As my family settled in to weather Hurricane Sandy (yes, bad pun intended), we prepared some movies for the children, hoping with wild optimism that we would not lose electricity. We also, of course, prepared the flashlights, candles, books and board games that we thought much more likely to help us pass the time. (We made the other necessary preparations, too, purchasing ice, milk, water and other necessities in quantities appropriate for a baseball team, if not an army.)

Luckily, we did not lose power throughout the storm. Our kids were happily entertained while held indoors all day on Monday and Tuesday with a healthy mix of Disney movies, kids’ books and board games. This preparation got me thinking, however, about movies in general . . .  and then this blog got me thinking about legal movies in particular. So, herewith, my top five legal movies.

1. A Few Good Men
This was one of the first movies that got me interested in the law when I was in high school. I was initially drawn to it because of the famous scenes (“You can’t handle the truth!”) and the edgy intensity that Jack Nicholson brings to the whole movie. However, I still like it because it takes the time to show how important the preparation of a case is and how meticulous attorneys must be when presenting a case to the jury. Also, the ending, while inspirational for the personal transformation of Lt. Junior Grade Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), does not sugarcoat the reality of a legal battle: sometimes a win is also a loss.

2. Michael Clayton
George Clooney plays the title character, an attorney who handles all of the nitty-gritty, dirty matters for a prestigious big-time law firm. He refers to himself as a “janitor” in one scene. Some great scenes with both George Clooney and Tilda Swinton (in an Oscar-winning role), who stars as general counsel for a large corporation that has retained Clayton’s firm to keep a huge lawsuit out of court. There are lots of plot twists in this movie, but importantly, there is a continuing and mounting tension for Michael Clayton between doing the what he considers the right things, representing his firm’s client and shoring up his personal financial future.

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This month is my two-year anniversary with Legal Aid. In retrospect,  the time has gone by pretty fast and I can’t believe that I have been practicing for two years.

I clerked with Judge Beverly Woodard in Prince George’s County Circuit Court my first year out of law school. I was exposed to so much during my clerkship, including watching attorneys battle it out in the courtroom, reading different types of motions and researching unfamiliar law. As a result, I was able to really understand how I wanted to practice.

I interacted with different attorneys with different practice styles and I was able to see what worked and what didn’t. I knew that when I started practicing, I had to be prepared for trial, punctual, meet deadlines, courteous and so much more. I was elated the day I received the call from Legal Aid with a job offer and excited to finally put what I learned to use.

I was handed several cases during my first few months and most of them were resolved prior to trial. (Looking back now, my first few cases were a walk in the park compared to what I am doing today.) I couldn’t wait to have my first trial and when that day finally arrived, I was a ball of nerves. I know that I’m not the only young attorney that feels nervous before trial; however, I have never experienced the level of uneasiness as I did before my first trial.

I remember how I felt like it was yesterday. I spent weeks preparing, constantly asked my supervisor questions and hardly slept. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t make a fool of myself in court. When the Friday before trial arrived, I walked into the office feeling somewhat prepared and somewhat confident.

But those feelings quickly faded when I looked at the docket: my first trial was before Judge Woodard. My heart immediately dropped into my stomach.

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As young lawyers, we are confronted with unfamiliar territory almost daily. How do we familiarize ourselves sufficiently with issues presented to adequately advise and represent our client? What if Westlaw or Lexis research is not enough? What if our supervising attorneys have not dealt with the issue before either? Can we, or more importantly, should we, take the case?

I recently experienced this scenario and found that I was more than competent to handle the matter after a bit of navigation.

First, I familiarized myself with the documents and the law. I asked the client a ton of questions.

Next, I started asking questions of my colleagues at Bodie. Had anyone had a similar case? Given these facts, what would they do? What issues did they perceive? Even though no one had handled a case exactly like mine, the insight and advice were extremely helpful.

After finding that my colleagues had never had such a case, I turned to the Maryland State Bar Association and the Maryland Association for Justice listservs. As usual, these were invaluable resources and a couple of attorneys who had dealt with this issue previously responded to my posts.

There is no magic formula to researching a legal issue. Sometimes Google can be more helpful than the Annotated Code. Sometimes consulting with colleagues is more helpful than Westlaw or Lexis. Sometimes you just need to start making phone calls and asking questions.

The point is, you have to get creative. You have to think outside of the box, especially when your supervising attorneys are unfamiliar with the issue.

