Why blog at all?

 A milestone in my career is coming up in a few months - it will be the 30th anniversary of my admission to the bar.  Not even a ripple in the tide of human events, but certainly a vantage point from which I can assess what I've done with a little more than half of my life. 

Even before I graduated from law school, I began working for a firm that represented people suing doctors and hospitals.  It was not what I had planned on, but it was something that I developed a passion for.  I like to think that I had (and have) a knack for doing it. 

I love taking a case to trial.  Long before I ever thought of going to law school, my concept of a lawyer was Perry Mason.  I grew up watching him on Sunday nights.  The challenge is to present a case from start to finish with one or more lawyers on the other side doing everything they can to undermine you, and being judged by six strangers with whom you were able to speak for only a matter of minutes or hours at best.  It is hard to predict what evidence might be excluded, how well or poorly an expert witness will come across, what preconceived notions a juror may use to find for or against you.  In other words, it is what I imagine it would feel like to fly a plane that has run out of fuel - little or no control; potential disaster or salvation.  I remember once walking into a courthouse to answer a calendar ready for trial, and laughing at the realization that even after (at that point) two decades of doing this, I NEVER know on a given day if a trial will really start, or be adjourned to another day.

A trial lawyer may work for months or even years to prepare for the trial of one case. During the trial, we may forsake all other activities to devote ourselves body and soul to the matter at hand, even to the point of losing sleep. Even if he or she is the Roy Hobbs of the trial bar - the best there's ever been - their brilliance in the courtroom likely will be witnessed by a judge, a jury of eight or nine, an adversary or two, a court clerk, court officer and court stenographer.  A very small audience.  Ironically, every word in a courtroom is written down, but unless there is an appeal, no one will ever read it.

At the time this is written, the jury system is under assault.  It has always been feared by people with money and power, because it is really the only forum in which they can be held to account for conduct which is wrong and which causes harm to others.  With the financial crisis currently affecting contemporary society, there is less money for everything, and the jury system is suffering, and I fear will suffer more and soon.  In New York State, our Supreme Court Judges have not had a pay raise in 12 years!  I have recently heard Administrative Judges for populous metropolitan counties advise that they do not have sufficient staff or funds to adjudicate all of the legal matters before them.  My fear is that my profession and a professional legacy that predates our very country by several centuries is endangered and that perhaps even before the end of my worklife trial lawyers will become extinct.  I hope I am wrong.  The world would not be a better place and democracy would suffer. 

Now, I find myself with a huge library of the work I have done. 

Every time I question a witness in preparation for trial and I every time I try a case, the testimony is transcribed.  I have decided to "blog", to share examples what trial lawyers do - because it is intrinsically entertaining and informative, and in an attempt to present a window through which others can see how our profession and craft has made our society a better place.