Lawyers, What's The Worst Mistake Your Opposition Has Made? (r/AskReddit | Reddit Stories)

lawyers has there ever been a time the opposing counsel accidentally proved your case for you and what happened I had a hearing where the opposing party offered an updated contract that my client supposedly signed except it was a horrible copy and barely readable then he assured the judge that the new contract was exactly the same as the old contract except for the party name at the top the original contract was in his mom's name the new one in his name and the date of the contract itself he made but assurance multiple times after he exhausted himself saying how everything was the same I then pointed out to the judge that half the provisions were different in that my client had never signed that form the judge asked if we were really accusing him of forging my clients signature since that's a serious accusation I held up the guy's prior conviction for contract fraud and said I absolutely am your honor double quote we won hands down no further arguments needed my dad's ex-girlfriend took us to court over his estate after he kicked her out her claim was that she was entitled to half the pie due to the fact Oh marriage our claim was that she was a gold-digging WH Rea who planned it from the beginning she had mountains of evidence of her contribution to dad's company and running the private estate expense reports receipts dates and times times are endowed proved their relationship with trips and combined spending ATC etc she had so much evidence the judge took four days to look it all over after which he came back and basically said why the hell would you have all of this if this wasn't your plan - the whole time double quote the case was very downhill from there edit Jesus Christ we pinball okay some more clarification she done the same thing to her ex-husband giving precedent he and her children said so in their testimonies one of her children even and it vertically admitted she'd told them what to say and paid them for it too we were able to name the date of the relationship between her and my dad ended which was months before she claimed and outside the time limit to make it a de facto common-law marriage three we had testimony from the doctor at his iku who said she tried to keep everyone including his ex-wife our mother and us his children away from him meanwhile she had his phone and computer and was trying to take over his contacts and business we had proof of this for a lawyer was a [ __ ] who constantly contradicted himself and the evidence he lost documents gave incorrect dates and asked irrelevant questions of the defense five in the end it was that her expenses for the relationship would be normal for anyone in any kind of romantic relationship that gifts and meals and claimable for compensation that her contributions to the household and business were not sufficient to warrant compensation she never actually put any money into either and that the relationship was not sufficient in duration to qualify as a common-law marriage six this case took four freaking years to settle including two elevations of Appeals she finally gave up because she'd run into about a quarter million dollars of court feeders as well as being forced to pay 40 US dollars zero zero zero I had a misdemeanor possession case I was defending client was driving his mom's car he gets pulled over for playing the stereo too loud there are pills and a center console in a prescription pill bottle the bottle has his mom's name on it client gets arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance without a prescription cases obviously bullsh t but the dumbest DEA I've ever met and my life won't dismiss we go to trial during closing arguments the DA says this case is a circumstance shall evidence case double-quote during my closing I slapped the jury instruction on the projector that says if a case is based on circumstantial evidence and there is one factual scenario that points to guilt and one that points to innocence the jury must find in favor of the defendant and acquit my client was acquitted I had to go to court over a financial cc-care when I was a student took advice from the university legal support team who said I didn't need a solicitor so I went in alone the judge didn't like this and postponed it for another date so I could prove I'd had more counsel first the other parties solicit had caught me outside the court and said I didn't tell you this but and pointed out a huge error in the financial paperwork that made it very obviously come out in my favor went back to legal support got confirmation that it was right went to the second hearing alone and got the entire thing thrown out the other solicitor went at me as he left saved me about you acute 9k nice chapter not a lawyer but a relative of a retired prosecutor relative was working misdemeanor criminal court cases get called in alphabetical order and two women named Catherine Smith and Catherine Smith were scheduled to have their hearings before the judge not their actual names but you get the point comma both had similar crimes but slightly different so the bailiff announces the next case to the courtroom Catherine Smith for one count of possession of cocaine with the intention to sell and one count of prostitution double quote so Catherine Smith stands up and indignantly cries just wait a second but the hell did the prostitution charge come from I'm a deal crack but I am NOT a wh re double quote easy snip deal