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Online Thread Asked Lawyers For The Biggest "You Should Have Told Me" Moment (38 Nightmare Answers)
A lawyer’s job is to build a perfect, airtight case, a fortress of facts and evidence. But that fortress can be instantly demolished by a casual sentence from the one person they're supposed to trust: their own client. It’s the dreaded, "Oh, you should probably know..." moment, where a "minor detail" turns out to be a case-destroying disaster.
An online community asked lawyers for their most jaw-dropping "you should have mentioned this sooner" story. The answers are one example of self-sabotage after another, each one proving to be a lawyer’s worst nightmare.
More info: Reddit
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#1
As a solicitor, one of the most annoying things I've had happen was, after an hour-long consultation with an older couple about changing the husband's will, the wife hands me a letter from his doctor which says the husband has dementia and does not have capacity to sign medical documents.
Like, you didn't think that was a good place to start?
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#2
Client comes to me, with his new, wife, complaining that he’s been sued by his ex-wife for failing to pay a $5000 judgment to the ex as part of the divorce decree. Judge orders us to mediation.
During mediation, ex-wife won’t budge that she wants the full $5k. Client claims he doesn’t have the ability to pay it. New wife, in an effort to get her loving husband free from the clutches of his evil ex, offers to give up her large diamond wedding ring to the evil ex. Ex can keep it, sell, it, whatever, but Client had previously told new wife it was worth more than $5k, so it should be enough.
Ex-wife agrees to accept new wife’s ring, subject to an appraisal. Maybe you can see where this is going...
Get a call 2 weeks later from opposing counsel, deal is off. “Why?” I ask.
Turns out the ring was a CZ, worth about $95.
When client met with me and I showed him the appraisal, he said, “Yeah, I knew that was going to happen.”
I stared at him slack-jawed and said, “You knew?”
“Oh yeah, but what was I supposed to do, tell my wife I got her a fake ring?”
“How about telling her, ‘no my love, I gave you that ring, and it is a symbol of my love for you, and that horrible b***h will get it over my dead body. I’ll find another way to pay her,’” I said.
He looked at me and says, “Yeah that would probably have worked.”.
#3
A person involved in a motor cycle accident, who sustained legitimate but not serious injuries, cctv showed the incident, they were very much not at fault.
They decided this was their big payday, claimed they could barely walk, had ptsd, serious back trouble, would never work again, the whole 9 yards.
They neglected to tell their lawyer they had been (i) working a manual labour job (ii) riding motorcycles again (iii) did a bungee jump.
All of which we caught on video/they documented via social media.
They did not get the multi million pound settlement payment they expected and were pursued for fraud. It was a fun phone call after we sent the tape full of evidence.
detective miller's hat 4 hours ago
We've had sooooooooooooooo many of these. My favourite was when opposing counsel waited until the very end of our client's deposition (during which the client cried and despaired at how much pain he was in and he could obvs never work again) to whip out his laptop and go like bruh this you? It was our client's facebook with videos of him working out at the gym and doing those Spartan races, and dirt bike stunts. Client then threatened to sue us for malpractice when he was offered $4,000 as a settlement. We were like seriously dude? You tried committing insurance fraud and it's somehow our fault that it didn't work??
The entire legal system is built on the almost magical principle of attorney-client privilege. It's the legal version of a confessional, a cone of silence where you can tell your lawyer literally anything (even the really, really bad stuff) and they cannot repeat it to anyone. It's one of the oldest and most important rules in law.
The whole point is to encourage clients to spill every single bean, because a lawyer can't build a proper defense with only half the story. Your lawyer isn't your mom; they're not there to be disappointed in you.
They are there to anticipate the other side's attacks. A lawyer's absolute worst nightmare is being blindsided in the middle of a courtroom by a piece of information they should have known from day one. The stories from the online community are a wake-up call about what happens when this privilege is ignored. Take note!
#4
Special education case. Mother and school were fighting about services. We got new assessments that backed up the mother's claims. Local school didn't have the right services, so we arranged a transfer to a larger school not too far away. Good public transit route, some extra-curriculars kid was excited about.
She goes to enroll him in school, says they have a problem with paperwork.
Thinking the transfer info just didn't get there yet, I take a copy and head down there.
No, they wont enroll him because
* not his legal name
* she is not his legal mom
Turns out, she was the bff of a mother who was pregnant and about to be incarcerated for d**g trafficking. BFF says, 'can you take my baby while I'm in jail, I'll get him as soon as I'm out.' She and husband say sure. They sign a piece of notebook paper.
