Even a Blind Hog ...

...can come up with an acorn.  That's one of my father's favorite sayings.  (Of course, he used to say it in reference to my golf game and my occasional ability to hit a decent shot.)  Sometimes I love what it means.  Like yesterday.  Run Disney opened registration for a new race combination over Disney Princess weekend.  Daughter, one of my Trenches friends and I decided to register for it.  The combination filled up within hours of registration opening - but the three of us made it.  Lots of others did not.  I'm loving that acorn, and we got it just because we were all in the right place at the right time.  Sometimes, however, the blind hog comes up with the acorn, and the rest of the hogs say "What?  How did that happen?"  I had just such a situation a few weeks ago. It was a hearing in which the other attorney was not even marginally competent, his client's case was not compelling, and in fact he had done some really not OK things, on which the Master commented.  Yet, he managed to receive much of what he requested in court.  That blind hog came up with an acorn.  How did that happen?  It wasn't because I didn't do a good job.  It wasn't because my client wasn't deserving.  It wasn't because the other attorney did a good job. It certainly wasn't because his client was a good guy.  If I had to explain what happened, I would say that for a reason not related to the evidence or the skill of the attorneys, the Master made a decision.  On what was it based?  I don't know.  I may never know.  Maybe the Master had seen a case like it in the past, and felt that the decision she made on that day worked well for them and would work well for our folks.  Maybe the clients reminded the Master of someone she liked or didn't like.  Maybe it wasn't what the clients said but how they said it.  Maybe , maybe, maybe.  Like I said, I'll never really know.  That's the problem with going to trial.  You never know if it's the evidence or something unquantifiable that drives the judge's decision.  You can have the world's best lawyer, the most compelling evidence, and still lose.  Welcome to my world - here in the Trenches.