Court Opinion

ID: 9633328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:43:21.175673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:16:29.297795
License: Public Domain

O’BRIEN, District Judge,
concurs specially, with whom LEHMAN, Justice, joins.
I agree with the majority and concur in the opinion of the court. I write specially only to *398underscore that part of the majority opinion dealing with the behavior of counsel.
This case calls to mind the story of the senior attorney advising a new associate: “When you have compelling facts, pound on those facts. When the law is agreeable to your position, pound on the law. When you have neither favorable facts nor law, pound the table.” It is less amusing than unsettling.
The trial judge had considerable difficulty in keeping this case on track and the attorneys focused. The judge, who has a reputation for being patient and accommodating, revealed his frustration in an opinion letter where he observed:
It is true that the attitude and conduct of counsel throughout the pretrial proceedings and the trial made the job of the Court extremely difficult. And it is also true that the difficulties were chiefly the fault of the Plaintiffs’ lead counsel. All attorneys participated to one degree or another in this unprofessional strife, and there was little attempt by anyone to calm the waters. But it was the Plaintiffs’ lead counsel who constantly saturated every motion, every argument and every hearing with personal attacks on opposing counsel.
Accompanying this extreme personal animosity was a near religious fervor that manifested itself as a belief in the moral superiority of the Plaintiffs’ cause, and the moral depravity of the Defendants and their attorneys. This blinded Plaintiffs’ counsel to the realities of the case, and prevented a realistic appraisal of the evidence.
In spite of considerable rhetoric to the contrary, trials, particularly jury trials, are imperfect engines of justice. For routine cases the trial process works reasonably well; it yields rough justice within such practical and financial constraints as we are willing to abide. However, experience teaches that as cases approach the margins the trial machinery frequently sputters and oftentimes fails. Marginal cases include those with highly technical, complex or convoluted facts. A trial is not a didactic paradigm and, given the limits of time, resources and procedure, extremely intricate matters are sometimes beyond the ken of a judge or jury. Other cases are on the margin because they involve celebrity participants, severe consequences, extreme or peculiar circumstances, inordinate media attention or highly emotional issues. As to the latter the magnifying glass of close scrutiny and the attendant hype are simply inevitable consequences of a free society with open institutions. Without radical change in our approach to the trial process we have no choice but to accept imperfections, inconsistencies, and even occasional injustice. But an ominous problem emerges, one that is not the necessary product of confounding facts or unveiled process.
A trial should be a rational exercise, not an emotional experience. When counsel intentionally drive an otherwise routine case to the margins by infecting the trial with personal issues or by purposefully seeking to supercharge emotions, alert observers quickly recognize that the object is not justice, but victory. The ethical obligation to zealously serve client interests is tempered by the opposing, but no less imposing, obligation to act within the limits of the law — not merely the letter, but also the spirit, of the law. Any failure to appropriately and consistently measure duty to clients against duty to the profession perpetuates the “hired gun” image some lawyers cultivate and we all must live with. Worse, it sustains a popularly held conception that our professional ethic accepts the notions that success justifies, and occasionally necessitates, excessive zeal and that the cost of victory is irrelevant. Finally, such conduct reinforces the stereotype of the avaricious plaintiff spurred to trial by even more venal attorneys. When a case is measured, not by the merit of the cause, the quality of the evidence, or the logic of the arguments, but by the level of invective, something is amiss. A trial then becomes an ordeal which is neither dignified nor appropriate and, predictably, the result reflects the performance; the process is demeaned, as are the participants.