Battle Dress or Dressing Up?

I mentioned I have another trial starting up this week.

This one is important to me. Not just because of the time, effort and expense in getting it to trial, but because I've become emotionally attached. I feel this case.

I suppose becoming emotionally attached to a particular case or cause shows my relative inexperience. My idealistic tendencies and still-soft heart. I suppose the glare off my not-yet-three-year-old law license still colors my optimism and makes me a bit well, shinier than the average tried and true trial lawyer going into battle.

Fair enough.

I have spent weeks, months really, preparing for next week. I gave my Thanksgiving holiday break to this trial. I am sitting at my desk on a Sunday instead of hanging out at home with my daughter and husband for this trial. I have agonized over exhibits, written and rewritten witness questions, drafted motions, poured over photographs, talked to witnesses and pictured a million different scenarios for how next week might go.

I'm ready. I think.

There's still a part of me that worries the jury will take one look at me and smell a fraud. That when I walk in with my muted toned, professional suits (all in tasteful shades of black, brown and gray), with my sensible, yet stylish heels, my subdued make-up and Chi-straight hair that they won't see a polished professional ready to stand up for her client's rights.

I'm afraid they'll see a child playing dress up.

I am secretly (well, less secretly now, I suppose) afraid that this panel of twelve citizens will see a frizzy haired nine year old with a mouthful of braces, wearing her mom's strand of (we discovered later-fake) pearls, swallowed up by a comically large suit jacket and too big heels. Maybe with a floppy hat for effect.

Maybe it's my age. Thirty seems so far like a weird crossroads in that respect. I mean, I hate to reference that wise prophet Britney Spears for anything (and especially after saying the word "Crossroads"), but this year really has seemed to be a "not a girl/not yet a woman" moment in my life. For every day I feel confident, accomplished, halfway intelligent and together, I have at least two or three days where I feel completely overwhelmed, inadequate and well -- not grown up enough to be tackling my every day responsibilities.

I'm old enough to practice law? I have a mortgage? I'm a MOTHER???

Whoa.

I guess I wonder when that feeling goes away. I thought when I was twenty that I'd certainly have "it" all figured out by twenty-five. At twenty-five, I thought about how silly I was at twenty to think I'd know it all then, and that obviously I would for sure have "it" all figured out by thirty. I mean, it's a whole new decade after all, right?

Wrong. Still not sure what "it" is and I certainly don't have "it" figured out.

In either case, tomorrow, I go into battle. Whether I go in as a warrior or as a child is in large part up to me I suppose. I hope, I really, truly hope, that I go in a warrior and that I'm leaving that child here on the page...at least for this week. My clients deserve at least that.

Oh-and about "it." Thirty year old me is absolutely certain thirty-five year old me will have "it" all figured out. No question.

Sore loser?

We lost a case last night.

After three days of trial, a jury returned a unanimous defense verdict.

Ouch.

Now, I have to tell you up front, this wasn't my case in that "I poured all of my blood, sweat and tears into this for several months of my life and now this!" kind of way, but I did work quite a bit on it. I also saw the hard work the other two attorneys put in, so I feel the pain.

I also saw the mother of our deceased client sobbing on the stand.

And her partner's raw grief as she sat next to us at the counsel table.

So I guess I write this with mixed feelings. I am a big believer in the jury system. I know it's flawed, but I have a lot of faith in how the system works. In that respect, I suppose I should be glad that justice was done, even if that means justice required us to lose.

But did it?

That's what I struggle with. You get to know a lot about your clients (good and bad) when you work up a case. You can't help but take on some of their struggle, can't help but start to feel their pain. In the end, even if it's a case you may have had doubts about from the beginning, you can't help but become indignant, defensive, and even protective of your client and their family. At some point, you can become so embroiled in their struggle, that it's hard to even see the upside of objectivity anymore.

And maybe that's where I am right now. I think it's hard for me to see how there isn't fault when a young woman dies. I say that even though just last night, a jury of twelve said there was none. It was just one of those things. Stuff happens.

Stuff happens. I suppose that should comfort her family. See-there goes that indignity again. If I'm being honest, I'll tell you that today, while I'm disappointed, I'm not crushed. I'm not defeated.

Why? Because in a week and a half, we're back in. Another case, another shattered family. I can only hope that we can take the lessons we learned this week and move forward in the next two weeks. Maybe this time, justice can mean a W for the good guys.

Fingers crossed.

No comment

I won't even comment about the time between blogs. I think at this point we can all agree it's a nonissue.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been noodling around this incredibly insightful, thought-provoking blog post, and for the life of me, I cannot seem to get it out right. In my defense, it may be that since I have two trials over the next three weeks, I'm simply zonked, but in any case, I'm afraid that the entire thing has more or less escaped me.

What it boiled down to though, was this: I've been watching the healthcare debate like most folks, and to be honest, I'm not sure that I've formed a very solid opinion of the whole thing. Frankly, I haven't seen anything cohesive enough come out of either chamber for me to even form an opinion about (and yes, that includes the House bill). So do I feel the frustration and the anger? Absolutely.

But the healthcare debate to me is simply indicative of the larger debate going on right now in American politics. I asked my dad a while back if it was just my relative inexperience, or if national politics had gotten meaner, and he confirmed that it is most certainly meaner. This healthcare debate to me has only reinforced what I already suspected -- the American people are (I guess?) so frustrated with the system that they're turning on each other. But I have to ask -- how is that helpful?

I won't recap everything I've observed since prior to the presidential election, but to say that I am shocked at how people are treating each other is an understatement. The judgement if you support this candidate or that one. The sneer if you stand up (or against) universal healthcare. The name calling. I guess I'm horrified at how normal folks on both sides seem to have turned inward to find a scapegoat, and to some extent, I guess you could say it hurts my heart to see that.

Surely there are things we can all agree on. I expect that most people would agree that you don't wish suffering on your fellow man. Probably most (probably?) would agree that a hospital presented with an emergency situation shouldn't stop to check insurance before treating a seriously injured person (regardless of national origin). Sick people should be able to get medicine. Kids shouldn't die of treatable diseases.

I think (hope?) those basics are fairly agreeable. And I understand that the disagreement comes from more specifics - which we all know really boils down to who pays for the care.

But I have to wonder at this point if the debate is really about who pays or if it's become so partisan that nobody can see straight. I feel like there's a solution in here somewhere, but everyone's so focused on being right (or left-haha) that they simply refuse to acknowledge or consider anything that might require taking a little stroll across the aisle.

From Washington, I accept that. From the citizenry calling into talk shows, the ladies talking with their friends over coffee, the office workers at the water cooler and the people chatting at the lunch counter, I simply cannot accept that we have reached a point politically where it is acceptable to personally attack other people for their opinions -- on either side of the debate. And it's not just healthcare. I watched a man (a stranger) walk up to my dad in the parking lot and try to pick a fight (a fight! with my dad! at his office!) because of his bumper sticker. Really? Have we come so far (or gotten so lost?)?

I guess what this entire rambly post is meant to get out is that I truly, sincerely don't believe the answer to healthcare, or to the war, or to the economy, or to any of the other issues we face today, is found on the right. Nor is it found on the left. I suspect it lies, as most things tend to, somewhere in the middle, but I'm afraid we won't be in danger of even brushing up against it at this rate. If we can't speak civilly to our families about the issues, then how on earth can we expect our politicians to come even remotely close to constructive discourse?