12 years later. smh
You have to think, how did they manage to navigate school and medical stuff for 12 years with no legal custody paperwork? They'd just been using an assumed last name of the pseudo- adoptive couple and, like me, no one had asked. Was only that the school had moved to an online system that checked SS#s against other databases that it was caught.
Anyway, bio mom and dad were still alive and still in a lot of trouble. They consented to the couple that raised him adopting.
Kid missed a week of school while I convinced them that he fit under a homeless youth school stability statute.
Edit: yes, it was the couple that had raised him those 12 years that adopted him.
#5
I filed a bankruptcy for a person. A few weeks later, they indicated that a creditor continued to contact them, and had taken money out of their bank account, which is obviously a big no-no for people in bankruptcy.
It was Monday. I knew that if I wanted to file for sanctions, I I had to file the motion by Friday, so I wasn’t going to jump right into it. It’s best practice to try to get a creditor to correct their behavior first.
I called the original payday loan store. I called the national branch. They took messages daily, nobody was contacting me back. I asked for supervisors. Nobody was willing to talk about the situation, and I became increasingly frustrated. I’m not a yeller and I’m not particularly forceful, but even I was reaching my limit. I called my client daily to explain that it made no sense that they were being evasive, but I was working as hard as I could.
On Friday, I talked to some lower level grunt and explained that I needed a call back in an hour from a person who can clarify the situation, or the sanctions motion is being filed. I read off my time spent on the case, which would translate into thousands of dollars in sanctions if we were successful.
I finally get a manager. He, very politely, tells me that the client took out the loan after the bankruptcy was filed. I remember deflating like a popped balloon. My client had taken out a relatively big payday loan a week after the bankruptcy; they confessed that they knew it wasn’t included in the bankruptcy, but thought the lender would go away if an attorney got involved.
That’s probably mild compared to the things that I see in bankruptcy, but most I probably shouldn’t disclose. One of the major tenets of bankruptcy is that a debtor has to make a full and honest disclosure of their income, expenses, assets, and debts, so naturally, there are tons of reported cases of people hiding things to try to get out of their debts without surrendering assets.
#6
I had a client on a family matter, we were in court and I was going on about how being a father was the most important thing in the world to him and his ex pipes up and says ‘well, he never sees his other children!’
I’m sorry, other children?
That being said, many clients leave out embarrassing things until they get called out on them. Please tell your lawyers all the facts. We’ve literally heard everything and really don’t care. Just let me prepare to explain that your weekend habits of c*****e and s*x dungeons doesn’t effect your ability to parent.
The reason these moments lead to an epic, case-destroying facepalm is that a lawyer's job is mostly about neutralizing the bad facts. As the legal experts at Grand Canyon Law Group explain, your lawyer needs to know every single ugly detail before the other side does. This allows them to prepare a response, challenge the evidence, or get ahead of the surprises.
When a client hides a crucial piece of negative information, they're essentially handing a loaded weapon to the opposition. But this cone of silence isn't a magical get-out-of-jail-free card for all future activities. The one major exception to attorney-client privilege is if a client is seeking advice on how to commit a future crime or fraud. You can't use your lawyer as a co-conspirator to plan your next brilliant heist.
The hilarious and horrifying irony of the stories in this online thread is that most of these clients had full, iron-clad protection to tell the truth... and they chose to sabotage themselves for no reason at all.
#7
Spent several hours zealously arguing that my client was severely disabled and couldn’t work due to a back injury. It was so bad that the poor dude couldn’t even sit in a chair throughout the entire proceedings. Rest my case. Opposing counsel calls in a DEC representative who proceeds to produce record after record of my client’s deer hunting activities. He sat in a tree, in freezing weather, for many hours, shot and k****d multiple deer, and transported their carcasses out of the woods all on his own. SMH.
#8
Had a client charged with being a Convicted Felon in Possession of a handgun. She had been in a car that had gotten into a shootout on the interstate (in the middle of the night in a rural area at least). She was the passenger and her car pulled into the state trooper post in the county I practiced in. Her car was shot to s**t so it was obvious something happend, but there was a gun in the car, she had a 30 year old felony theft conviction, so she was charged. She had some crazy story for what happened but it was obvious that it was a d**g deal gone wrong, however that didn't matter for her charge really.
The discovery was really light, the driver of her car wasn't a Convicted felon, and it didn't appear the state police had investigated the fact there was another car obviously shooting at my client even though the genesis of the shootout was just up the road in that same post's jurisdiction. Short of it was she had some legitimate defenses.
