Earlier this year, I had an entry entitled "See You In Court," which told the story of my (at that point) only experience in a mock trial. I failed to mention in that entry how interested I was in pursuing the law field as a paralegal, but it did not surprise me when I learned in September that I would be involved in another mock trial before the end of the year. It was a requirement in my Civil Procedures II class.
The case was fairly simple. It was a situation where a stockbroker was involved in a minor traffic accident in which there were no reported injuries, but the next day, he started suffering "whiplash effects" from the bump. The stockbroker's testimony was shady and his stories sounded inconsistent through the assignment of exhibits and additional testimony. In addition to working as a stockbroker, he was also an avid tennis player. Most of his damages were associated to the fact that the whiplash has left him unable to play tennis. He even went onto the tennis courts once to try to play, but he was so ineffective at it, that it depressed him further to even try.
The contrary evidence showed the insurance investigator providing photographs of the stockbroker playing tennis, and drinking beer (another no-no per doctor's orders). Even more damaging, the stockbroker's testimony was largely in unreasonable absolutes, such as "I followed doctor's orders to the T."
Regardless, the jury instructions stated that the case would be decided on the elements of the tort, which for a case of negligence are duty, breach, cause, and damages. Despite all other evidence, the heart of the case was that the other driver owed the stockbroker (plaintiff) a duty to drive safely, he breached that duty when his car careened into the other vehicle, the whiplash from the accident was the cause of the stockbroker's injuries, and the injuries speak for themselves as damages.
I had already been assigned to the plaintiff's case before I read anything about the case, so I felt we were set up for failure until I got to the jury instructions. At that point, I felt we could not lose.
Then, it came time to assign roles and, of course, nobody wanted to be the plaintiff. Actually, nobody wanted to do anything in my group, but I'll ignore that point for now. My group was about to assign the other male to the role of the plaintiff, and he was agreeable, until I spoke up and volunteered myself. I figured the most important part of the case was creating a profile for the plaintiff and I felt I understood his character enough to fill in the gaps of his story.
After all, he was a stockbroker and I had spent the last 10 years in finance. After all, he was an avid tennis player and I had spent the last 8 years befriending professional wrestlers, who perform injured all the time but still recover. I felt I understood the plaintiff and I could bring him to life.
As we continued to meet in class and learned more about the assignment, it seemed as though my instincts were incorrect. There was a lot of missing information in the case, obviously since (A) these were not real people, and (B) a lot of questions we had were not relevant to the case. At first, I thought we should exploit the gaps left open, but our instructor (who is a lawyer, and a great one at that) made it clear that the cross-examination should never, ever pose a question unless he/she knows the answer. It seemed as though all of the gaps were filled (or at least untouchable), and I had no strategy left.
However, just because a teacher says something doesn't mean the students will follow it. In the end, my instincts were wrong but the preparation was correct.
The opposing counsel's strategy was to exploit the inconsistencies in our case. There were a lot of inconsistencies, and quite frankly, the stockbroker did not come off as a very likeable guy throughout the case. (Again, perfect for me!) Therefore, the opposing counsel went through a medical journal that my character was keeping to notate the progression of his recovery. There was a key incident on June 25th, the day my character went to play tennis. The next entry after that day was the Fourth of July. It said that my character went into work that day. But, the opposing counsel recognized that it was a holiday. So, why would he be working?
Therefore, in the cross-examination of my character, they directed my attention to that day and asked the question, "You see your entry dated July 4th. Do you often work on holidays?" The problem was that they did not know the answer to that question. Actually, the real problem is that I did. I responded, "Yes, absolutely I do. On holidays, we never schedule client meetings and there is a lot of paperwork that builds up, so I usually go in and catch up on that leftover paperwork."
After our mock trial, our teacher debriefed us on the finer points of what we did well and what we did wrong. He used that as a perfect example of what can happen when you ask a question you don't know the answer to. He pointed out that the opposing attorney had the unfortunate task of going up against me, because I quickly turned that question around to my side to make me look like some kind of super-worker. Oops!
The funnier part came almost a second later when another team member from the defendant's side said she suspected that I overheard them discussing that question and I had time to come up with an answer. "Nope, I've just worked in the finance field for the past 10 years, so I know they work on days off.
"Also, I was at a hockey game when you guys discussed that question in class!"
