effect that "this is not something we can help you with, have a nice life."
I get it, a sub has rules to keep the conversation focused, and you don't want to get in the habit of making exceptions, or the rules no longer mean anything. But those rules are enforced by people, not robots, and sometimes a rule-breaking comment could literally save a life. Have a little empathy.
I unsubscribed that day. I hope the girl is okay.
You Never Know
Law Lawyer GIF by GIPHY Studios OriginalsGiphyFor people unaware there are no qualifications to be a contributor on r/LegalAdvice. So you could be getting responses from actual qualified lawyers or it could be a 15 yr old repeating garbage they heard on the internet.
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Cycle Proof
Penn Badgley Joe Goldberg GIF by YOUGiphyMy bike was stolen, but then returned 3 days later splattered in blood including several complete clear fingerprints (I kid you not).
I called police and they couldn't run the prints because the "thief" was another tenant in my building and the bike was taken from a building on our property.
Authenticity
Lawyer, but not a prosecutor. A buddy shared an old story about this dude who was caught on video (hidden camera) receiving bribe money. Thing is, the footage wasn't authenticated properly. Dude was ultimately acquitted.
I heard this could happen, I'm not clear on the exact laws surrounding it, and I don't live in the US so it could be different for them, but I did hear that there are only certain video file types that are admissible because they can't be modified and returned to the same type. Doesn't make it a completely infallible system, and other video files are likely acceptable within reason, although they're not necessarily counted as solid evidence.
Joe
Not a prosecutor, but I remember reading about a case where a black man (I'll just call him Joe) was arrested for a murder he hadn't committed. After spending numerous years in prison, people began looking into his case because he had said the entire time he had not committed any crime.
The investigators began to find that many of the eye witness testimony was questionable to say the least and there were numerous errors the police department had made when filing the case which then called into question other evidence that had been originally presented at the first trial.
Basically at this point the investigators believed there was enough evidence to convince a court that Joe was wrongfully convicted due to numerous errors by law enforcement and the fact that many of the original "eye witnesses" later admitted they were either too far away or had an obstructed view to see who actual perp was.
However, there was ONE witness that truly believed they had seen the Joe commit the crime despite all of the errors and other eye witnesses mentioned above.
The Joe went to court several times to try and get out of prison on basis of bad evidence etc., but this one eye witness was so passionate when questioned that every single time the jury sided with the witness and Joe stayed in prison.
So despite the overwhelming evidence that Joe was wrongly convicted, and that all but one eye witness TESTIFIED that they couldn't really be sure they had seen Joe commit the crime, one eye witness was what kept him in prison. Not really incriminating evidence, but overwhelming evidence he was innocent yet the jury kept siding with one eye witness.
I can't remember if Joe ever got out, but even still, he'd been behind bars for decades at that point. If anyone can find the actual case, please link it below.
Hidden Treasure
treasure chest GIF by Archie ComicsGiphyNot a prosecutor but my wife's mom opened a letter showing her husband was hiding crap loads of money (they were going through a divorce) unfortunately because she had opened the letter addressed to someone else she couldn't use it.
Bad Parents
Not a prosecutor. But my parents were horribly abusive. Like to the point what when I was 4 days old, CPS tried to get my mother to give me up for adoption because they already had so many complaints about what they were doing to my 2 older sisters. But it didn't work out. 6 years later, they were taken before the court for child abuse and neglect. My older sisters gave testimony (I couldn't for various reasons), CPS presented their reports. Multiple complaints from neighbors, teachers, doctors, and my own grandmother. But the idiot of a judge refused to commit my parents because my mother didn't confess that my father did abuse us.
Instead they were let go and we were sent into foster care. From then on though CPS would take every child they had. All 6 of them. Fast forward almost 20 years and my mother is arrested and charged with felony child abuse with children 10 and 11. She only served 3 months because "it was all her new husbands fault". As soon as she got out, CPS immediately tried putting the girls back with her even though they knew she had a track record of abuse but it was from another state so it didn't count.
Burglary
I had this issue where my flat was broken into when I was a kid, they took everything and the worst part was we knew who it was and even asked if they took our PS1 and TV, (I was like 6 and this was many years ago) turns out they did and police couldn't do anything because of "no evidence."