I had met with her multiple times, discussed her case in depth, and was preparing for trial. About two weeks from trial in passing she mentioned that a state trooper had interviewed her at the state police post, which was annoying because at this point the case was 7 or 8 months old. So I look through the discovery again, don't see anything, but file a motion asking for any recordings of interviews. Sure enough the prosecutor was sitting on it, which is shady as f**k, unethical, and common practice for that prosecutor office. I get the interview and all of four minutes in she tells the cop not only did she know the gun was in the car, but that she had been the one shooting. That pretty much k****d every defense I had.
We had a come to Jesus talk the next day and she took her offer which was the minimum of five years to serve.
#9
I was representing a man that was accused of s******y assaulting the young daughter of his girlfriend (who was married to another man).
The key issue was whether or not my client's DNA profile should have been at the scene (only skin cell tissue had been recovered, not seminal/bodily fluid DNA, and it was not an exact match, but rather a match to a profile that included him).
A few weeks before trial he finally told me that the woman's other son was likely his (they had been having an affair for more than 5 years). The fact that the boy shared his DNA was a pivotal reason that the DNA profile would have been present. [Edit - grammar]
A big issue was a language barrier as my client did not speak English and we used an interpreter for all of our communications.
KatSaidThat 6 hours ago
Ok, I was really confused for a moment and my dark passenger interpreted that as the brother assaulting his sister.
So, what possesses a person to hire an expensive legal expert, look them directly in the eye, and then lie to their face? It might seem too dumb to comprehend, but according to legal experts, it's an incredibly common and deeply human phenomenon. The decision to hide the truth from a lawyer almost never comes from a place of logic. Instead, it comes from a place of pure, unadulterated emotion.
The first and most powerful reason is simple, cringeworthy embarrassment. As the lawyers at Mundahl Law point out, clients want their lawyer to be on their side, to see them as the "good guy." It's a deeply human impulse to hide the parts of the story we're ashamed of, even from the one person who is legally bound not to judge us.
Another common reason is a form of magical thinking fueled by fear and denial. Some clients operate on the "if I don't say it, it's not real" principle, a strategy that works about as well as a toddler covering their eyes and thinking they're invisible. Finally, there's the client who thinks they're a master strategist, carefully hiding "bad" facts to "help" the case, a move that is guaranteed to backfire big time.
#10
My client was badly hurt in a car accident and promised me he was never hurt in one before.
He was actually “hurt” in 44 prior accidents, all of which he filed claims for, which is how I found out when the mediator showed me the defense’s ISO report. The f****n look on my clients face lmao.
#11
Special Ed case. School district was supposed to be providing services to the child in the home. Clients told us the school district had never sent anyone to provide the services, they hadn’t heard from anyone in the district about scheduling, etc. Brought this up during a prehearing conference with judge and opposing counsel. After the conference, opposing counsel sends me pages of affidavits and documentation of all the times the school district employees went to the house and were refused entry by my clients for various reasons (or clients just didn’t answer the door when they were clearly home). Clients had no explanation about why they lied to me. They fired us shortly after and I was not sad.
#12
In-house attorney here but I interned for a judge at our court of common pleas during law school. There was a case of a guy that asked two early 20 girls a ride from the mall to a gas station. He told them he would pay them cash for the trip.
During that trip, he sat in the back seat and had advised that he had a pellet gun that closely resembled a hand gun. He said he had only pulled it out to show the girls but never did anything further. That had been his testimony during all the proceedings. He willingly takes the stand and the prosecutor is questioning him about the gun and how he handled it. This dude willingly admits that he held it to the passengers temple threatening to shoot her with what she believed to be a real gun. He also corrected the prosecutor during questioning telling him that he never stated it wasn’t a real hand gun.
That jury verdict came about as fast as one could.
If you want to see this dynamic play out on a world-historical scale, look no further than President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. For months, Nixon's legal team was engaged in a brutal war, fighting subpoenas and building a complex defense around the central idea that the President was unaware of the cover-up.
Their entire strategy, their public statements, and their arguments to Congress were all built on one crucial assumption: that there was no definitive proof, no "smoking gun," linking Nixon directly to the obstruction of justice from the beginning. Then came the tapes. After the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to hand them over, his own lawyers finally got to listen to the infamous recording from June 23, 1972.
Nixon's chief counsel was "visibly shaken" after hearing it. The tape was undeniable proof that Nixon had been personally involved in the cover-up just six days after the break-in. It was the ultimate "you should have mentioned this sooner" moment in American history. The lawyers' entire case evaporated instantly, Nixon's political support vanished overnight, and he was forced to resign just a few days later.
#13
Had a guy with a DUI. Asked about any criminal history, he said no. So I started the paperwork for ARD for him (it's a first time offense program that seals the record and drops the charges once completed).
