Follow These Steps and You Will Then Need to Take Extra Ethics Hours to Comply With CLE Requirements

by:   Kristen Novay

Most of us lawyers may come out of quarantine feeling like we have forgotten how to practice law. As trial attorneys, it’s important that we keep our courtroom skills sharp in preparation for the inevitable back-to-back trials we will face when the courthouses re-open. Here are some helpful methods you can use at home with your children, partner, or loved ones to help you stay on the ball.
 

1. Keep your cross-examination techniques strong by practicing them on your family. For example, “Thank you for that information, dear, but you have yet to answer my question. Do you need me to repeat it for you?”
2. While you are working from home, train your children to ask to “approach the bench” before they discuss a matter with you. 
3. For appellate attorneys, insist that your children substitute the phrase “may I appeal” in lieu of bickering. For example, “Dad, may I appeal your order that 9 P.M. is too late for ice cream?” Then reverse yourself or sustain your original decision as you see fit.
4. Sprinkle some Latin phrases into your discussions! Fun for everyone and doesn’t need to be in the legal context. For example, “Before you eat that donut have you considered your summer corpus?”
5. When having a simple conversation or disagreement with your partner, helpfully suggest that their argument is based on “bad law” or some “Ninth Circuit nonsense.” The point is that it isn’t binding on you.
6. Randomly remind your family that they are “under oath.”
7. For those of you with pending cases in “less reasonable courtrooms,” put the family cat in a robe and let him decide disputes.
8. Is your partner spending too much on Amazon Prime? Train the family dog to sniff out packages, intercept them, and mark them as exhibits or use as evidence of his/her “lavish spending.” Was the package meant for you? No problem! Move to suppress it and explain the phrase “curtilage” to them. It’ll be a hoot.
9. For the prosecutors, take this time to sniff out the bad kids in the family. Offer to sell your child all the old Halloween or Easter candy for a reduced price by the kilo. Tell them you’ll accept machine guns instead of currency to seal the deal.
10. Use the Sentencing Guidelines for punishments. Bonus 5K if the kids snitch on a sibling!

 
If the above techniques don’t work—or work too well—we will happily represent your loved ones in the potential assault charges against you.