35 Of The Most Memorable Moments In Court That These Lawyers Can Recall

Sat in on a personal injury case where the plaintiff broke their leg in a [collision] and had a doctor on the stand as an expert. The woman's lawyer begins questioning the doctor about their experience with leg injuries (he was a well known orthopedic surgeon in the area).

She asks if he's ever treated a tibula fracture (the leg bones are tibia and fibula) to which he only answers "no" then she starts grilling him with questions about the tibula.

After about 6-7 questions she asks "how did you get a medical license and have been able to practice medicine this long if you've never treated a tibula fracture?" And begins a small rant about going after his credentials and those that gave it to him, to which he simply responds "there is no bone named the tibula".

The lawyer became beet red and everyone in the room tried their best to keep from laughing including the judge.

I'm not a lawyer but I was a character witness for my childhood dog in a civil trial between our neighbors and my parents. Opposing counsel was questioning me, I wasn't even out of elementary school at the time, and he asked if our dog was aggressive. She was a rottweiler and very loving and incredibly protective of me and my siblings. His final question to me is one I will never forget. He asked "Did your father tell you what to say before you came into court today?" I responded "Yes." Then he asked "What did he tell you to say?" I said "The truth." Now I was too young to remember the courtroom reaction, but according to my father the judge audibly guffawed and the opposing counsel lost all the wind out of his sails.

I was a baby lawyer in my first year representing the 19 year old child of some rich people in San Mateo County CA. My client had gone on a bit of a shoplifting spree and we were cleaning all her cases up with a global plea (meaning we handled them all at once).

Being new, I filled out the plea form wrong swapping the counts she was charged with for the counts she was pleading to. It’s an easy mistake to make. Every court has their own unique form and I was unfamiliar with San Mateo’s.

The judge calls my line, starts reading off the plea form, notices the mistake and then starts screaming at the top of his lungs “COUNSEL! WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT IS THIS?! IS THIS YOUR FIRST DAY ON THE JOB? THIS IS A COURT IF LAW AND WE DO NOT ACCEPT MISTAKES! FILL THIS PLEA FORM OIT CORRECTLY OR I WILL HAVE YOU TAKEN INTO CUSTODY FOR CONTEMPT!”

I did not expect a reaction like that. My client, who had clearly just taken a huge [rip] at 8 AM and who was wearing an all-pink velvet track suit was looking at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world.

I corrected the plea form. The judge made me wait until the very end of the calendar to take my plea. Afterward, he called me up to the bench. In private he told me, “Sorry to ream you like that. Everyone messes the plea form up so I always pick the youngest lawyer to yell at. The older guys will grumble and complain, but if you noticed they all fixed their own forms and we didn’t have any more problems. Keeps the calendar running smooth. Where did you go to law school?” After that he invited me into his office for coffee and gave me some really good life/work advice. Turns out he likes talking to new lawyers.

I think this qualifies, though it wasn't me that was the lawyer.

Got called for jury duty. Was at the jury selection phase, and they asked if "anyone here thinks they should not..." blah blah. Defendant was in the room.

I raised my hand. The defending lawyer looked at me like "oh this oughta be good" and asked me to explain. I suggested I tell them in private. He insisted I tell the courtroom.

I said:

"OK...I probably shouldn't be on this jury because I was on a previous jury for this man which returned a guilty verdict".

Lawyer's face went "oh sh*t".
Commotion and a wait while they looked up records. Yep; verified. Whole jury was now "tainted."
Everyone goes home, and they start over.

Not me but my former law partner. She was in court representing a client, I think in a hearing for a protective order against her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Our client was telling the judge that when they met to exchange the children for visitation, the ex had kicked her. He immediately angrily shouted "she can't prove it, I didn't leave a mark!" Thanks, buddy!

Not in court but at a tribunal, and also I was plaintiff, suing for wrongful termination.

My rep: so you terminated him because he was ill

Employer: yes

MR: and he was ill because he's disabled

Employer: yes

MR: so you fired someone for being disabled

Employer: yes

I was representing a plaintiff in a hit and run case. Plaintiff is testifying and is, despite me preparing them for several hours the previous day, an absolutely terrible witness for her own case. Like, she couldn’t even identify the street she was crossing when she was hit by the car. (It was a major highway and we had gone through the sequence of events countless times the day before the hearing)

The “oh sh*t” moment came during cross-examination. Defense counsel pulls out a picture of my client dressed up and ready to hit the club which was posted to Facebook the day after the alleged [incident]. I, thinking quickly, object because the timestamp refers to when it was posted, not when it was taken. Defense counsel show the picture to my client and asked her when the picture was taken. Sure enough, they say it was taken the day after the [incident] when she was supposedly in unbearable pain.