Get to the courthouse, talk to the DA, find out the guy had another DUI a year prior. Also was on probation from the first one still. His excuse for not telling me was the first DUI was made up and he wasn't intoxicated, but pled guilty anyway. Unfortunately I ended up representing him for both bases, did not get paid nearly enough for the s**t I went through, but I did manage to keep him out of jail so he could take care of his elderly mother. Made him give up his vehicles though.
#14
Here's another. I wasn't actually an attorney yet, I was clerking for a firm and helping other attorneys on cases. We had a personal injury case for a car accident. Guy got rear ended by a very wealthy doctor. He was never going to be able to work again, mid 30s. Life completely ruined because she was staring at her phone while merging onto a highway going 15 MPH over the speed limit.
The case was set for trial. That's an automatic red flag, as 99% of them settle. No one wants to risk the trial. Couldn't figure out why. We thought we would get him around 2.2 million. Other side was offering 700k.
So I'm going through the massive file trying to figure out what they have that we don't know about. Looking at his medical, I saw he tested positive for m**h a few months after the accident. I was part of the jury selection that morning, and we had 2 people with doctorates, several with masters and professional licenses, most college educated. Really not good for a guy who didn't make it through highschool and was a laborer who decided to sit at home and smoke m**h after his accident.
Ended up settling right before the trial was supposed to start. We got a little more out of them, but far below what we expected. The guy was adamant about not settling, but we talked him into it. He would've been screwed as soon as they brought that up.
#15
Ok, here we go. defending a lady in a simple neighbor dispute. neighbors said she assaulted them with a hose and threatened their kids, case was pretty weak bc my client was an old lady and she adamantly denied everything. anyways, it’s just a small evidentiary hearing in front of the judge so there was no discovery ahead of time or anything like that. anyways, my client is on the stand, come to find out they have video footage of her smearing dog s**t on their house, printing out photos of their kids and writing racial slurs on them (family was Jewish), and covering her house with racist signs (like, papering her entire house). needless to say my jaw dropped. client then perjured herself on the stand-they play a video where it’s obviously her, but she repeats “that’s not me” over and over. most painful court moment of my life.
So, what have we learned today, future defendants? The moral of the story is simple. Your lawyer is the one person in your life you are legally and financially incentivized to be completely, brutally honest with. They are your professional secret-keeper, your real-life "get out of jail free" card (metaphorically speaking).
Hiding a crucial fact from them is not going to make the problem go away; it's just going to make the eventual outcome much, much messier. So please, for the love of all that is holy, just tell your lawyer. They can handle it. What they can't handle is a surprise witness, a hidden videotape, or the "minor detail" that the stolen jewels are, in fact, still in the glove compartment of your car.
Which one of these cautionary tales had you facepalming the hardest? Let’s cringe together in the comments!
#16
Working on a file for a non-EU company participating in a public tender within the EU. To summarize in a nutshell: when a government agency needs to build something like a building or a bridge, they have to organise what is called a "tender procedure" to weed out the charlatans, fraudsters and to enter into a contract with the most advantageous tenderer. Such a procedure is organised according to strict rules and a lot of things are public to ensure equal opportunities for every company, and to prevent bribery, collusion, fraud etc. Serious stuff.
One of the conditions to be eligible for such a tender is that your company and its directors have not been found guilty for certain crimes (eg breaking labour laws, money laundering, corruption) as you are assumed to be untrustworthy. If you had such an issue in the past, you can fess up and try to argue this risk has been eliminated thanks to a "self-cleaning" procedure (getting rid of the bad apples in your company, basically).
Our client assured us that they never had any such issues, were never convicted, yadda yadda. Just one of the many steps in a procurement procedure.
Years later, when the construction was well under way, it turned out they lied and directors in their home country had been found guilty for bribery of government officials.
The contracting authority got rightfully spooked and argued our client wilfully lied when tendering for the contract. The consequence is that... you were never eligible in the first place and retroactively the tender should be annulled to restart the procedure.
When asking our client W*F happened and why they didn't tell us so we could have tried to argue the self-cleaning exemption, they said that they didn't think it seemed relevant, it was widely known in newspapers (in the language of their home country...) so they assumed they didn't have to tell the authorities, and besides, many CEOs in their home country get convicted of bribery and pardoned when the oppositon party gets reelected so what's the big deal?
Literal millions of dollars and several years of thousands of people's energy down the drain... Because they lied on a form...
