I tried a sexual harassment case in a conservative county. Young female victim, gross old male perpetrator. We had really good evidence, including admissions. The jury voted defense. After the verdict, my client and I were sitting out in front of the courthouse. She was crying. The jury foreman, who had just voted for the defense, came up to me and said, 'If that son of a bitch had done that to my daughter, I would’ve gone down to that store and kicked his ass.

One of my BIL lawyers (there were three at one point) was described as incompetent and failing to provide adequate counsel by his former client, on death row, for failing to get an innocent verdict. The problem was that the client (since executed) went to his local bar immediately after committing the murder at a local grocery store in broad daylight, and proceeded to brag for hours how he'd killed the victim, in very specific detail. Also there were something more than a dozen eyewitnesses...

IANAL. I handle work comp claims. This one always cracks me up. Guy claims bilateral wrist injuries from repetitive motion cutting meat. We get "word" aka he posts on his Facebook about him competing in an MMA style event. Send surveillance there which gets this dude fighting with no issues.

My mother was in court as a witness, in a case of criminal harassment between two of our neighbours. We basically knew that the case was ridiculous and a sham - the accused neighbour was totally innocent and was being falsely accused by the local trouble makers, who kept on provoking him and who then wanted to be able to sue him for easy money.

Anyway, by pure coincidence, the defendant was secular Jewish, just like my parents. It's literally just a coincidence.

The two trouble maker neighbours, who were also there, were very angry to see my mother in the court. One of them then stood up in the middle of everything and yelled some c**p about how my mother is a Jew and only there because the defendant is a Jew and Jews apparently always stick to help eachother.

The judge immediately ripped him to shreds and threw the case out.

I have two stories that come to mind. One, a colleague of mine, was representing an arsonist mny years ago that had allegedly set quite a large fire that burned some public land. Due to the $$ cost of the damage, it was a felony. During the State's case in chief, he began touching himself. Recess had to be called. Funnily enough, that helped him in punishment phase, since there was clearly a mental component there, but still...big oof, and I don't know if what had been shown up to that point would have gotten a guilty.

Second was one of mine, again, many years ago. I had gotten a guy a pretty great deal on a serious theft charge. Prior to it being entered, he ended up picked up by the sheriff's office for violating conditions of bond. How did he violate? The Sheriff alleged that he used the banking information OF THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE to pass fake checks. This meant that in the new charge, the sheriff's office was the victim.

Needless to say, the deal vanished.

Not a lawyer, but I am a former police officer and spent a lot of time in courtrooms.

One guy was on trial for a DUI, and he wanted the judge to know that the cop who arrested him was "just some punk kid". He insisted that he'd only had two bottles of wine and his lawyer keeps trying to get him to stop his stream of verbal diarrhea and he just keeps going

Eventually the judge says "I think you should take a moment to confer with your attorney" and the guy says "Don't interrupt me, I'm not a child!"

Judge smiled and leaned back and said "by all means, please continue". dudes attorney just looked like he was deflating.

Legal videographer here...

Video taped a deposition for a man claiming work injuries so severe he could not raise his right hand above his shoulder, and his shoulder was in pain whenever he even tried to raise it above the shoulder. Sued his employer claiming it was a work injury. Then came his very first deposition.

Does anybody know the first thing the court reporter asks of the person testifying? The reporter swears them in by saying:

"Would you please raise your right hand and repeat after me..."

Then administers the oath to tell the truth...

Man who claimed not be able to raise his hand above his shoulder... raised his hand way above his shoulder. That hand and arm went up like a rocket. The guy did not even realize what he had done and kept his arm up through the whole oath.

Neither plaintiff or defense counsel caught it. The court reporter and I just looked at each other and let the depo play out. I was hired by defense counsel and showed him the first 20 seconds of the video, and took home a nice bonus because of it.

Case was dropped shortly after that depo.

Im not a lawyer, this isnt my story. But, the lawyer who handled my business stuff and a legal dispute is a federal judge. Before he became a judge, he was a lawyer for divorces and civil stuff.

A wealthy male client filed for divorce. Theres a prenup. Its pretty iron clad. It discuses the distribution of wealth, the alimony (if any) is laid out at x amount, increasing yearly based on inflation. Theres 1 major “exception” and that is “if you are caught cheating, cheating here is defined by any sexual contact with a person before the divorce is final, you automatically get the worst terms of the prenup.” In the womans case, (if she cheats) she gets zero alimony, and a 1 time payment of 100k. In the mans case, (if he cheats) he loses the main family home, all cars that are not his daily driver, and 1/4 of his business. (A buy out option is available, but doesn’t matter to this story)

Lawyer gets to court and meets with his client in a conference room. And client is beaming. He shakes the lawyers hand. And says “hey! Mike!! I want you to meet jasmine. I met her 2 months ago. Shes amazing. We got engaged over the weekend in france!”

And mike shook her hand and slumped in the chair and said “so, we got a major problem. You are cheating on ur wife with her. And legally, this is discovery im required to hand over to the other side” hes all “how the f**k am i cheating? We’re separated?!?!” Mike is all “cheating is any sexual contact before divorce is final. Its in ur prenup. That you wrote on ur own.”

The guy flipped his s**t. Ended up being so mad, he ditched court. Which gave him a default judgement. Meaning she gets everything she asked for. + because of the cheating + not showing up, the judge ordered that the transfer of money happen with in 30 days. As part of the initial agreement between both parties. Hes not there to contest it. So, blam.

The guy ended up trying to sneak the company to the new woman via a trust. But, its an illegal move. He also tried to hide the money with her by giving her 1.1 million dollars in cash (a bank transfer) but, the judge stopped that once ge found out and required the woman to repay the money since she was given notice also.

He fought for years. And ended up losing money, time, energy, his business, house, 6-7 cars, and his new wife. Now, (cuz i know his daughter from work) hes a retired angry man living in rural new mexico. He cant afford to golf more than once a month. And he posts about how women are scum.

Next morning edit: i certainly didnt expect this to blow up. Ty for the positive dm’s and replies. Ill try to reply if i see any questions in the thread to clarify stuff.

Paralegal. Once had a convicted criminal explain to me how their murder charge should be overturned because the victim didn't die at the scene of the crime. The victim died at the hospital, therefore the defendant couldn't be charged with anything more than attempted murder.

Not an attorney, worked in a firm. Workers compensation claim, guy falls down at work and claims he injured many different body parts(Shoulder, Knees, Back). We tell him to stay off social media. No problem, he doesnt use social media. At trial, he tells the Judge he used to be a Spin Class Instructor, but since the accident, he cannot teach classes anymore. Welp..turns out, he continued to teach these classes after his injury. This was proved by the HOURS of surveillance the Insurance company did, showing him teaching and vigourously riding in Spin class. How did the Insurance company know he was still an active instructor? The guy posted his Full Teaching Schedule on his FB page. His potentially very lucrative claim, was quickly changed to a fraud claim against him.