70%

An Actual Hearing

Judge: Don't Rise! Mr. Gonzalez do you have your notepad ready?

Me: Yes, your honor.

Judge (flipping through the court file): I don't see any responsive pleadings or affidavits.
Petitioner's Motion paragraph 1, granted. Paragraph 2, granted, at least until respondent replies. Paragraph 3 (bites his lip and moves his head back and forth), are you keeping up Mr. Gonzalez?

Me: Yes, your honor.

Judge: Granted, Paragraph 4? We'll leave attorney's fees pending until trial. Thank you counsel. We're off the record.

Verbatim, that is the entire hearing. It took less than two minutes. Now I'm glad I won, but what if my client expects that kind of performance in the rest of our hearings?

Overheard in open court.

Attorney: How many times have you been convicted of a felony?

Respondent: About ten or so.

Attorney: What were those convictions for?

Respondent: Failure to appear, some driving stuff, possession of a controlled substance. I was trying to self medicate my narcolepsy.

Attorney: What drug was the possession of a controlled substance for?

Respondent: Meth.

Attorney: Let me clarify this. Your testimony is that you were self medicating your sleeping disorder with Methamphetamine? Is that what your testimony is?

I've been listening to a little M.I.A. lately. I heard the song Paper Planes and it stuck in my head like glitter on a crafter. I took me two weeks to realize the sample was from The Clash's song Straight To Hell. Now both are on constant rotation in my head.

I actually didn't mind the songs stuck in my head after sitting through restraining order hearings the other day. It was nice to hear something blocking out the testimony.
Now, this isn't legal advice but it's probably not good to mention that "she makes me so angry I just lose it sometimes" when you're trying to get rid of a restraining order.
Some other phrases that don't go over well are "I didn't threaten her, I mean, yeah I said I'd kill her, but I didn't shout it. My voice was very calm."
"Yeah I threw her over my shoulder and dragged her up the stairs, but she lied to the cops when she said she was screaming at me to put her down. She wasn't screaming, she was just saying it."
"I didn't hit her, I might have pushed her a little, but it wasn't hard. She just fell down because we were so drunk."

A moment of silence...




I know, I'm going to hell. It wasn't even that funny.

So, I was in court the other day. The case was crazy messy. There were four attorneys. Kids, grandparents, parents, the dog, etc. Just about everyone had an attorney. We had to pull in extra chairs and counsel tables.

The Judge is giving us a "Don't you dare try this mess" look/settlement talk in chambers. We hash out an agreement, we haggle, we talk to our clients, we come back make a few tweaks and we have a sausage, I mean, a settlement (cough sausage sausage cough).

The Judge reads the settlement onto the record, we all chime in with our pet provisions etc. I've filled up two legal pad pages with notes.

Then the Judge asks, "Who wants to prepare the judgment?"

Crickets.

I'm thinking there's no prevailing party so I don't necessarily have to write this ugly bastard. Maybe someone will volunteer.

Crickets.

I start thinking, "Shit, I'm the petitioner, the moving party." If no one volunteers this ugly bastard will be my baby.

More analytical thinking kicks in, grandma's attorney doesn't give a rat's ass about the property division. He's not taking the judgment. Kid's attorney is the same fucking story. It's me or respondent.

That's when I look at respondent's attorney. He's doing his best impression of a certified expert pencil examination expert as he stares down into the pencil in his hand. It looks like he's trying to will it, or himself, invisible with just his mind/ mastery of the force. It's a technique I'm sure he first mastered in law school when he hadn't done the reading and thought he might get called on.

At that point I realized there was no walking out of this situation with all limbs intact and I through myself on the judgment. I told the judge, "As the moving party you're going to assign it to me so let's just pretend I volunteered to write it."
He smiled and said, "Fine with me, We're off the record." And he was out of his chair and back into chambers.

I'm realizing as I write this that there are four attorneys who have to sign off on the thing. Four of them. There's no way I'm walking out of here without a bunch of objections and another hearing.

Damnit.

I'm a bit of a Kurt Russell fan. I was over at WFMU's Beware of the Blog when I found this post comparing Patrick Swayze to Kurt Russell. I had never thought about it before but I guess Patrick Swayze is the Duane Eddie to Kurt Russell's Link Ray. The analogy is clear and I think the outcome is clear too. Link Wray kicks Duane Eddie's ass.

I will give them the point that Swayze was pretty awesome in Donnie Darko.

My only complaint is that the analysis of Big Trouble In Little China was lacking. Jack Burton is probably one of the greatest action heroes of all time. What was Swayze's name in Point Break or Roadhouse? I didn't even bother to see the other one.

So anyway, from someone who watched Sky High and enjoyed it, Russell is way better.
Checkout the Krautrock tribute to Kurt at the end of the post.

When you win a hearing in family law the Court usually orders you to write the judgment or order in that case. I recently had a spate of hearings and trials where I won. It’s always nice to win but after the fourth one I started thinking about how I don’t have time to write these all these judgments. I started to think about how maybe I shouldn’t win the next couple.
I could just sit down with my client and explain “I know your children mean a lot to you but maybe you should just have a really special time with them this weekend. I really don’t have time to win your hearing so this is probably going to be the last parenting time you have for a while.”
Man, wouldn’t that be great!


I guess I’ll keep working weekends then.