After taking on this matter and bringing it to a successful conclusion, I have not only helped my client and broadened my experience, but I have also helped my firm. We now have a formula for handling these types of cases. The research is done and the forms are drafted. When the next one comes in, we will hit the ground running.

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The word “negotiation” derives from French and Latin words that originally meant “business,” “traffic,” or, in the verb form, “to carry on business.” An alternate meaning is “difficulty, pains, trouble, labor.” Perhaps my favorite, however, is the literal translation from the Latin “neg — otium” — not leisure. I think that the notion of a negotiation as something difficult and the opposite of leisure is particularly appropriate.

Having been through many negotiations myself (and just recently completing a case in which negotiation was wildly unsuccessful), I have been thinking about what it takes to negotiate well and what an attorney can do to help make a negotiation succeed. To be an effective negotiator, I think the etymology is particularly useful. It is important to keep in mind that what you are about to engage in is difficult and laborious and most decidedly not leisure. Put more simply, negotiation is hard work.

Approaching any negotiation with this mindset has two benefits. First, knowing that the negotiation will be difficult means that you can prepare your client effectively for the back and forth and, perhaps, the length of time it might take to reach a resolution. Second, you can prepare yourself to engage in something difficult.

One of the most difficult things about negotiation is preparing yourself to handle and respond effectively to any counteroffer or settlement demand that your opposing party might raise. The best way to do this is to have complete command of the facts and to communicate honestly and effectively with your client about the negotiation process, which includes making recommendations about key thresholds in the process. In addition to the hard work of preparing yourself mentally, understanding your case and communicating with your client, negotiating effectively requires a complex set of skills as well as a healthy amount of common sense. I’ll offer these three broad categories as the essentials:

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I’ve walked into a few my colleagues’ offices lately and it seems like their spaces have been hit by tornadoes. That can only mean one thing – they’re responding to discovery.

I appreciate discovery and I understand its purpose; however, it’s my least favorite phase of trial preparation. Discovery is time consuming, frustrating and laborious. I’m specifically referring to interrogatories and request for production of documents.

The easy part of discovery is propounding it. When it comes to interrogatories, there are at least 10 that are standard and I always ask. Then I craft the remaining interrogatories according to the facts of the case. A request for production of documents is even easier — I simply request every relevant document under the kitchen sink. But when it’s my turn to respond to discovery, especially interrogatories and request for production of documents, I cringe.

I know from the start that I will have to meet with the client at least three times to discuss only discovery. My first meeting is to explain the discovery request to the client. The second is to go over every single unanswered or incomplete interrogatory the submitted. Plus, I try to collect all the documents I didn’t receive on the first go-around.  At the third (and hopefully final) meeting, I have the client review and sign off on the responses. It may not be the most efficient way to conduct business but it seems to be working so far.

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Because I represent landlords, I frequently come into contact with pro se litigants. Usually, these are tenants who have been sued by my client for failure to pay rent or holding over or breaching the lease. Occasionally, though, a tenant will bring a suit pro se against one of my clients and I will be asked to defend it. These matters are usually more difficult than when there is an attorney on the other side.

As it happens, I’ve been involved in several of these cases in the last few weeks, so — perhaps naturally — I’ve begun to think about the reasons for the difficulty.

First, a major difficulty is that a pro se litigant is almost always emotionally invested in the subject of the litigation. In the examples above, at issue is the litigant’s home or behavior or security deposit. Winning or losing has an actual, immediate — and sometimes, extremely detrimental — effect on the litigant. On the other hand, I work for a client, so even though I want to do a good job for my client, I simply do not have the personal, emotional investment in the outcome of the case. This also means, of course, that it is easier for me to look at the case objectively and advise my client on strategy, i.e. when settlement makes sense.

I also have the ability to manage the client’s expectations by telling him or her up front if I think that we could lose the case. The pro se tenant’s connection to the case, on the other hand, often manifests itself in a steadfast refusal to settle a case for good value because of the intense personal involvement in the facts of the case. Downstream, the refusal to settle can lead to the tenant losing the case or getting a judgment with significantly reduced damages.

Second, a pro se litigant often doesn’t know the rules and focuses on facts that are irrelevant. In a suit for damages where an eviction had already occurred, a pro se tenant was dead set on testifying about the circumstances of the eviction down to the last detail because she felt personally aggrieved at having been evicted. Ultimately, these facts didn’t matter, so I objected each time this tenant tried to offer the testimony. It wasn’t clear to the tenant that these facts didn’t matter, so she became extremely frustrated when my objections were sustained.

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