The Murder
I'm a lawyer but not a prosecutor but I eat lunch and talk to other lawyers. Here is my story. There's a murder of a college girl in my town. It goes cold. Sadly, cops do what cops do, charge some random black guy that worked at the complex the murdered girl lived at. His trial is a hung jury once and second a mistrial.
Well, while he's awaiting trial for the third time, police are serving an arrest warrant on a totally unrelated person and in that dude's home they find some creepy ass shrine to dead girl. Wasn't a relative or anything. He just had tons of pictures of her on his wall. They couldn't use that and had no proof he was the real killer. Black guy's chargers were dropped. Nobody was ever convicted of her murder.
Jury Duty
nervous court GIF by South Park GiphyJury Nullification. Never let any attorney know that you know what that entails, if selected for jury duty.
Po Po Issues
Anything the police mess up and then gets suppressed. If the police violate your constitutional rights, the evidence will be suppressed from court. I've had confessions suppressed. Physical DNA suppressed. That always sucks to tell a victim their assailant is going free because of lazy police work.
The Evidence Says....
Bill Cosby GIFGiphyAs a defense attorney, I've had tons of cases where I have got evidence of my client's clear guilt suppressed because the government violated their rights.
I have no regrets. Pounds of drugs. Weapons. Videos. Confessions. DNA. All suppressed. Get your evidence legally or stop wasting the people's money, at my client's expense.
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The 44
jim carrey attorney GIFGiphyMy client was badly hurt in a car accident and promised me he was never hurt in one before.
He was actually "hurt" in 44 prior accidents, all of which he filed claims for, which is how I found out when the mediator showed me the defense's ISO report. The freaking look on my client's face. LMAO.
You just forgot?
Co-suspect was defended by another lawyer, who argued in his closing arguments that there should've been a police lineup during the investigation, since the suspects were brought into the station when the victim was still there.
Client turns to me and says that there had been a lineup and they were not identified. This was about 30 minutes after the alleged robbery. Nothing in the file suggests a negative police lineup. We do trials based on written statements by police, they are hardly ever in court to testify.
I mention what my client said in my closing arguments, the prosecutor's mouth drops and she becomes pale, hearing is suspended for further investigations.
Couple of weeks later, police officers are testifying in shame that they forgot to finish the report on the police lineup. Prosecutors case is thrown out for irreparable harm to the trial.
Listen to Jesus
Had a client charged with being a Convicted Felon in Possession of a handgun. She had been in a car that had gotten into a shootout on the interstate (in the middle of the night in a rural area at least). She was the passenger and her car pulled into the state trooper post in the county I practiced in. Her car was shot to hell so it was obvious something happened, but there was a gun in the car, she had a 30 year old felony theft conviction, so she was charged. She had some crazy story for what happened but it was obvious that it was a drug deal gone wrong, however that didn't matter for her charge really.
The discovery was really light, the driver of her car wasn't a convicted felon, and it didn't appear the state police had investigated the fact there was another car obviously shooting at my client even though the genesis of the shootout was just up the road in that same post's jurisdiction. Short of it was she had some legitimate defenses.
I had met with her multiple times, discussed her case in depth, and was preparing for trial. About two weeks from trial in passing she mentioned that a state trooper had interviewed her at the state police post, which was annoying because at this point the case was 7 or 8 months old.
So I look through the discovery again, don't see anything, but file a motion asking for any recordings of interviews. Sure enough the prosecutor was sitting on it, which is shady as hell, unethical, and common practice for that prosecutor office. I get the interview and all of four minutes in she tells the cop not only did she know the gun was in the car, but that she had been the one shooting. That pretty much killed every defense I had.
We had a come to Jesus talk the next day and she took her offer which was the minimum of five years to serve.
On Camera
vintage 80s GIFGiphyA person involved in a motor cycle accident, who sustained legitimate but not serious injuries, cctv showed the incident, they were very much not at fault.
They decided this was their big payday, claimed they could barely walk, had ptsd, serious back trouble, would never work again, the whole 9 yards.
They neglected to tell their lawyer they had been (i) working a manual labour job (ii) riding motorcycles again (iii) did a bungee jump.
All of which we caught on video/they documented via social media. They did not get the multi million pound settlement payment they expected and were pursued for fraud. It was a fun phone call after we sent the tape full of evidence.