#17
Immigration (deportation defense) case. Our defense against deportation required showing “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” that my client’s US citizen children would suffer if he was deported. I had reviewed the law and facts of the case with him ad nauseam. He and his wife had reviewed their testimony with me a number of times. The children’s hardship did not seem like it would be strong enough to win the case because the parents told me that the kids were relatively healthy, doing well in school, and didn’t have any other noteworthy issues. All of the documents that they brought in supported their testimony. While testifying in court, the wife admits that they have a child (that they had not mentioned before) with a rare medical condition that required trips across the state to see a specialist every few months. During a short recess so I could figure out why they hadn’t disclosed this at any point in the last 3 years, they confessed that a family member who “knew a lot about this stuff” told them that having a citizen child with a serious medical condition hurt their case. The judge denied my request for a continuance to get evidence and expert testimony for the medical issue because they had ample time to provide the evidence before and hadn’t disclosed this, and ultimately, the judge denied the application because he found that that portion of their testimony lacked credibility due to it being disclosed at trial and they hadn’t provided corroborating evidence.
#18
Doing a complicated environmental permit case for a client. Permit was granted at the city level but the neighbours, who were not too thrilled about a business the size of our clients being next door with loud trucks moving around all day, appealed it.
They have a ton of remarks, but we can deflect most of the legal ones and the only issues that really remain are that the plans are a tad bit vague and the noise issues, for which a study was ordered but not yet completed to give a 100% guarantee there would not be sound regulation issues.
To clear up the last questions, the state body did a (planned) on site visit to get clarification on the few things that were not clear on the plans and the things that were filed.
My firm was not notified of this visit and as such, we were not present during this visit, client handled it himself with his architect.
They called us the next day to inform us of the following: during the visit, state body personnel had noticed that the sewage and plumbing system didnt really appear the way it was always drawn and shown (and also granted as part of the initial permit), so they asked client to clarify where their dirty water went. Client / architect supposedly responded with 'oh, that just gets collected and drained down to the little stream at the back of the lot'.
Client wanted to know if that was bad. Spoiler alert: yes, yes it was.
There was no fixing it either. This was a company with potential environmental issues due to fluid leakage from machines and car park, so they had a ton of rules to follow on how to deal with your dirty and used water (separators, containment, early collection, and so on). They'd drawn most of these in their plans and were assumed to have all of this installed and working for the 20 something years that they had already been running their business on that site. According to their past permits, that needed to have those things.
Announcing in the middle of an appeal procedure (so no big changes can be made to the contents of your permit request) that instead of a finely tuned sewage and waste management infrastructure (that the government believes you have), you just have one big pipe chucking your water in a small stream at the back of your lot is bad.
We had to explain to the client that no, we cant fix this and yes, you should have told us about this from the start and is there anything else you might have not mentioned that you need to tell us about?
#19
My client had a no-contact-order with his ex-girlfriend. He got a call and hang up, dialed *69. It was her; she called the police saying he had violated the no-contact order.
We show up to court and I think I have a pretty good argument on his side. Two police officers walk up to me and look at my client's name on my case folder when he was in the restroom. When he comes back, they arrest him on an outstanding warrant for armed robbery. I get a continuance for his case. His car gets impounded in the garage. I can't get him transported from the jail to face his violation of a protection order because that is how the police worked in that city. The public defender takes over his cases. I moved away shortly after that, but that was a very bad day for my client. I stopped putting names on my case files after that so no prosecutor or police officer would be tempted to look through them.
#20
Child Custody case where I represented grandparents seeking conservatorship of a preteen girl from bad bio parents. Asked all the usual questions in preparation about their home, who lives there, any criminal or CPS history, who the child would be around or alone with. Nothing remarkable. Child care plan involved the girl riding bus home from school and spending a couple hours at home before grandparents returned from work.
During the hearing, it comes out on cross of my client that their son who had recently been released from prison and is required to register as a s*x offender was residing in a trailer home on the property. (Where he would have a couple hours per school day with potential access to the child...)
We still won because the parents were horrible. Client later explained that we only asked them about people living *in the home* and it didn’t seem relevant to them. /facepalm
In our firm, crucial information the client didn’t tell us is referred to as “having a s*x offender living in the backyard.”.
#21
Paralegal for insurance defense. One of my first cases, I was completing discovery with a very young client (barely 18). She claimed the city bus rear ended her when she was slowing to make a turn. Then he got out of the bus yelling at her and screaming expletives. We submitted these responses. We come to find out months later there is actually video on the city bus (of course) of her trying to make an illegal u-turn and ramming herself into the side of the bus. Then SHE got out of the car and started screaming at the bus driver, who stayed silent in his bus. The video also caught her on her phone. Not the smartest person I've met.
