One more day!

Day four was probably the most eventful of the trial so far. The idiots took 3 days to get through 4 witnesses and 2 video deposition excerpts. We got through 6 witnesses today, and at times it was really crazy.

My first witness was the son of my client, who used to work for the company suing us and is now testifying against them. Talk about bias! He was just ridiculous - at one point he turned to the owner of the other company and made some snide remark. It's not enough that I had his dad sitting next to me for the whole trial making little comments here and there, now I gotta deal with this? The other lawyer's going to have a field day with this.

His dad, by the way (my client) has just been ridiculous the whole trial. The very first day of the trial, he comes into the room and the first thing he says to the other side's expert is: "Are you their expert? "You're a great liar." So I say to the expert: "Oh, he doesn't mean that." The guy was like some 60-year-old dude. Anyway, my client is like: "Yes I do. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." Thank god the arbitrator wasn't there. And this was basically the whole trial. He would let out little laughs if someone on the other side said something he thought was a lie (the arbitrator actually said something about keeping decorum at one point). And every time he ran into one of the guys from the other side in the hallway or when noone else was around, he'd make a little comment to them. Unreal! He's a really nice guy, but he just hates these guys with a passion.

Anyway, as if the super-ridiculous bias wasn't bad enough, my first witness had brought some documents with him that I wanted to use. I hadn't disclosed them to the other side for 2 reasons. First, I wanted to use them for impeachment (the main doc was a memo from the head of the opposition basically proving that he's a liar), so I didn't think I needed to disclose it. Second, the witness was worried about these guys suing him for disclosing the documents, so he didn't want them to leave his possession before the trial. Anyway, it was an ORDEAL trying to get that freakin thing into evidence (I probably spent at least a half hour trying to do it, but it was such an incriminating document, that I couldn't let it go). The other lawyer was jumping up and down crying bloody murder, while his client was saying that the documents were his and that he wanted them back. We hadn't had this much craziness all trial.

So basically, his direct was a debacle, because he wouldn't answer any of my damn questions. He just answered whatever question he wanted to answer, regardless of what I asked. And the cross didn't go any better, because he was being so combative. I think he felt that he needed to win the case himself, and he didn't want to give up ANYTHING. So the lawyer was getting pissed, and he was getting pissed right back, and meanwhile, the other side's main guy was pacing up and down the room like a damn lion. Hot mess!

The rest of the witnesses were a breeze in comparison, except for my own client, who testified at the end of the day. Just like his son, he wasn't listening to my questions, and just saying what he wanted to say. Like I would say to him: "Could you please clarify for the arbit..." and he'd cut me off and say: "He knows that I mean ..." and go on with his story. I think my favorite line of his was: "The economy was so bad, you couldn't find a guy with dry pants."

Thank god that's over. Tomorrow my main client gets crossed, and my other client is up. After that, there's just closings. I have a feeling this is going to be a really good closing, but I just can't focus right now, and I'm so tired that I can't stay up. Most likely I'll take a nap and try to get up early to do some work. Let's see if it works.