30 Lawyers Share Stories About The Cases They Had And The Moment They Knew They Won Them

Custody case. Attorney stands up in this case and goes to the judge: 'My client has only been found guilty of child endangerment in (county next to us) and (county next to that). I see no reason that this court should hold that against him when it comes to custody of his children.'

I had parked my motorcycle in my driveway. The officer ordered me to remove it, and tried to levy fines for the violation. He went after my landlord and tried to get me evicted. Eventually, I got a lawyer and filed a complaint. When asked to point to the bylaw I was breaking, he did and even read it out, which basically read:

No parking or storing anything in a driveway other than an automobile.

He seriously thought a motorcycle wasn't an automobile because an automobile is a car.

Dad alleged mom was doing all sorts of things and that he should have the kid. Dad's attorney grilled mom for about 20 minutes on texts she had sent claiming to sell her prescriptions. She wouldn't admit it. Dad's attorney moved on and eventually ended with, 'One more question. Where did you get the pills you were selling?' Mom responds without thinking, 'Oh, my doctor prescribed them.'

Not a ‘case winning’ moment, but a ‘motion winning’ one for sure (think of cases like a big conflict, with motion hearings as little conflicts).

Opposing attorney was insisting that ‘Rule A’ meant they could do X. I tried, multiple times, to point out ‘Rule A’ literally did not say that.

During the hearing, the judge reached behind them, grabbed their ‘Rules of Civil Procedure’ (basically a dictionary of rules), placed it in front of the other attorney, and said “Show me where Rule A says X”.

Other attorney did not take the hint, read rules out loud for a brutal 5 minutes, and gave the book back. I said “Judge I have nothing to add.” It was pretty fun.

Defendant in a bench trial for a speeding ticket said he couldn't possibly go as fast as the officer clocked him. He knew this because he video taped himself accelerating from a full stop to the location of where the officer sat. His experiment showed his vehicle could only get to 55mph and not the 67 mph he was clocked at. The ADA then moved to have another speeding ticket issued because the actual posted speed limit was 50mph.

I once had an appeal where the precedent, all from other circuit courts, was very bad for me. The circuit court I was arguing in front of had a decision that was very good for me, but it was "unpublished" (meaning that it was not precedential). My goal was to convince the court to follow its unpublished decision, not the decisions of the other circuits.

During my argument I cited the unpublished decision. One of the judges interrupts me and asks, "but wasn't that decision unpublished?" I answered "yes, but it was well-reasoned." He replied with a self-effacing quip, "I was on the panel for that decision, so it couldn't have been that well-reasoned." The audience laughed a bit.

I answered quickly, "In that case, your honor, it was at least well-written!" The audience (and all the judges) burst into laughter. I ended up winning in a published decision, which turned the old unpublished decision into binding precedent!

A bit of humor can go a long way in the courtroom. Especially when you're flattering the judges.

We spent MONTHS trying to get a landlord to cough up $$$ to make necessary repairs at one of his properties. Then when he didn’t make the repairs and said he didn’t have any money, we filed a motion for contempt and got the judge to force him to turn over financial records. We got the records and saw he got a loan of several thousands of dollars (significantly more than what we asked for) just a few days before he was ordered to pay. Then the bank records showed (1) he transferred some $$$ to another account, which we never received the records for, and (2) he spent several thousands of dollars at a local casino.

During cross exam, we questioned him about the money at the casino and he admitted he went, but said he took his family there for dinner. But there were multiple cash ATM withdrawals in a day for several days. He was screwed.

Custody battle. Mother is questioned about the fact the kids told their own children’s lawyers that mom smoked marijuana with them at 12–13 years old. She argues that the children are lying.

Same cross-examination, mom admits to 'smoking medicinally' (prior to any legalization, medicinal legal). When probed, she did not have a card, and when asked where she got her medicinal pot, she said, 'The local drugstore down the street.' At the time, medicinal marijuana was only available via online/mail order via a small handful of government control companies. Liar, liar pants on fire.

I've told this story before but I might as well put it here. This guy wanted custody over his children after a divorce and his wife was accusing of abuse(physical) . He was asked if he had ever abused his wife and he straight up said 'Yes, but only when she annoyed me' or something along the lines of that. I was ready to straight up leave the court room and laugh my ass off.

[This was like 6 yrs ago and I've forgotten about it until now, thanks for the reminder.]-i forgot to remove this part when i copy pasted this from my other reply to a question, i apologise. I don't seem like a good lawyer right now, do I?

When the defendant stuck to his 'two beers' story, and the expert blood alcohol witness said his BAC for his height/weight would’ve been 7.8 drinks.