One of my utter pet hates
Mar. 27th, 2006 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparkindarknessThis probably annoys me the most. Sure, they do many many many MANY annoying things, but this is one of my utter pet hates.
Please don’t hide things from me. ESPECIALLY if it severely ruins your case. Do you think by not telling me that it won’t apply? If you say that you were brutally attacked when 3 witnesses and a CCTV camera catches you hitting him first . Do you think not telling me will make that not have happened? Do you think your not telling me will mean the court never hear of it? Putting your fingers in your ears and chanting “I’m not listening” Is NOT a valid legal motion. The judge will slap you with a haddock you and set the Hounds on me for even trying it. Do you know what the WORST THING EVER you can do to a lawyer is? Let him be surprised in court. Now it probably won’t happen in the criminal court, because ethics have moved on, but if I go to court and find your ex-wife brandishing bank details you ASSURED ME didn’t exist then I will beat you with haddocks until I use up Grimsby’s entire supply and then the Hounds can lap up the mush that used to be you out of the carpet. There are no words to describe how much it annoys to be surprised in court – in fact, you see how the opposition lawyer is trying to flay you with her eyes? You see how the judge appears to be 3 seconds away from vaulting over the furniture and pulling out the judicial haddock for some well deserved battering? That means even the opposition wants you dead for doing this thing to me.
Almost as bad – flat denial of the obvious is stupid. If presented by the above CCTV footage, witness testimony and that busload of nuns who saw you do it, your finger prints, DNA and signed autograph have all been found on the weapon then you turning round and saying “they’re all lying” is not going to give me much to work on. Really, it isn’t. When the magistrate inevitably finds you guilty (not that you really had much chance with a magistrate anyway), it really isn’t my fault. I haven’t failed or lost the case. The worst thing is, I’m not allowed to argue with you (coincidently, that also means you asking “you DO believe me, don’t you?” is also pointless – I am your lawyer. I am required to believe all of your lies.) I prefer to win my cases, but if I’m utterly crushed in a case because you’re insisting that you earn less than £9,000 a year but you just went out and bought a brand new BMW (your SECOND car) and your wife has detectives who can prove you’re eating in fancy restaurants every other night then it won’t hurt me. It will annoy me and earn you some quality Hound time for wasting so much of my valuable time, but I’m going to be fine. It won’t hurt my reputation, because my firm and the entire legal profession in the city recognise that a stunned wet fish (say one that has severe concussion from being slapped against people repeatedly) has greater intelligence than you. We’ll get together in one of the pubs in old town and laugh about you while you have to explain to your pretty little mistress why you can’t buy her shiny things any more. In fact, I may hire your ex-wife’s detectives to take a photograph of your face at that moment.
Please don’t hide things from me. ESPECIALLY if it severely ruins your case. Do you think by not telling me that it won’t apply? If you say that you were brutally attacked when 3 witnesses and a CCTV camera catches you hitting him first . Do you think not telling me will make that not have happened? Do you think your not telling me will mean the court never hear of it? Putting your fingers in your ears and chanting “I’m not listening” Is NOT a valid legal motion. The judge will slap you with a haddock you and set the Hounds on me for even trying it. Do you know what the WORST THING EVER you can do to a lawyer is? Let him be surprised in court. Now it probably won’t happen in the criminal court, because ethics have moved on, but if I go to court and find your ex-wife brandishing bank details you ASSURED ME didn’t exist then I will beat you with haddocks until I use up Grimsby’s entire supply and then the Hounds can lap up the mush that used to be you out of the carpet. There are no words to describe how much it annoys to be surprised in court – in fact, you see how the opposition lawyer is trying to flay you with her eyes? You see how the judge appears to be 3 seconds away from vaulting over the furniture and pulling out the judicial haddock for some well deserved battering? That means even the opposition wants you dead for doing this thing to me.
Almost as bad – flat denial of the obvious is stupid. If presented by the above CCTV footage, witness testimony and that busload of nuns who saw you do it, your finger prints, DNA and signed autograph have all been found on the weapon then you turning round and saying “they’re all lying” is not going to give me much to work on. Really, it isn’t. When the magistrate inevitably finds you guilty (not that you really had much chance with a magistrate anyway), it really isn’t my fault. I haven’t failed or lost the case. The worst thing is, I’m not allowed to argue with you (coincidently, that also means you asking “you DO believe me, don’t you?” is also pointless – I am your lawyer. I am required to believe all of your lies.) I prefer to win my cases, but if I’m utterly crushed in a case because you’re insisting that you earn less than £9,000 a year but you just went out and bought a brand new BMW (your SECOND car) and your wife has detectives who can prove you’re eating in fancy restaurants every other night then it won’t hurt me. It will annoy me and earn you some quality Hound time for wasting so much of my valuable time, but I’m going to be fine. It won’t hurt my reputation, because my firm and the entire legal profession in the city recognise that a stunned wet fish (say one that has severe concussion from being slapped against people repeatedly) has greater intelligence than you. We’ll get together in one of the pubs in old town and laugh about you while you have to explain to your pretty little mistress why you can’t buy her shiny things any more. In fact, I may hire your ex-wife’s detectives to take a photograph of your face at that moment.