Rockin’ the Closing Statement

Today was the day a small group of us had to give a closing statement in torts while the rest of the class wrote jury instructions.

I think our side gave a much more persuasive argument and though my part was not at all without it’s problems, I think it went really well.

Three of us were for the plaintiff versus three others for the defense. My two partners gave the initial statement, the defense gave their statement, and then I presented the rebuttal.

For my part, I don’t think it went as well as it should have, but it wasn’t graded so I’m not too concerned. I had a lot of fun. Because this is my website and I get to brag a little bit:

• When making a positive comment in another “attorney’s” statement he mentioned that I did the same thing and said “but there were lots of good things in the rebuttal”
• Apparently one of my comments had the professor giggling like a school girl and, later, he commented that “As a general rule it’s not a good idea to use sarcasm, but I guess when you can do it that well…” — and when a law school professor extols your sarcastic skill, that is definitely high praise for a smart ass.
• I’m not sure quite what he meant by this, but he did say that the sarcastic comment I made was… “precious” — I think he meant that in a good way.
• I’ve already had a couple offers (joking, I’m pretty sure) from people to be my moot court partner for next year.

I was annoyed with myself because some of the things Prof. criticized my rebuttal for were things that I had prepared correctly and just delivered incorrectly. Going to have to work on that. You don’t get a second chance in a real courtroom either. There were two points that I delivered as planned that were shot down as bad ideas. One of them I realized as I was walking away from the podium. The other I was just plain wrong on. That’s ok. Live and learn.

So that was pretty much the only interesting thing that happened today, but that was plenty enough. I cannot express how badly I want to work in a courtroom some day. Criminal, civil, I don’t care… I love that stuff.

PS: I feel like I’ve been neglecting something this week, but I don’t know what. Any ideas?