I like to shake a giant dildo in my hand while asking the witness in a loud voice, "ARE YOU AWARE OF THE PENAL CODES IN THIS STATE?"
just had a status conference for a case in el paso. rescheduled to august 2021. but harris county is going to start next month. for sure
Motivation level this Friday afternoon is at about 10% Possibly lower. Hard to gauge when it gets to such low levels.
Will magistrates let Plaintiffs get a rebuttal witness deadline in the case management order in yalls jurisdictions? I asked for one yesterday and the judge wouldn't give it to me.
I hated depositions where defense counsel's entire focus was to prepare motions to strike. The motions never work, and 75% of the deposition being related to bullshit rather than the case just kills me inside. I get why they do it, but when it's obvious that the expert is legit, it's annoying. Had a case where we gave defense counsel a 50+ page opinion disclosure written entirely by our expert. We didn't edit it. Instead of going over the details of the disclosure during the deposition, she was hammered for about 6 to 7 hours on everything but the case. The hearing to strike lasted 20 seconds. Good billing I guess.
I had a plaintiff's lawyer take a two hour defendant depo on a case where our client rear-ended the plaintiff. I don't see how it would take more than 5 minutes to get her to say "i couldn't stop in time and hit the plaintiff".
Agreed. And the style you have at the beginning may have to change depending on the witness. It just totally depends. I once talked bowling with the president of a local bowling league for 10 minutes before abruptly ending that conversation with, "So anyway, did you run that red light?" And he was as nice as can be in saying he did.
I mean there are background questions you need to ask in case you’re heading to trial. I practice in some small counties where lots of people on the venire are going to know the parties, and often won’t admit it without you dragging it out of them, so you better know a good bit about the background of the other side.
The most fun deposition I’ve ever taken was in a tractor-trailer counterclaim case where an excellent plaintiff’s lawyer and I buttfucked a truck driver for 8 hours. I used ~3 on damages just because my co-counsel had slayed his ass so bad on liability for 5. He’d claimed all of these personal property items as damages that I got him to agree were all on his dashboard by the end of it. It was borderline performance art.
He claimed he lost his log book in the accident, so my last question was “I guess your log book was on the dashboard too?” “Yes sir.”
So apparently the NFLPA will pay up to $350k of uncovered healthcare costs during a player's lifetime. A bunch of former players indicted for submitting fake or forged requests to collect the cash: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/six-...ictment-alleging-nationwide-fraud-health-care I check the DOJ's press releases daily. There are often some pretty interesting stories.
Need a recommendation in Dallas area. Just a consult, I’m not sure if there is a case but some bouncers beat up a guy I know pretty badly at a club so he wants to talk about possible options.
According to him, a customer tried to take his wallet. The bouncers all knew the customer. I don’t feel like texting out all the facts, just wanted to give my buddy a name/number.
Heard a hilarious set of facts today. Small suburb in Colorado outside of Denver/Boulder. Volunteer fire department responds to a fire at a liquor store. Above the liquor store is a dwelling. They put it out (not sure how much burned down, or who called the fire department). The owner of the liquor store tells the fire department he is grateful. As a way to repay them, he says "here, take some whiskey for your trouble." Not sure if he handed it to them or if they grabbed it themselves. Moments later, one of them cracks it open and either smells it or drinks it. Turns out the bottle contained gasoline. Evidently the liquor store owner hired someone to set fire to his building; Charged criminally for arson and attempted insurance fraud.
just went to lunch with a chiro who has never done a depo before to let him know how it would go. he does 90%+ PI said he averaged 30 new patients a month for last 10 years. Has had 6 over the last two months.
I'll never understand lawyers filing motions that they'll certainly lose, or making statements that are verifiably false. Some lawyer just filed some crap, I dropped receipts, and then he proceeded to get reamed by the judge. Things are looking prettayyyy prettayyyy good when a judge lectures opposing counsel about his oath as a lawyer.
From what I’ve seen, some do it for the extra billing, others due to fear of malpractice, and others because they really think they’ll get away with it.
Sometimes you have to file shit you know you'll lose to protect your record. Now, making false statements is an entirely different animal.
A defense lawyer in Houston has tried to get treating docs struck in every case this year. He's lost every single time. Probably billed a few hundred hours though.
True true. This case is actually in arbitration, so I'm pretty happy that the finder of fact and awarder of damages basically just called the other side a bullshitter.
I’m actually amazed at how far some of our local judges let lawyers push that boundary. Maybe it’s because they see it more often but sometimes it blows my mind to see the things people get away with.
Most definitely. Probably because we're four circuit judges short and they just can't get around to reading everything.
Don’t get me started. I was on the phone with a lawyer in Orlando recently and he said they had a dedicated court for business cases. Hell, we can’t even get a dedicated civil court up here. It’s a joke.
And some of them are often unpredictable. I was literally typing out how I'd do anything to have divisions for different types of cases.
We used to have a commercial litigation docket in Jefferson County. That's kind of gone by the wayside, though, as the quality of our bench has taken a tailspin.
An old roommate of mine lost a friend (more than an acquaintance and less than a good friend) over something like this. The guy owned a landscaping business and sent him a text asking him for legal advice. He said sorry but I don't do it for free but if you want some help I'm happy to help at a discounted rate. The guy got all mad about him not being a friend and my roommate lost it. Basically told him to get fucked bc that guy wasn't sending his people over to do free landscaping at our house for free "just bc we are friends". Guy tried to claim there was a difference and my roommate shut it down saying that just bc his career is knowledge based doesn't mean it should be free to all people that know him. Apparently hasn't spoken with that guy sense, which was abt 5 yrs ago. /Coolstorybro
When my friends ask me for pretty minor legal advice like that I give it to them and don't ask for anything in return. In fact I usually bend over backwards to help out any of my friends that need something and never ask for money. Unless it's a personal injury case, then I expect to get paid.
But there’s value in that because they’ll refer you personal injury cases. If you do criminal work, you can’t get by doing it for free.
true. A lot of the time when friends or ppl I know in the community want legal work it's a traffic ticket. One of my partners does personal injury and his second field of practice is criminal work including traffic offenses. He handles all of my friends' traffic tickets at a reduced rate. He's probably getting tired of sitting in City Court on Wednesday nights for pennies on the dollar taking care of traffic tickets.
I should have been clear on the front end: that wasn’t a friend. I have no idea who it was, most likely someone who googled “Memphis traffic ticket attorney.”
I have a text auto response when people call me when I have my work phone set to go straight to voicemail (when I’m in court or out of the office). Frankly, I prefer texting with clients and potential clients
We have some app that lets us text clients from our office without having to give them our personal cells. We use that thing a good bit for staying in touch with clients.
Just had a Judge via Zoom sentence our guy to 224 months. Certainly a casual method to do something so serious.
He got a sweet heart deal on a robbery (years ago) and now he is on his 2nd violation of probation. The VOP's are just dirty urine. He hasn't been arrested on a new law or anything like that.