Losing Trust

Last Friday I was able to attend an oral argument with one of the estate attorneys here at Dickinson Wright.  

Oral arguments are spoken to a judge or appellate court by a lawyer (or parties when representing themselves) of the legal reasons why they should prevail. Oral argument at the appellate level accompanies written briefs, which also advance the argument of each party in the legal dispute. Oral arguments can also occur during motion practice when one of the parties presents a motion to the court for consideration before trial, such as when the case is to be dismissed on a point of law, or when summary judgment may lie because there are no factual issues in dispute.

The case was about a dispute over a trust where one of the 20 beneficiaries of the trust refused to sign the accounting and filed against the trustee (a bank), stating that he was not informed and was mistreated by the bank. He said that he thought that the most recent list of items and recipients of them did not reflect his late fathers true wishes, and was trying to prove this to the judge. 

In this case, the attorney from the firm was defending the trustee/bank. He filed for a summary judgement. In law, a summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued on the merits of an entire case, or on discrete issues in that case. Each side got a limited amount of time to make their case about why the judge should rule in their favor. 

What was interesting about this case was that first, the other side was representing himself which I honestly did not know you could do. This made it difficult for the other parties involved as he did not really know the rules and procedures of the court. The judge was surprisingly patient with him, explaining what would happen in court that day, but I think she got slightly annoyed at one point. Another thing, that struck me as different from the media, was that he was not actually present in court, but rather made his argument to the judge and other attorneys over the phone. Thirdly, there were three parties there which, so far, I have never seen in a show. Typically in a show, we see the standard two sides (attorney and client) in the courtroom. The other party in this case was another beneficiary of the trust,  who disagreed with the man who was fighting the distribution of the assets. 

In the end, the judge ruled right on the spot in favor of the trustee, This was very surprising as usually it takes a while before finding out the result of a case. Anyways, it was very fun to go down to the old courthouse!

Thanks for reading!

The Courtroom

I have been told constantly over the three days that I have been here that I am going to be bored out of my mind for 10 weeks because all lawyers ever do is sit at their desks and get coffee. There are no "smoking gun" pieces of evidence, and they do not argue in front of a judge everyday (much less a jury). And yes, at times I have been a little bored already, but it has mostly been very interesting.

Yesterday I got to see the jury instructions and closing statements of a trial. It was a trial involving medical malpractice in which a patient died and his mother was going against the company owning the healthcare facility. The mother was asking for money in compensation for the grief, suffering, and loss of companionship she experienced as a result of the death of her son. In order for the verdict to be in favor of the mother, the plaintiff's attorney must provide sufficient evidence that the man died as a direct result of the company (such as improperly trained staff).

The first hour or so that I witnessed was used by the lawyers on the two sides arguing over what instructions to give the jury on making their decision in front of the judge. I was told that the judge was very patient, unlike most judges who will scream and shout if the paperwork is not in on time.

After this was successfully resolved, the jury was brought in. First they were read the jury instructions and then a lawyer from each side got to give their closing statements - the final argument by an attorney on behalf of his/her client after all evidence has been produced for both sides

The first difference I noticed from TV shows during this trial is that closing statements are not the precise, emotional two minute long statements that you see on the shows. I only got to see some of the plaintiffs (about 15 minutes) closing statement before I had to leave. The attorney began by talking about  Dante's Inferno and accusing the healthcare company for being in the 7th layer of Hell because they betrayed the trust of the man looking for medical help. He then went on to go into depth of the jury instructions, trying to show the jury how they could come to a verdict in his favor based on these instructions. Although I did not see the whole thing (and none of the defense), I got the general idea of how closing statements work. One thing I noticed that seemed pretty consistent between real life and the media, is that no one wants to have jury duty. All the jurors seemed very bored, and the guy in the front even kept making annoyed faces!

Overall, it was a very interesting experience to see what it is like to actually argue in front of a judge and jury. I am very interested in seeing how the jury selection process works (as I was surprised that the majority of jurors on this case were women) and I am hoping that I can experience it in a possibly upcoming trial in March. I hope you all are enjoying reading about my experiences! 

         

My First Day

Today was my first day to "work" at the firm. Being unfamiliar with the downtown area (and my exit from the 202 being closed), I got lost about 5 times before I managed to make it into the office, somehow still on time. As soon as I walked into the 24-level high rise, smack dab off of Central, I was intimidated. The lobby was very large, spacious, and pretty empty. There was a man cleaning the main door, which I was later told was actually a statue.

When I got off of the elevator on the 14th floor, this was what I saw. The beautiful view of the Phoenix skyline (and the popcorn machine in the kitchen) told me that I was going to have a wonderful time here over the next two weeks.



After I met with my onsite mentor (and was told I had my own paralegal office!), he took me around to meet every lawyer on the 12th, 13th, and 14th floors. There were many different types of lawyers that I got to meet from divorce to construction to wrongful death. Everybody was kind and welcoming, offering to bring me along to any interesting things that they had going on. I'm even going to court to watch the closing statements of a trial tomorrow! Apparently, I am very lucky that I get to experience a trail, as the majority of cases settle before they reach the courtroom.

After that, I spent the next 2 or so hours helping the paralegal that I share an office with to put new file numbers on old files. Although this was not the most exciting task, I am very excited to be able to work here for the next 10 weeks and incredibly grateful to all the lawyers here at Dickinson Wright for giving me this wonderful opportunity.