Yesterday, I had fun. A lot of it. I had a very important hearing. I knew my judge, and through my knowledge, figured it was highly probably that I was going to lose. It didn't matter that the law was on my side. It didn't matter that my client's case was compelling. Knowing how the judge thought, I din't think my client stood much of a chance. I told her so. She's a long term client, and I like to think she trusts me. She was disappointed, but understood how the system works. She knows that sometimes the choice of judge and not the merits of the cause decide the case. It didn't matter, I didn't want her to lose. She had one chance. There was one way to word the argument to sway this judge. I had to be prepared to go for broke. So I did. I even jumped up and down. A friend in the gallery said she could see the moment I started to sway the judge. It was a beautiful thing. My client won - big.
You might ask why we don't always go for broke here in the Trenches. It's not that we don't put all of our hearts into our cases, because we do. Going for broke, however, is a big gamble. If you win, you win big. If you lose, you also lose big. There's very little room in the middle. That's why we don't usually do it. Hedging your bets a bit helps ensure your client gets at least some of what they want. If they have the right judge and the right set of facts, they can still win big. At least they won't lose it all. Knowing how far to push, how much risk to take in the courtroom and how to still serve our clients interests is delicate. That's a large part of why a client hires us. Here in the Trenches.
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