in case my relative ever prosecuted my favorite is a story from Jerry Spence for those who don't know he is a famous trial attorney a witness on the stand was claiming that he had suffered injuries to his arm because of a city bus accident Jerry asked him to demonstrate to the jury how far he can lift up his arm after the accident the witness makes a feeble effort of lifting his arm then Jerry asks the witness to demonstrate to the jury how far he could lift up his arm before the accident he lifts his arm much higher the jury laughs the case is over edit spelling I am NOT a lawyer but witnessed a pathologist win a case in court by destroying the defense's credibility the question was over whether or not carbon monoxide poisoning could have caused certain signs of death in an individual but the defense didn't study their chemistry very well and kept asking the pathologist where the carbon dioxide could have caused these signs after thoroughly frustrating the defense by answering his questions incorrectly the pathologist said very loudly oh I'm sorry did you mean carbon monoxide because that's a completely different thing completely destroyed the defense's credibility in front of the jury they were done after that so I guess the opposing counsel screwed himself by not picking up a book edit for clarification this is not the only reason that lawyer didn't win there were a lot of other things that didn't work out in his favor but those were technical things that he probably knew about ahead of time this was a case where he was asking a question that he thought was going to work out in his favor but it worked against him because he made a basic chemistry mistake that he honestly should have caught yeah I know he's not a scientist but you don't have to be a scientist to remember the difference between those two things getting terminology correct is part of his job it's not like anyone caught a felony charge solely because he said that one thing wrong I worked as an intern for a lawyer construction law in France are quite strict in regard to the neighboring of historical monuments the city was denying a permit for heavy modification of the house of our clients they were arguing that because you could see the house from the church's belts our modifications were impossible as a support they kindly linked us to a 360 picture from said Belltown we as kindly pointed to them left our clients house was indeed not visible from the top of the church building permit was greenlit the following day actual lawyer here and this one was especially sweet was involved in an ownership control disputes of a Venezuelan company while we had no doubt who controlled their company opposing counsel had created enough smoke to create just enough doubt for our federal judge to order us to file a declaratory action after a few months we received the equivalent of a declaratory order from the high courts in Venezuela basically saying our client was in control of the company we had the order translated and certified and drafted a motion explaining to the court how these orders from Venezuela work and how they are in effect the highest law of the land which meant the case should be over and our client was in control opposing counsel drafted in almost identical motion but they had not received a copy of the newest order in other words opposing counsel agreed with our position that these orders from Venezuela would definitively prove who controlled the company but attached the elder order we prevailed in the declaratory action and the judge reference the fact both sides had the same argument in the final order fitted for spelling prepping forever has left me unable to spell and to add the following some background the original Venezuelan High Court order first order created the equivalent of a receivership in the company we were representing the receivership hired us to pursue an unrelated claim here in the state's against an American company the receivership was put in place by the shareholders and the Venezuelan government as the owner of the Ven waylynn company doubter back was embezzling money and running the company into the ground there was another firm representing the company before we were hired and they decided to ignore the first order and train to the federal court here in Miami that they were the only ones representing the company and that we were the imposters they argued that the first order was not valid and outchea bag was still in control of the company there was a second order was the result of an appeal in Venezuela that was very ambiguous in its language and cast some doubt as to the control of the company dauch a bag and his attorneys submitted the first and second order as support to their motion a third order was issued by a different Venezuelan appeals court which put the issue to rest we asked for and received a copy of it they did not either because they knew it was not supportive of that position or because they dropped the ball we believed it to be the latter our motion cited similar case law and advanced the same positions but were interpreting different orders TL DR we did our homework they didn't bonus TL DR Venezuelan courts are wack not a lawyer I no comment but my parents were in a lawsuit where this happened they owned a business and on the either side of it were businesses as well their neighbor to the left sue this claiming that we had been using their property without paying them or without permission that we were essentially trying to adverse