✏️ Legal Pad
What Law School Couldn’t Teach Me
When I was in law school, I habitually and compulsively skipped class. Which probably isn’t what you want to hear from your lawyer but, If I heard there was a good trial going on at the courthouse, especially one with lawyers whose reputations carried weight, that’s where I’d be.
I’d learn more an in hour sitting in the back of the courtroom than I did in an entire semester of most classes. Not about elements or theories, but about cadence, presence, judgment, and instinct. I learned how lawyers handled witnesses who didn’t cooperate, judges who interrupted, and juries who looked bored. I learned how silence could be more effective than argument, and how preparation revealed itself in moments of pressure. I watched a lot of good lawyers and a lot of bad lawyers, but I learned a lot from both.
Some lessons simply don’t translate to a classroom. You can’t teach how to read a room from a lectern. You can’t simulate the weight of standing up when it’s your witness, your objection, your mistake to fix in real time. Trial work lives and breathes in the courtroom, not in hypotheticals and centuries old opinions.
Law school teaches you how to think, or so they say. The courtroom teaches you how to practice. And for anyone who wants to be a trial lawyer, there’s only one place where the real education happens- where stakes are real, outcomes matter, and the lessons stick because they have to or you don’t eat.
💡 Sidebar
Why I Should’ve been a Meteorologist
Greenville flirted with an ice-pocalypse this week. Schools closed, grocery shelves emptied, and everyone collectively braced for disaster, only for the whole thing to mostly…not happen. As usual, the forecast alone was enough to send South Carolina into a mild panic.
It’s moments like this that make me think I chose the wrong profession. Meteorology appears to be the only job where you can be consistently wrong and still keep your seat at the table. Miss the forecast by ten degrees? No problem. Predict an apocalyptic storm that turns into a damp afternoon? Happens all the time. No sanctions. No motions. No cross-examination.
That said, ice is still ice, as Mark and I are now painfully aware. Both my business partner and I managed to fall down the back office steps on separate occasions. No coordination, no conspiracy, just gravity doing what it does best. For me, it was a full yard sale- briefcase one way, gym bag the other, sunglasses skyward. Nothing humbles you quite like laying on your back looking like Clark Griswold.
Now, as luck would have it, we’re back in the crosshairs for another winter system this weekend, but this time it’s snow, not ice. And while adults will grumble and check road conditions obsessively, my daughter is already thrilled. Snow means sledding. And sledding means my official conscription into her favorite form of public service: sled puller. Unless the meteorologists get it wrong…again.
⚖️ Closing Arguments
With the Super Bowl around the corner, it’s easy to focus on the spectacle and the product that the NFL is so adept at curating. What gets lost is the reality that no team arrives there by accident. A Super Bowl berth isn’t earned on a single Sunday. It’s built over an entire season. The whole body of work.
It’s built in training camps no one watches, film sessions that run long, practices that grind, and adjustments made after losses that don’t make headlines. It takes time, energy, discipline, and precision- not just when it’s televised, but week after week when no one’s paying attention.
Trial work is the same. A good case doesn’t suddenly become strong on the eve of trial. It’s developed over months, sometimes years. Depositions taken carefully. Experts chosen thoughtfully. Strategy refined, tested, and refined again. The work happens long before anyone steps into a courtroom, and by the time the moment arrives, the outcome often reflects everything that came before it.
When the trial finally starts, that’s not the beginning, it’s the culmination. The one moment where all the preparation matters, where execution meets opportunity, and where the work either holds or it doesn’t. It’s missed happy hours, dinner reservations, and watch parties. It’s 6:00 AM in the office on a Sunday instead of pancakes.
And unlike the Super Bowl, there’s no trophy to hoist when it’s over. No parade. No ring. The reward is quieter, but can be just as important: delivering a client their full measure of justice, earned through patience, persistence, and a willingness to do the work for as long as it takes. And, for me at least, a trip to Waffle House. More on that down the road.
Court is in recess- see you next Friday.