#22
So, not a lawyer yet, but I interned at a family court helping during hearings.
There was this woman filling for custody of her children, and her lawyer was pretty confident they'd win, since in my country women getting the custody is almost an unspoken rule. In the rare cases they don't, either they don't want it or there's a very strong reason for the children not to be with their mother.
So, as I was saying, her lawyer seemed very confident. It was pratically a won case. Until her client's ex husband mentioned in the middle of the hearing that his ex wife was an a****t and lived in a non monogamous relationship with two other a*****s... To make matters worse, the woman's parents confirmed his story.
The lawyer very obviously did not know about it and was visibly PISSED at her client. I swear I saw her mouth to the woman "You'll have to find a new lawyer.".
#23
Police officer: I know [Mr. Defendant], I’ve arrested him on 3 prior occasions and he always gets away.
After 7 attempts to prep this witness to find out what can k**l the case and his career, he stonewalled me every time. I even said I’d prep him during his night shift. This case hinged upon the police officer’s credibility.
Now the police officer shocks the court and me with his bias against the defendant.
Anyway, if I knew about this bias, I would’ve dismissed the case. Now, the police officer is on an official court ruling as a non-credible witness. His career is over. All because he decided he was too important to be prepped as a witness.
If I didn’t document every time I contacted him to schedule prepping, I would’ve had hell to pay at my office.
#24
There was a temporary order of protection in place, and we went to court on the lengthier Order of Protection. I talked strategy with my client the night before, but unbeknownst to me she reconciled with her a*****e s*****g baby daddie. I had 3 OP hearings that morning, and did not get a chance to talk to her until ~3 minutes beforehand.
We had the wrong judge. I knew as soon as she told me she was going to be arrested for violating the temporary order. Sure enough, they both got a week of jail and I had to watch their 3 week old child for a few minutes before a bailiff carted her off to god knows where.
They both got fired for missing a week of work. They couldn't get the kid out of the system. Evicted, homeless, the whole nine yards. All she had to do was tell me they got back together. All she had to do.
#25
Had a major civil rights case in federal court arising from a police shooting where the guy died. Turns out the police had an entire internal investigation file that they didn’t let us know about. That was not fun to explain to the Judge...
#26
Criminal defence (Canada). Talked to a client in cells. Said that she was hanging out at her baby daddy's and then, as she was leaving, the cops came and harassed her, so she resisted, and that is why she is in jail.
Turns out she was getting aggressive with him and he kept trying to get away from her. He ended up calling the police. *While he was on the phone with the police she starts beating him up.* The police hear this and immediately respond. She was trying to flee the scene after beating her man up while he was on the phone with the cops because he was attempting to passively solve the issue, but she wouldn't leave. Luckily she has no record, but, man, I felt bamboozled. I learned a healthy dose of skepticism whenever people told me things from there on out.
Ya gotta love it.
#27
Was prosecuting a simple a*****t and battery. Story I get before trial is baby daddy shows up and punches new boyfriend before leaving with the kid (who tbf he has custody of because mom tested positive for coke at birth). At the time girlfriend/baby mama tells police yup, that’s what happened. But, in the mean time she and new boyfriend broke up and now she is back with baby daddy, so her story has changed and she is saying it didn’t happen. She isn’t credible, so I discount her new version of events and still put the case in front of a jury because the victim is adamant and there was an injury to his face.
Defense obviously puts the girl on the stand, where it first comes out that she and the “victim” weren’t Netflix and chilling as reported to police, but were actually doing c*****e and ignoring the baby. The baby daddy apparently knew she did coke at this location so when he saw her car there he went and pounded on the door demanding their kid. She then says that the “victim” hit himself in the face to make it look like he was beat up.
As she is saying this, the “victim” starts hitting himself in the head and yelling No! no! no! (like the special needs kid the school makes wear a helmet) Before storming out.
The jury went with Not Guilty, and I understood.
#28
I had a client charged with shooting and paralyzing Victim. He was ID’d by a woman in the house that knew him, but the witness was potentially biased.
Client says he wants to fight the case. We then discuss whether it should proceed “time waived” or “time not waived.” The difference is how quickly the case is set for trial. “Time not waived” means the trial is set within 60 days. “Time waived” means the trial can start in more than 60 days.
The importance was that my client told me he was not at the scene. I stressed the importance of being honest and that everything is confidential. He again said he was not at the scene. I told him we could get cell phone records to confirm that his phone was not at the scene of the crime at the time of the shooting. And if we could show that it was active (meaning he was using it) it could help cement his alibi. I also said, “but if you were at the scene, we should set this time not waived so the DA cant get your cell phone records.” Client says to set it time waived and get the records.
