WARNING! Drunk lawyer war story!
Trump‘s lawyer who crossed stormy reminds me of an attorney for Traveler’s insurance who attacked my very sketchy client in a jury trial when I was a young lawyer. It is gospel among good plaintiff trial lawyers that you are never rude and in attack mode on a witness unless you have an unusually bad witness who’s done truly terrible things that you can easily prove. Jurors do not like to watch you being mean to a witness. Period.
This defense attorney’s demeanor was resting bitch face when she was at her best, but most of the time she was scowling and almost scream-spitting at my witnesses. Let me repeat, my case was so friggin horrible that the insurance company took a meager cost of defense settlement off the table on the day of trial.
During the direct of my client, she pulled out a deposition and started grilling him in a similar bunny in the pot/I won ‘t be ignored type manner - like stormy was grilled but worse. She exaggerated what my client had said, and not so subtly misrepresented some of his deposition testimony in questions.
As the cross went on, I could see her thinking she had a killshot about his drinking before the accident happened. She bowed up, shoved the deposition in his face, and insisted that he read that she thought was different than his trial testimony. He shook his head and declined, and before the judge could intervene to instruct him to answer, she went on a tear about not being honest with the jury and refusing to read the deposition to them. At that moment, several big tears dribbled down his cheek. He swallowed, turned to the jury and told them, “I’m sorry I never learned to read.”
I won the trial with a 9-3 plaintiff verdict. I can honestly say I never could’ve done it without her. I was getting some of that vibe as I read some of the transcript of today’s hearing. Being Nasty to Stormy will make Trump very happy, but there is a fair to good chance that it pushes the jury away from Trump and his lawyers more than they needed.
tl;dr
I think being mean to Stormy on cross today backfired Bigly