possess it we got a server to come in and the surveyor said that not only we'll be using all of our property but we had been paying rent of the lawn about 20 feet that was also our property obviously they weren't happy so they got their own surveyor who gave us 50 feet we won the lawsuit now their little patch of property has a rusty fence all around it with keep out signs everywhere it's about 20 X 10 feet when I first started my firm had me on a case where the client claimed he lost because of ineffective assistance of counsel basically saying that the old lawyer didn't do his job so we prepare an argument based on not asking the right questions not communicating etc we think it's going to be a tough case but not unwinnable then we get the response to our complaint where the old lawyer argues that he was only ineffective because he didn't have time to prepare for the case and only reviewed it the morning of the original trial he had known about the case for months by the way the judge Sewell isn't during the trial we had essentially asked isn't this the definition of ineffective counsel not giving enough time to your client the silence from his side of the court was amazing needless to say the trial didn't last much longer than that thanks opposing counsel I guess you were ineffective for both of you domestic violence case where the husband beat the wife senseless landlord tried to evict wife for breach of lease due to the beating landlord claimed wife violated least terns by allowing police to be cooled to property and causing a disruption my argument was that as a domestic violence victim wife is covered under Vaughn and the property is HED subsidized also mdl off SBV protections to landlords counsel during his opening talked about how my client was beaten and the police were called in an ambulance etc I just stood there looking at him when he finished judge asked if I had anything to say my response Oh Your Honor I believe opposing counsel has said everything that needs to be said judge smiled and ruled in my clients favor landlord can't evict DV victim my ex-girlfriends father had a case where he brought in a decoy defendant he then asked a key witness for the prosecution to identify the suspect in the middle of court the witness turned and pointed to the decoy defendant who was just a buddy of my ex-girlfriends father and had nothing to do with the the witness was caught lying with his pants down and the whole thing was hilariously embarrassing for the prosecution turns out even if you're right it's a huge no-no to trick witnesses like this my ex-girlfriends father had to go through an ethics investigation and was suspended from trying cases for a while when I first started practicing I handled a custody case where my client mom had a problem with dad smoking around the kids I asked him if he regularly smoked around the kids to which he replied that he doesn't smoke tobacco only weed in the house obviously this raised eyebrows as it is illegal in my state he then went into a long diatribe about how he only follows the law of the streets he actually said this and doesn't recognize the authority of the court he was currently in front of needless to say mom got full custody especially after dad was arrested from going to the court services officers house late at night and trying to kick her door in now but work with lops we deal with car accidents and this particular girl was claiming severe whiplash and lower back injuries from a minor rear-end accident some of her injuries were legitimate but she was claiming that her life was ruined and she was unable to function in society she worked as a physical therapy aide studying to become a PT so she knew just what to say but she didn't know what not to post on facebook she claims she was in constant pain after the accident and couldn't go to the gym the day after the accident there's a pic of her lifting weights hashtag accident can't hold me back she claimed a month of lost wages but there she is in a patient graduation from treatment photo on her works website the week after tge accident she missed 0 days at work she claimed that she couldn't travel anymore and guess who had photos of Vegas strippers all over her Instagram for her sister's 21st birthday she asked for $200 k and she got $9 K for the legitimate injuries and mediation as the mediator laughed at her Facebook feed plaintiff was claiming insurance money because he accidentally chopped off his fingers while cutting bamboo with a machete and the insurance company our client refused to pay the insured amount during the hearing the plaintiff attorney began to demonstrate with a rolled-up sheet of paper how his client was cutting the bamboo when the accident happened no matter how he tried he could not reproduce the position of the fingers with the alleged cut of the machete the only possible match would be if the plaintiff had deliberately extended his fingers over a plain surface and hacked his own fingers based on this disastrous performance the judge determined an expert opinion and later dismissed the case due to deliberate self-mutilation I was on jury duty once and a couple guys had robbed a place so the guy who was robbed was up on the stand and their lawyer was doing the usual questions to clear everything up at the start and when asked if he took an inventory before and after to show the value of what was missing the guy just said oh no whole case thrown out the window in about half an hour I'm not a lawyer but as an arborist I get