A small victory goes a long way for weekend morale

I wrote yesterday about how we were working to tell one of our judges to politely fuck off that his mental elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top, plays bad muzak and doesn’t work weekends. But you can’t do that directly in a brief. Just ask Sidley Austin.

But you can find legal workarounds for when a judge shits the bed. And that’s what I’ve been working on for the last several days, waste deep in technical case law attempting to find the pathway for a victory. This morning, I presented my partner with the brief for the first read today.

For me, this is the most terrifying thing to do as a lawyer. [Shakes fist at my inept legal writing teachers]. I hate when I turn over my hard researched brief to someone that has shaped the law in this state for thirty years. I don’t want to be called stupid. Worse, I don’t want to prove to him that I am stupid.

I got the feedback from him this afternoon. He loved it. So much so that he has now changed his legal theory on this case to the arguments I crafted. This doesn't mean we will win, but it solidifies our position for what will be a certain appeal. After two shitty weeks, a little ‘hey, you’re not that dumb’ really goes a long way.

Now, it’s time to destroy the brain cells one liquid libation at a time.