Wednesday, September 12, 2007

One Down...

I had my first courtroom exercise today. How did I do?

Well, let's just try and focus on the fact that PC is a marathon, not a sprint. Because that did not go well. Nothing like the reassurance of knowing exactly how much you have to learn.

Next week, right? I'll get 'em next week.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Baker, why don't you give me a report on the significance of the song "Tomorrow."

Anonymous said...

The first exercise (is it still opening statement) was probably the scariest in terms of stage fright. Later the fear/motivation will come from getting it right/kicking the other teams a**. That's when the fun begins.

My horror story relates to the expert witness mini-trial. I had had a hard time tracking down the student who agreed to be my medical "expert." Finally sat her down 10 minutes prior to my openning statement which I had typed notes for, but hadn't had a chance to review.

Prepped her for the 10 minutes, eventually putting sticky notes on her copies of the exhibits instructing, "when I point here on the full sized exhibit, say what's on the sticky note with the arrow pointing to that part of your copy."

Looked up--time for trial! I'm running to the court room, my partner's running out saying Prof. is threatening mistrial if you're not in there in 30 seconds.

I was. Sat down, heart pounding. Trying to review my openning statement notes. Ten seconds later, "are the parties ready?" "Yes your honor." "May it please the Court; counsel; ladies and gentlemen of the jury . . ."

It wasn't the best openning ever. But I didn't freeze up. We made it through. It was our only mini-trial loss, but also probably the one with the most memorable lessons.

Good luck. And enjoy PC as much as possible.

Poseur said...

The song "Tommorrow" has the key line "Tommorrow's always a day away" misstating the key holding of O'Hara v. The Wind 387 US 465 (1939): "After all, tommorrow is another day." The issue in this song...

Anonymous said...

Actually, the line is "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I love ya, Tomorrow, you're only a day away"

As the court noted in Bond v. Blofeld (007 SW2d 808,817), "tomorrow never dies".....