Not Enough $$$
Had a guy with a DUI. Asked about any criminal history, he said no. So I started the paperwork for ARD for him (it's a first time offense program that seals the record and drops the charges once completed).
Get to the courthouse, talk to the DA, find out the guy had another DUI a year prior. Also was on probation from the first one still.
His excuse for not telling me was the first DUI was made up and he wasn't intoxicated, but pled guilty anyway. Unfortunately I ended up representing him for both bases, did not get paid nearly enough for the crap I went through, but I did manage to keep him out of jail so he could take care of his elderly mother. Made him give up his vehicles though.
So Pretty
Learned while my client was on the stand that she had "a little bit of a drug problem." She disclosed immediately after that she was going to fail the drug test the judge ordered because she had been a daily meth user for years. She was stunningly gorgeous, had held the same job for over 25 years, and was a rockstar mom to a kid with special needs. Unlike 90% of my clients, she was always on time, responsive, and did everything I asked.
To date the only high functioning meth user I've met. But heck that hearing would have gone quite differently had she mentioned that to me beforehand.
FYI, most of the time we can deal with bad facts. At the very least we can give you the advice you need to hear. But there isn't much I can do with surprise facts in the middle of a trial.
I'm sorry, other children?
I had a client on a family matter, we were in court and I was going on about how being a father was the most important thing in the world to him and his ex pipes up and says 'well, he never sees his other children!'
I'm sorry, other children?
That being said, many clients leave out embarrassing things until they get called out on them. Please tell your lawyers all the facts. We've literally heard everything and really don't care. Just let me prepare to explain that your weekend habits of drugs and sex dungeons doesn't effect your ability to parent.
Where to Begin?
oh come on jim carrey GIFGiphyAs a solicitor, one of the most annoying things I've had happen was, after an hour-long consultation with an older couple about changing the husband's will, the wife hands me a letter from his doctor which says the husband has dementia and does not have capacity to sign medical documents.
Like, you didn't think that was a good place to start?
"that's not me"
Ok, here we go. defending a lady in a simple neighbor dispute. neighbors said she assaulted them with a hose and threatened their kids, case was pretty weak bc my client was an old lady and she adamantly denied everything. anyways, it's just a small evidentiary hearing in front of the judge so there was no discovery ahead of time or anything like that. anyways, my client is on the stand, come to find out they have video footage of her smearing dog poop on their house.
Then printing out photos of their kids and writing racial slurs on them (family was Jewish), and covering her house with racist signs (like, papering her entire house). needless to say my jaw dropped. client then perjured herself on the stand-they play a video where it's obviously her, but she repeats "that's not me" over and over. most painful court moment of my life.
Show me the Money!!
money run GIF by Juan BillyGiphyDivorce client came into my lobby one morning, panicked. She starts screaming about how the money was missing.
What money? I asked her. Apparently her and her soon to be ex didn't believe in banks, as they kept a suitcase with close to $100k in a safe in their bedroom closet. One morning she saw the safe was open and the money was all gone.
Y'all have no idea how hard it is to trace and prove the existence of that much money in loose 100s, 50s, and 20s is. Cost her several grand in fees alone for how much work went into finding it. When if she had just told us about it we could have placed it into a trust account pending the divorce.
Rest my Case
Spent several hours zealously arguing that my client was severely disabled and couldn't work due to a back injury. It was so bad that the poor dude couldn't even sit in a chair throughout the entire proceedings. Rest my case. Opposing counsel calls in a DEC representative who proceeds to produce record after record of my client's deer hunting activities. He sat in a tree, in freezing weather, for many hours, shot and killed multiple deer, and transported their carcasses out of the woods all on his own. SMH.
is it real?
In-house attorney here but I interned for a judge at our court of common pleas during law school. There was a case of a guy that asked two early 20 girls a ride from the mall to a gas station. He told them he would pay them cash for the trip.
During that trip, he sat in the back seat and had advised that he had a pellet gun that closely resembled a hand gun. He said he had only pulled it out to show the girls but never did anything further. That had been his testimony during all the proceedings.
He willingly takes the stand and the prosecutor is questioning him about the gun and how he handled it. This dude willingly admits that he held it to the passengers temple threatening to shoot her with what she believed to be a real gun. He also corrected the prosecutor during questioning telling him that he never stated it wasn't a real hand gun.