asked about trees in the law all the time so I know a lot about tree law and stay informed on it occasionally I get called to a property to write a letter indicating that my prospective customers neighbor's tree is dangerous or needs to be pruned or whatever and at least half the time it's not true and the person is amazed that I won't just write the letter anyway sometimes if they are a real dck about it I'll visit the neighbor afterwards if anyone is curious in the US and day you have the rights to prune or remove them the responsibility to maintain all plant material on or over your property this means that you can cut back branches growing from trees from other properties without permission and that if you neglect to do this and damage results it's on you [Music] I once had a district attorney in Decatur the court that if defense counsel had included this arguments in his motions it would possibly be a valid argument I interrupted him with the page number and heading where it was located not an attorney but I did an internship at the city's Attorney's office one summer leading to not wanting to be an attorney man was suing the city for evicting him from a public housing development claims he doesn't speak English and forced the city to hire an interpreter for the hearing city says he was evicted because he was raising chickens in the apartment his attorney insists that's absurd no one would do that pushes for proof for chickens were his clients judge wasn't convinced about the proof everything looks like it is going well for the guns and it comes off that the chickens were given to the farm for slaughter guy jumps up and starts yelling give me my chickens back in English judge starts laughing attorneys start laughing case is dismissed did work experience at a trial whether victim flat-out stated that the defendant was innocent turns out she's pretty bad at English so when she gave her account it appeared that the defendant hadn't committed a crime they then gave her a witness statements to sign she can't read no good so just signed it anyway this all came out of testimony whilst the prosecution lawyer desperately tried to get her to rephrase what she said funnily enough the trial wasn't immediately thrown out so they brought more witnesses in to testify all backing up the wrong account of what happened my dad is a lawyer it's happened several times that the defendant submittal provides video evidence of assault or unlawful detainment but assumes it will go unnoticed in 50 plus hours of footage my dad watches everything he got a multi-million dollar settlement from a major casino after pointing out a moment that proved video doctoring edit there was the car one two he had a bunch of recordings and found a spot in the recording submitted by the other side where they are discussing what they need to show and how they will prove it Mikey played the recording in court as a surprise they had nothing to say and he won after like four days of back-and-forth I believe you have to get to a point where that evidence would come up that's why he couldn't start there my dad is a total ballast it happens more often than you would think one attorney that people continue to hi Brian as sort of a legend as opposing counsel four times in six years he has lost cases against my firm where he could have won this is civil litigation but the guy has a knack for spoiling his momentum one in particularly evidence pointed to our client who is at fault and we were asked to settle Brian introduced to witness and voicemail to the record we had no knowledge of these and asked to review upon review we were confused as the voicemail had nothing to do with proving their case and made the plaintiff look like a lunatic it was full of incoherent rambling and swearing we allow the exhibits to be entered that they went over as we expected and we won the counterclaim not a lawyer went to court the other traffic light out cops everywhere handing out tickets I get one for rolling through a red light though I had stopped I stated it was possible the officer just didn't see me stopped and asked if any other officers were witness officer replied every cop in our department was there handing out tickets judge said none of you thought to direct traffic seems like you handed out enough tickets that you recognized the down light was a problem dismissed judge dismissed every one of the tickets that were contested in the room from that day one cop wasted half the forces night I hope he never lives it down my father is a physician and occasionally serves as an expert witness in some cases involving insurance payouts for car wrecks he had just spent some time explaining all of the different forces involved in the accident and how that could translate to years of back problems his specialty he was quite technical in his explanation and the opposing attorney thought that my dad was overreaching his expertise and was talking more as an engineer rather than a doctor so he asked him if he was an engineer my dad responded that yes he was in fact an engineer as he had a bachelor's in engineering from before he went to med school it apparently didn't completely resolve the case but the attorney did have to backtrack quite a bit and it really strengthened the patient's case that the insurance company should continue paying for treatment [Music]

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Id: -DkXKrQBnD4

Length: 23min 46sec (1426 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 16 2019