So... several months and a lot of work later... the cell phone records literally show him at the f*****g crime scene at the time of the shooting. It also leads to more evidence more directly linking him to the shooting. The records also managed to implicate his friend as being involved. It toon the case from being borderline to a slam dunk for the DA.
It’s even more ridiculous than this but it’s kinda off topic.
Edit: Okay... some more of the ridiculousness...
I share the details of the cell phone data with client. He has no reaction, and offers no explanation for his prior statement that he wasn't at the scene. I explain that the DA does not yet have this information, so we should try and accept a deal now before the DA finds out because he will most likely revoke the current offer when he does. Client insists on a jury trial.
I explain that it's Client's call whether we go to trial or not -- I'm here to offer advice, and he's free to reject that advice. But I think it's a really bad idea because the DA will get the info before trial. When he does, the offer is going to skyrocket. Client continues to insist on a trial. My final words are -- "that's your call. But commit to your decision. If you reject the current offer, then try and plea later, the offer is going to go through the roof. If you want to plea, do it now."
You guessed it. The jury is literally walking into the courtroom and I hear this, "pshhhhh. Psssst." I look over and ask him what's up. He says, "I know you said not to do this, but I want a deal." He pled. Because of his shenanigans his offer increased by roughly 300 percent. He would be out of prison if he took his original offer, and I think he has well over a decade to go currently.
There's actually more but I don't think I can share it because it's so unique that it would make it easy to identify the case.
Edit #2: Wow -- thanks for the award! My first!
#29
This isn’t quite as good as the others in this thread, but once I was representing a dude pro bono who was suing the cops for beating the s**t out of him after they had arrested him. He had led them on a high-speed chase through the suburbs, which was already not great, but the rule of law should apply to everyone, and the cops are not allowed to beat the s**t out of you after you’ve been restrained. So a tough case, but whatever, you’re the lawyer, you do what you can.
In one of our first meetings with him, we’re going over that night. I asked if he had had anything to drink, and he admitted that he had: a beer or two around 8pm. The chase was at 2am, and as you should know, alcohol leaves the system at a rate of roughly one drink per hour. So we were probably fine there, and if anything, it was nice to have a client who wasn’t pretending everything was perfect. We move on and talk abut the rest of the night.
Then as we’re wrapping up, our f*****g summer intern of all people goes, “did you do any other substances that night besides alcohol?” And the client’s like, “oh, right, yeah, some m*******a and some c**e.” Dude! You didn’t think that was relevant when we were talking about a couple beers?
The lesson I took there was that the ones who are the most charming are the ones you have to press the most.
#30
Divorce client came into my lobby one morning, panicked. She starts screaming about how the money was missing.
What money? I asked her. Apparently her and her soon to be ex didn't believe in banks, as they kept a suitcase with close to $100k in a safe in their bedroom closet. One morning she saw the safe was open and the money was all gone.
Y'all have no idea how hard it is to trace and prove the existence of that much money in loose 100s, 50s, and 20s is. Cost her several grand in fees alone for how much work went into finding it. When if she had just told us about it we could have placed it into a trust account pending the divorce.
#31
I shared this earlier in a thread but I work in medical malpractice defense.
Once I had a obstetrician/gynecologist who severely burned a patient during a procedure. When I met with the doctor, he lied to me throughout the representation over 16 months saying he had no idea how it happened. There is a doctrine in law called "res ipsa" meaning absent some sort of negligence, this accident could not have occurred.
Woman came in without a burn, and after the procedure, the woman left with a burn the size of a dinner plate. There's no way this doctor didn't know what had happened. The area of the burn was where he was operating on. It wasn't until I brought up settlement, because this was not a case we could win did he say, "oh maybe I do know what happened." We ultimately settled that case, which is considered a favorable outcome considering the potential high monetary verdict. Sometimes I think this doctor really ought to have lost that case and their license.
Eventually it was discovered that the lamp used to illuminate the site of the procedure emitted a ton of heat, enough to cause serious burns.
#32
How about a tiny twist, with some lawyer on lawyer shenanigans?
Other lawyer filed a document with a pretty big mistake on it. Basically they confused 2 very similar motions and mixed them up. This mistake made it useless. (No evidence MSJ with traditional MSJ relief requested if anyone cares).
So I go out of my way to be a nice lawyer and let them know they made a mistake. They told me, in nice lawyer talk, to f**k off. I go out of my way *again* to say, in nice lawyer talk, that if this stupid b******t motion goes to a hearing I will be quite cross and will f*****g ask for attorney’s fees. (In lawyer culture, this is considered a d**k move).