Reposting myself from years ago:

Story from a friend of mine - he was defending a guy in court, don't remember what he was charged with.

The main witness for prosecution was on the stand, and was asked if she could identify the defendent. She was scanning the courtroom & seemed confused - my friend was already silently celebrating because if she couldn't identify him, he could probably get all charged dropped.

As he was mentally adding this case to the 'win' file, he happened to glance over at his client, who had just helpfully raised his hand to make it easier for her to identify him.

Even the judge facepalmed on that one.

Literally the first thing I ever did, was just a law student intern. Guy has a legit defense on a drug possession case. Hard substances found in a jacket, guy wasn't wearing jacket, they were going to have a very difficult time proving the jacket belonged to my guy.

Had a long meeting with client. Explained everything. Client was excited.

Day of the preliminary hearing, guy shows up and sits down directly in front of the officer who detained him...

... while wearing the jacket in question, the exact same jacket we were going to say they couldn't prove belonged to him.

Not mine but my bosses one:

She had to defend a small time delinquent as duty solicitor. Before going to court he asked her what he should do; she explained to him if he was cooperative and truthful his sentence would be milder.

After hearing the case the judge asked him if he wanted to add something. He got up and explained to the judge: "my counsel told me to be truthful, so I wanted to tell you that I not only did the pilfering I'm being heard for but also several others in the region".

He continued to admit to several robberies that had been unsolved yet and everyone, even the state attorney were facepalming.

Worked as a clerk at the local court after law school.

There was this case about sending a 15 year old girl to a rehab/youth home since she had problems with alcohol. This girl had a backstory that made the story of the girl from "13 reasons why" look like a fairytale. Her parents had basically dumped her and her brother and left to live in another country, so they were called over Skype. So basically the girl had an attorney, the parents had an attorney and the state was represented by two attorneys. After reading her file I thought that no human being can be normal after the s**t she's been through, that she'd be a quiet, broken down girl during the whole trial.

Boy was I wrong. She didn't even need an attorney, she basically out-argumented her parents attorney and the state attorney her self. I remember how awed I was of her strength and energy, but I also felt sad that I knew what she had to go through to get this strength. I always think back to that case, I really hope she's doing fine now.

Not a lawyer, but I got in enough trouble in my teens to know what a judge does/doesn't like.

Uncles/father decide they're going to conserve my grandmother and put her in a secured perimeter memory facility. In reality, they just wanted to piss away her $20m estate. We end up in court with our lawyers.

One thing I know about most judges/courtrooms. They want to be revered like a church. No talk back, no talking out of turn, wear a suit, even if it's a $20 goodwill suit.

Father, uncles all show up. All of them spend about an hour badmouthing me. I'm keeping my mouth shut, looking at my feet. One of my uncles tries to examine me, I just keep my mouth shut until the judge tells him he's not a lawyer, and I'm not examination. None of them are well dressed, sneakers, dirty sweatpants.

My uncle (who's the ringleader) decides to start talking over his own lawyers. My lawyer makes some comment, the judge starts talking to her and my uncles lawyer says something like, "Now hold on ladies!"

All they had to do was keep their mouths shut, and not tell their lawyers how to do their job and they would have won. They pretty much handed grandma and I the win.

Not a lawyer, but I witnessed my ex wife try to argue with the judge that she couldn't be accused of kidnapping our daughter because our daughter was legally emancipated (not a spoiler: she wasn't) at the time of the kidnapping. My ex had legal statutes written on small sheets of paper she had torn out of books in the jail library, and she kept arguing with the judge after being told that none of it mattered.

After the fifth time my ex interrupted the judge with her nonsense, the judge slammed her hands down, stood up, leaned over her bench, and told my ex that she had been a juvenile court judge for 20 years and was well aware of the statutes. If she interrupted one more time then she would be held in contempt and spend several months more in jail.

My lawyer held up his folder in front of his face to hide his grin during this exchange. I walked out with full legal and physical custody of my daughter, court supervised visitation for my ex, and a full restraining order.

UK - Bear with me on this one. I was in court listening to the most boring old defence lawyer you’ve ever seen, he was questioning the arresting officer in the case. It was [hard substances] or something like that.

