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ATTORNEY ON THE JURY

March 08, 2006

Joel Schoenmeyer is a Chicago-area estate planning attorney and mediator, and he also runs "Death and Taxes - The Blog. He spent much of February on a jury hearing a case involving Arthur Andersen and its former partners. His account of the experience makes good reading.

This bit of wisdom should be etched in stone somewhere:

One of the parties in particular suffered from a major case of "ball's in your court"-itis. In other words, if I want something off my desk, I ask you a small question, and then avoid following up with you (because an answer will mean that I have to put in more work). If there's one thing I've learned in my professional career, it's that you can't assume competence. If you ask a question and don't get a response, you have to ask again. And again. And again. Until you receive an answer.

One advantage of having an attorney on the jury -- they see through the smoke:

A number of attorneys took the stand, and mostly made themselves look like, well, attorneys. "Intentionally obtuse" is what I wrote next to the testimony of one attorney who testified. Every question posed to him by the other side was the dumbest question in the world, either because it was so simple to answer or because it was impossible to understand. Of course, when this attorney was questioned by his own side, he became a font of information, launching into extensive narratives. Juries see this kind of BS for what it is: an attempt to avoid answering questions truthfully through the use of semantics.

Go read it all.

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