Court Appearance

One of the most quintessential moments in any new attorney's life is his first court appearance. A World War I fighter pilot once said that your first time in the air you are either exhilarated and think it is the greatest experience or you are terrified for your life and spend the whole ride trying not to vomit. This is a fairly accurate description of will happen the first time one pushes back the swinging door and sits down on that hard mahogany bench . Luckily, this is not my first time, and I already know I fall into the latter category. My court cherry was popped long ago, and, although my underwear still shows remnants of that stain to this day, it makes me so much more effective than 90% of the other attorneys in court at 8:00am on a Friday.

As I drag myself into the courthouse rotunda, I can see it filling with an array of young eager beavers and nervous nellies, would-be prima donnas, and others who would have been better served by accepting that quarter in contracts class with shame and taking up accounting. The young eager beavers always make me smile. They think that their law firm sent them to court for them to get "experience" and some even labor under the delusion that their firm's partners must really trust them and be confident in their abilities to send them to court so soon.

Ah, to be young an ignorant. What most of these youngsters don't appreciate is that there is a very good reason a partner sent him or her to court in his stead---and it is not due to some benevolent motive. Nigh, if you have been practicing under three years and find yourself in court at 8:00 am on a Friday on a case that is not your own, you better give that file another look because chances are, there is some little nugget of information buried deep inside that is about to explode in your face like the ass of a goose before takeoff. There is a reason you got that file 10 minutes before the court appearance and it is not because the partner "forgot" about the case or "had a scheduling conflict."

Now, I know that not every file has a doggie landmine lurking inside, but there are many other reasons why a young associate could find themselves in peril in court at this hour. For one thing, it’s a Friday, and while we are all professionals, the dirty little secret our clients don't know is that 80% of us continue the law school tradition of Thursday "bar reviews" to drown out the misery of the last four days. Aside from alcohol, Friday is when most of us are thinking about that call we have to make to our bookies to make up for that hit we took last week when our favorite team flushed four weeks of hard-earned fees down the drain in less than two seconds because their field-goal kicker doesn't know which direction straight is.

Thus, there is a very good chance that the judge is hung-over and malcontent, that opposing counsel is hung-over and irritable, and that the clerk and court reporter will be giving you that look like your wife/girlfriend/friend with benefits gives you when you come home at 10:00 after a few cocktails (which you did last night).

The smart youngins know this and thus have good reason to be losing their breakfast in the men's lavatory. What scares me are the naïve ones who think they are showing up to court to actually advance some worthy cause. These people are hard to deal with because they are too ignorant to be scared and probably actually read their file last night and are seeing clearly after their three doublegrandemochalateechines. However, if one has his wits about him, he can dredge up some statutes or vague common-law notions from the back of his cobwebbed mind and confuse the poor soul before any damage is done.

It is armed with this knowledge that I can confidently walk into court and look the judge square in the eye and say "Good Morning, Your Honor" and mean it.