Anyway, he’s droning on about every little detail and the magistrate was constantly telling him to hurry along. The arresting officer was getting noticeably annoyed and the room became empty pretty quick. Everyone was very bored and annoyed. He was droning about details that I’m not sure anyone was really listening to or cared about.

Anyway, he went over [capture] times and the likes with the officer, time he admitted the suspect and released him. He had bored the officer to the point were he was barely paying attention.

“So he was admitted in at 21:45 on the night in question...?” “Yes” “...and released the night after...” “yes” “...and that was what? Just after 10pm?...” “yes” “What time after 10?” “I don’t know, quarter past 10 maybe” “so my client was detained for more than 24 hours” “erm...wait”

The penny dropped. The officer let his guard down and had revealed he kept the defendant for more than 24 hours, which is the max time for detention in the UK. The defence rested and the magistrate threw the case out immediately. Well played sir, well played.

Watching a hearing when the defendant said "I mean I did stab her... But it was a gentle stabbing..."

I was involved in a pretty messy custody case. The other party was a mess and had kept the child from my client for a few weeks. OP was playing lots of stupid games and kept requesting continuances. I requested a drug test, which the judge ordered. However, the OP didn’t show up for it (to clarify, he did show up, he just stood in front of the toilet for literally 2 hours and claimed he couldn’t pee). I was representing the plaintiff so the burden was on me. I called multiple witnesses that testified to the defendant’s drug use. So, opposing counsel decides to call their client for direct examination and asks, “you don’t use heroin and crack, right?” That is, for the non-lawyers, a very stupid question for many reasons. Especially considering his client didn’t show up for his drug test. However, I fully expected the defendant to just lie and say he was clean. After the question was asked, there was a really long pause and the defendant said, “yes, I do both of those drugs.” My head almost exploded. I didn’t ask any questions on cross examination because I didn’t want to muddy the waters. I won, and the child is doing great.

Sat in the public gallery at a bail hearing for a man accused of heinous crimes against a very, very young female relative. The judge started laying out the conditions of bail and one of them was to surrender his passport. Man turned to his attorney and said, loudly, words to the effect of; "But you said I could fly back to my home country..."

The judge stopped himself, and revoked the man's bail.

I'm not an attorney, but a reporter whose beat is the county courthouse, so I've had plenty of these moments happen in front of me.

A guy was convicted of attempting to murder several police officers.

At his sentencing, the prosecutor revealed the defendant got a prison tattoo while he was awaiting sentencing of a tombstone with the names of all the cops he attempted to kill. But the defendant still had the audacity to beg for a lenient sentence.

He got a few hundred years in jail.

Not a lawyer but I had a big "Oh s**t" moment.

I was in court for driving while suspended in a county and in front of a judge that were both notorious for putting people who did that in jail. My license wasnt supposed to be suspended, a pencil pusher forgot to press a button or something and it never got un-suspended after the time was up. I had proof of this, but I was still really nervous.

The guy who went up to the judge before me walked to the table where we were supposed to stand, sat down, and put his feet up on the table. The judge asked him what he was doing and he gave a flippant answer and basically told the judge to get f**ked. This seriously pissed the judge off. The judge went off on this guy and the guy gave everything right back to him, pissing him off more and more. The judge ended up jailing him for contempt and had the bailiff cuff the guy and put him in a chair off to the side to await the marshalls who would transport him to the jail.

My name gets called. The judge is looking at me like Im fresh meat and he is a Great White shark. Im already thinking to myself "OK, if this judge puts you in jail, run over and beat the s**t out of the guy that pissed the judge off so badly. He's why youre going to jail."

The judge looks down at his paperwork and back at me and says "You're Mr my last name"? I said "Yes sir." He said "Yeah, we were talking about you earlier, Im going to void your arrest and dismiss this case, your license was supposed to be valid and you shouldnt be here."

I let out a huge sigh. The judge asked me if I was OK and I said I had been a bit worried, especially given the guy that was right before me in line. The judge said "Dont worry about him, he wont be seeing anything that isnt behind bars for about 90 days." and laughed.

Step-parent adoption I was handling in law school. I was appearing before the court on a motion--literally just submitting a written brief and summing up my argument so the judge could think about it in chambers for a few weeks--when the judge stopped me halfway through my explanation of the motion, said "I'm ready to sign the final order," and executed it right there at the bench. The client happened to come along for this one, and broke down (happy) crying before we left the courtroom. I felt ten feet tall.