Inept attorneys

Never in all of my years in the legal industry have I come across such inept attorneys as our opposing council in the trial I am working on now. Let me tell you what happened.

Certain things are agreed upon in a trial. You can mention certain things, you can do certain things. Objections are made and decided on by a judge. Well, in this particular trial, certain information about insurance are not to be mentioned or shown on any document. Well, not only did they mention it in their opening statement, but numerous exhibits contained the information which should have been redacted from the document.

So, weeks go by with objections made and warnings given by the judge. Well, after insurance information shows up in two documents shown on the same day, the judge warns the plaintiff that if it happens again, there will be serious repercussions. She gave them strict instructions that two attorneys are to review the document and speak the words on the document aloud to each other so that it is impossible to miss the forbidden information.

Well, guess what happens the VERY NEXT DAY. Yep, they showed a document containing insurance information. Well, the judge gets super pissed. Of course, the attorneys attempt to throw their litigation support person under the bus and blame her, but the judge is no fool and doesn't fall for it. She said that she gave strict instructions that the documents were to be read aloud to each other and that obviously didn't happen or they would have caught the infraction. So, she sanctioned them. She forbid them to show any exhibits for the rest of the trial. They can read them into evidence, but they cannot show the jury any documents. Is that crazy or what?

So, for weeks and weeks, they go on reading from documents and occasionally quoting things that the jury can't see. This seems to confuse the jury more than anything. Of course, as not to taint the jury, they are not informed of the punishment and I'm sure they are confused as to why the plaintiff has just stopped showing any exhibits.

Well, they finally turned over to defense and we put on our case. A week or so later, we rested our case and the plaintiff now wants a rebuttal. In the argument for rebuttal, one of the plaintiff attorneys begs the judge to lift the sanction and allow them to show exhibits. They promise that all of their documents have been reviewed and redacted. They have learned their lesson. Apparently not.

The judge gave in and lifted the sanction. Anyone want to take a guess as to what was NOT redacted on the very first document they displayed? That's right, insurance information. The judge was hot, to say the least. She immediately reinstated the sanction and I'm really surprised they didn't get hammered with anything else. I'm not sure what she could have done outside of calling a mistrial though. She gave them lots of speeches about how disappointed she is with them. It was like a mother speaking to a child.

Here is where I would normally give the warning as to never hire this law firm, nor apply for a position at this law firm, but I don't want to mention their name. I wouldn't want to get sued...they are a law firm, after all.