JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: Somebody’s Gettin’ Married

For several decades I routinely got up, showered, shaved, drank a cup of coffee, put on a nice shirt, a nice tie, a suit, and shoes that went with that ensemble. That was my lawyer uniform. I’d mix up the suits, the shirts, the ties. It all depended on my plans for the day. Was I meeting a client in the office? Was I going to the business of a client? Was I headed to court?

The one place that lawyers must always look sharp is in court. If it is for a hearing, that means you will sit in a courtroom with the judge, the bailiff, the clerk, various other court personnel, and many other lawyers. I never practiced criminal law, so appearances with clients were rare in the civil court proceedings where the business was a hearing. One after another the court clerk would call the case, and the attorneys involved would stand and move to the tables up front, one for the plaintiff’s side, one for the defense’s side.

While the courts were Civil, the attorneys were not always. You sometimes had your client with you, but that usually did not happen unless you had to put him or her on the witness stand to prove up some issue. Mostly, this was a procession of attorneys getting heard on motions for things like requiring the other side to produce evidence, or a witness for deposition, or answer various interrogatories or Requests for Admission, or such. Some lawyers dawdle and some chronically dawdle. Sometimes you ask a judge to sanction a lawyer and/or his or her client for failures to promptly give Discovery.

Trial lawyers have egos. It’s true. That’s because trial lawyering is performance art. He or she writes most of their own script, contrives the lines they will use, and seeks to impress the judge with his or her correctness, thoroughness, and righteousness. You are the writer, director and actor of this presentation. And all the court personnel are watching. So are many other lawyers, many of whom you know from other cases or prior cases. Your reputation is on the line. Woe be the lawyer who gets chewed out by a judge in front of fifty or so of his or her fellow trial lawyers.

There is an art to pre-trial activities. You must constantly move the ball forward and you must do it without costing your client too much money to do so. You must make progress. You must overcome the small army of lawyers that big firms use for mere hearings for their BIG clients. I recall a hearing in a big case against a huge Fortune 500 firm well known to all. They arrived with FIVE lawyers to a hearing where I was the only lawyer on our side. Just before the hearing began, I leaned over to the lead attorney for the five lawyers and said quietly “Don’t you think you should send for reinforcements now?!” He was not amused, but I was, and I knew my point was not lost on him. Big firms attract lawyers who love to have a team of lawyers who had really high grades in law school, but often lacked the kind of gut-fighting skills of a street-wise good old boy like me. They never fly solo.

I wasn’t just whistling Dixie about the gut-fighting. There was a reason my nickname was Mad Dog Moore. That big firm I mentioned? That big case? I had trials against them in a five county area, and beat them in every trial. They sent at least three lawyers to every trial. I went by myself, not even a legal assistant.

Of course, when you’re going to court you have to look spiffy. Occasionally there will be an old codger attorney whose persona is the ruffled, slightly scraggly old lawyer. He can get away with that. You can’t.

Learning how to tie a tie is essential to being a trial lawyer. If you’re going to stand in front of a jury pool and do what we call “picking a jury,” you have to look sharp. Twelve of this group will end up in that jury box. You don’t really pick a jury. You pick who you don’t want on the jury and eliminate them. What is left are 12 jurors who will be your jury.

You want jurors most likely to identify with your client, or your client’s representative who will sit beside you at the counsel table. If your client’s representative is a 50 year old white male businessman, you want 50ish white males who appear to have outlooks and interests similar to your guy’s ideals. Picking a jury means trying to eliminate from the jury pool any person you think may be a problem for your side of the argument.

A trial can be more fun than a barrel of monkeys, but a trial can be the worst, hardest thing you have ever been through. I’ve had some big ones and I’ve had some long ones. I had one case that took 7 years from start to finish. Hearings. A trial. Motions for New Trial. Appeals. More Appeals. It was against a big law firm as the defendant represented by another big law firm. Seven years from the time they screwed my client until the day they had to write my client a $3 million check. Of course, they insisted on having a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before they would run up the white flag and pay it. We agreed because not issuing a press release is a small price to pay to get your client that kind of money.

A number of years ago I stopped trying cases, mostly because you can’t keep stopping proceedings and saying “I’m sorry, what was that you said?” Bad hearing ruins trial work.

Now for years I’ve had a saying I enjoy telling people when they ask me about whether I go to court any more. I say NO, and add: “If you see me in a suit, you know somebody’s gettin’ married, or somebody’s gettin’ buried.” I do miss the acting.