That jury verdict came about as fast as one could.
Not Sorry
Season 4 Episode 21 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphySpecial Ed case. School district was supposed to be providing services to the child in the home.
Clients told us the school district had never sent anyone to provide the services, they hadn't heard from anyone in the district about scheduling, etc. Brought this up during a pre-hearing conference with judge and opposing counsel. After the conference, opposing counsel sends me pages of affidavits and documentation of all the times the school district employees went to the house and were refused entry by my clients for various reasons (or clients just didn't answer the door when they were clearly home). Clients had no explanation about why they lied to me. They fired us shortly after and I was not sad.
Nobody Wins
My cousin was the moron client. He and his second wife are divorcing and she wants full custody of the kids, no visitation, just lots of child support. He's willing to a 50-50 split (at first) and finds an attorney for the case. They're going over everything when he casually mentions how the mom drugs them literally every night so they sleep and she can go out to the bars while he works the night shift. Cousin thought this was his smoking gun to beat her in the custody battle.
Attorney had to explain that, no you can't tell this to the judge or that you've known she's been doing this for years. You'll both lose the kids and they'll go to state custody. Both of them are petty incompetent and as you can imagine we don't interact with that side of the family much (this has all been retold to me by other relatives. So don't worry, cps WAS informed of all of this, I do not know the out come yet, I'd have to ask).
All she had to do....
There was a temporary order of protection in place, and we went to court on the lengthier Order of Protection. I talked strategy with my client the night before, but unbeknownst to me she reconciled with her abusive dirtbag baby daddy. I had 3 OP hearings that morning, and did not get a chance to talk to her until ~3 minutes beforehand.
We had the wrong judge. I knew as soon as she told me she was going to be arrested for violating the temporary order.
Sure enough, they both got a week of jail and I had to watch their 3 week old child for a few minutes before a bailiff carted her off to God knows where.
They both got fired for missing a week of work. They couldn't get the kid out of the system. Evicted, homeless, the whole nine yards. All she had to do was tell me they got back together. All she had to do.
Oh Karen
Karen Intensifies GIF by MOODMANGiphyParalegal for insurance defense. One of my first cases, I was completing discovery with a very young client (barely 18). She claimed the city bus rear ended her when she was slowing to make a turn.
Then he got out of the bus yelling at her and screaming expletives. We submitted these responses. We come to find out months later there is actually video on the city bus (of course) of her trying to make an illegal u-turn and ramming herself into the side of the bus. Then SHE got out of the car and started screaming at the bus driver, who stayed silent in his bus. The video also caught her on her phone. Not the smartest person I've met.
"mention it sooner"
With some clients, "mention it sooner" means "I never mention anything that might hurt my case." Like the case I recently had where I sued an electrical contractor based on their assertion that they had paid the guy to replace a box and he had left them with half their lights not working. What they didn't tell me is that they had an illegally installed secondary box doglegged off the first box that was controlling those lights and he had to disconnect that box because it presented a massive danger and code violation. Then they didn't want to pay him to correct the second box.
I've have plenty of cases some important fact was left out. That's why when I take notes from a client, I have them sign at the bottom that I did not leave anything out.
I had a persistent felony offender early in my career who told me this sob story about how she had lost her baby and it drove her back into drugs and breaking the law. I asked her about it during sentencing. The prosecutor gets up and he is familiar with her. He leads with "Are you still using the baby you killed 14 years ago as a crutch for your bad decisions?"
Bamboozled....
Criminal defense (Canada). Talked to a client in cells. Said that she was hanging out at her baby daddy's and then, as she was leaving, the cops came and harassed her, so she resisted, and that is why she is in jail.
Turns out she was getting aggressive with him and he kept trying to get away from her. He ended up calling the police. While he was on the phone with the police she starts beating him up. The police hear this and immediately respond.
She was trying to flee the scene after beating her man up while he was on the phone with the cops because he was attempting to passively solve the issue, but she wouldn't leave. Luckily she has no record, but, man, I felt bamboozled. I learned a healthy dose of skepticism whenever people told me things from there on out.
Ya gotta love it.
"Love Child"
my cousin vinny GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphyMy father was handling a case of his friends family, about a property that this friend and his brothers and sister inherited. Horrible mess as you can imagine, deeply conflicted family.
