Verdicts

I saw it with my own eyes, and I remember it today. But now I'm not sure about the connection. Plus, 7 other things worth your time.

My first real legal job, a year out of law school, was with the U.S. Department of Justice. I was a trial attorney in the civil section of the tax division.

My cases were all over the Pacific Northwest, but I was based in Washington, DC, part of a team reporting to a very experienced lawyer who had been doing this kind of work forever.

By “forever,” I mean that when he told us the story of his first week on the job, it ended with the Attorney General inviting him and all the other new attorneys to have a casual beer in his office.

The attorney general at the time? Robert Kennedy.

I digress. I was green. About six months into the job, my boss sent me to the Justice Department training center in South Carolina for a two-week course on how to try a civil case.

I already had a few simple trials under my belt by then, but I had heard good things about this course. The culmination was a a mock trial of a civil lawsuit in front of a U.S. District Judge, who had volunteered for the minor junket …