Fast forward to the hearing. After insurance attorney finishes their impersonation of a competent attorney, I explain the basic defect to the judge. I also explain that I told opposing counsel the following - what’s wrong, how to fix it, and that I will be asking for fees. Then I asked for fees. After that, a few things happened quickly.
1. Judge asks the walnut if my explanation was accurate.
2. Walnut says no.
3. I reach into my briefcase and grab an email from me to walnut.
4. Walnut *immediately* objects. In a pre-trial hearing. Like a f*****g walnut.
5. Judge ignores walnut and reads email.
6. Judge rules against walnut and awards fee.
7. Walnut says I should have mentioned the email sooner.
#33
My father was handling a case of his friends family, about a property that this friend and his brothers and sister inherited. Horrible mess as you can imagine, deeply conflicted family. After few years on one of the court hearing one brother mentioned a name, that never appeared during the entire lawsuit. Turns out there was one more brother, that they all decided to not mention, because he was "a black sheep" of the family. Years of tiring work went down the drain. From what I understand my father (who was doing it all for free, because he "owed him") got into argument with this friend,they never spoke to each other again and guy found a new lawyer.
#34
OH MAN, ONE I CAN ANSWER!
I used to work in-house for a fast food franchisor, occasionally we would litigate against poor restaurant operators. Restaurants were evaluated with some frequency and operators had a lot of opportunity to fix problems before it ever got to litigation but almost all of our case relied upon the testimony of an individual evaluator assigned to that restaurant and the reports they produced.
A week before the hearing I call up my witness to do standard witness prep. I walk through all of the basic questions, the reports themselves, and some of the anticipated cross-examination questions. Everything goes well. Witness is confident, reports look good, and there aren’t any curveballs in his prep. I even ask my tried and true safety question at the end... **IS THERE ANYTHING WE HAVEN’T DISCUSSED, GOOD OR BAD, THAT YOU THINK I SHOULD KNOW?**. *Nope*. I think I’m all set.
We get into the hearing. I run through all of my evidence. All as planned. Restaurant operator gets up to cross examine my witness. First question.
RO: Did you fall asleep in my restaurant while you were preparing this report?
Witness: Yes
🤦🏻♂️
Restaurant owner made him look like a d**g a****t.
Thankfully I was able to get a brief moment with my witness before redirect and I learned that it was a medical issue. We still won that one but W*F?!?!?
#35
The lawsuit was the first time I heard about the case/claim. I called up the manager and asked and he denied knowing anything. I held three separate interviews with him and his staff and all said nothing happened that day. We prepared a defense of "b******t." At the manager's deposition (after the standard state you name, etc) the first f*****g question the plaintiff's attorney asked was "do you recognize my client."
"Oh yeah... now that I see her I remember...".
#36
Client asked a friendly company to forge documents to provide evidence of a fair rate for defect rectification works. A whistle blower told the corruption investigations board.
Destroyed their credibility for the whole claim even where there was good grounds and ended up in a whole criminal investigation . Great billings for us though.
#37
Failed to mention that he'd had a t*******e with his ex wife and her boyfriend two weeks before divorce proceedings. We didn't learn this until the ex was on the stand. Such a fun surprise.
#38
My cousin was the moron client. He and his second wife are divorcing and she wants full custody of the kids, no visitation, just lots of child support. He’s willing to a 50-50 split (at first) and finds an attorney for the case. They’re going over everything when he casually mentions how the mom d***s them literally every night so they sleep and she can go out to the bars while he works the night shift.
Cousin thought this was his smoking gun to beat her in the custody battle. Attorney had to explain that, no you can’t tell this to the judge or that you’ve known she’s been doing this for years. You’ll both lose the kids and they’ll go to state custody.
Both of them are petty incompetent and as you can imagine we don’t interact with that side of the family much (this has all been retold to me by other relatives. So don’t worry, cps WAS informed of all of this, I do not know the out come yet, I’d have to ask).
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I am making a good salary from home $4580-$5240/week , which is amazing under a year ago I was jobless in a horrible economy. I thank God every day I was blessed with these instructions and now its my duty to pay it forward and share it with Everyone, Here is I started_______ LiveJob1.com
nitawinslow 2 hours ago
I am making a good salary from home $4580-$5240/week , which is amazing under a year ago I was jobless in a horrible economy. I thank God every day I was blessed with these instructions and now its my duty to pay it forward and share it with Everyone, Here is I started_______ LiveJob1.com
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