After few years on one of the court hearing one brother mentioned a name, that never appeared during the entire lawsuit. Turns out there was one more brother, that they all decided to not mention, because he was "a black sheep" of the family. Years of tiring work went down the drain. From what I understand my father (who was doing it all for free, because he "owed him") got into argument with this friend,they never spoke to each other again and guy found a new lawyer.
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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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How Law & Order....
Pleased Law And Order Svu GIF by SVUGiphyTo avoid prison. Guy came in saying he was going to be indicted for many things (the list would have been impressive if it wasn't also sickening). So, he wanted to marry his accomplice because he saw on TV that your spouse can't testify against you without your permission and the accomplice had cut a deal. He just needed to get this pesky marriage to his current wife dissolved.
They're both happily remarried.....
One straw really can break a camel's back. I'm related to a couple for whom the last straw was him laughing at a joke about how to light birthday candles.
Important context: things had been rocky for a while, and they'd gone back and forth with trial separations, counseling, renewal retreats, reconciliations that didn't quite last, etc. But then they were at their son's birthday party, and another relative started lighting the candles from the left side of the cake.
Wife: Why didn't you start from the center and light outward?
Relative: I thought about it, but I was worried you'd have nothing to complain about.
Husband: chuckles
Wife: storms out in tears, files for divorce the next week
Obviously, it would be dumb to say they divorced over the birthday candles, or over a joke. To her, him laughing at a joke that was made at her expense was a sign of the lack of respect between them. And she just couldn't take living with him if things were going to be like that.
They're both happily remarried and stayed civil as coparents.
"other wife"
Guy came in and wanted to divorce his wife because he found out that she was still married to some other guy. He then asked me if he needed to tell his "other wife" that he was married to this wife.
"Aah"
Billy Porter Tea GIF by Pose FXGiphyA man filed for divorce because he couldn't stand listening to his wife make the "aah" sound after every drink. Apparently it got to him over the years.
Oh Boy.... lemme tell you....
Oh boy I've been working at a family law firm for 3 years and I have seen/heard some crazy stuff.
For example:
- We handled the divorce for an older man (70s), bc he was cheating and wanted to be with his mistress. Two years go by, he comes back to divorce the mistress bc he's been cheating on HER with his first wife.
- Wife found photos of her husband dressed up as a ballerina.
- Husband files for divorce bc wife does cocaine. He brings us photos of her with coke on her bare boobs. Then admits he took the photos. Then admits he's the one with the coke habit.
- Wife filed for divorce bc she didn't want to relocate to a neighboring state for his promotion.
- Couple with "open marriage" both end up jealous and call different law firms, and file separate complaints for divorce within hours of each other. beloved_wolf
Woof....
Because she bought a $3500 dog as a surprise and when she sent him the picture he responded with "this kind of impulsive nonsense is why your family is poor."
He was very harsh, but damn, I have to agree with him. Don't waste your money, ladies and gents.
The Pics...
Overheard in court one day a woman wanted to divorce her husband because he likes taking pictures of trains, and had been doing so for years before.
If he was a major foamer, i can totally understand that. Some of those people drag their families around the country, chasing heritage units or trains that are hauling neat crap. Literally every Saturday i used to see the same dude in his minivan full of family, happily snapping pictures of us going by while his kids looked bored to tears and his wife (probably) contemplated pushing him in front of a train. I couldn't handle wasting all my free time with someone who just wants to foam at the mouth in excitement over trains.
No Crusts!
gordon ramsey idiot GIFGiphyHe a woman who made his sandwich wrong. Well, she made it with an end piece. So he divorced her.
We never.... you know....
I had a woman call and say she needed an annulment but couldn't find her husband, and hasn't seen him in years. I corrected her that it would be a divorce, not an annulment. She told me they never consummated the marriage so it couldn't be a divorce. I told her that hasn't been the law in a long time, and she fought me on it. I asked her how exactly she intended to prove to the judge - with evidence - that her marriage wasn't consummated, and that got her upset enough to hang up on me.
Jealous Much?
Saved By The Bell 90S GIF by PeacockTVGiphyShe saw him in bike shorts and said she could never be sexually attracted to him again.
I practically live on a bike path and let me tell you that some people shouldn't wear bike shorts. Or anything with spandex. Ever.
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