Courtroom Drama Tips

1. Judges prefer to be addressed as "Your Honor," not "Judge." Theyprefer to be referred to as "The Court," as in "As the court ruled this morning, I get to sit in that chair."
2. Judges do not like to be thanked for their rulings. Judges like tothink that they do what they in the interests of justice, efficiency and the law. To thank them insults them by suggesting that they have done someone a "favor."
3. Judges don't look at calendars. Judges may order dates forsubsequent hearings, but they dates themselves are always picked by either judges' assistants or the court clerks.
4. Judges are very, very busy. They do not sit around a *** unlessthey're done working for the day.
5. When two lawyers present themselves to a judge to lodge a jointexplanation or agreement, the judge usually asks the taller lawyer what's going on.
6. Jury verdicts are meaningless until entered by the judge. When ajury finds someone innocent or guilty, the lawyers wait until the judge says something like "it is so entered," or makes a judgment despite a ruling or takes the matter under advisement. People do not dash out of the room the instant the jury announces its decision.
7. A judge won't enter a jury verdict except one finding a criminaldefendant not guilty unless the judge thinks the verdict is justified. Judges frequently reduce monetary awards in civil cases and occasionally find criminal defendants not guilty despite a jury finding of guilt.
8. The jury is always brought in after the court comes into session andalways leaves before the court recesses. Jurors do not mill about the courtroom.
9. It is usually lawyers, not bailiffs, who retrieve witnesses from thehallway. This makes for funny scenes while lawyers run around the courthouse looking for people.
10. Everything stops when an objection is made. Any lawyer who keepsquestioning a witness while an objection is pending is liable to be required to make a donation to the court clerk and/or spend an hour of quality time with a bailiff.
11. A settlement must be approved by a judge and entered as a judgmentbefore it has any effect.
12. When a judge rules in favor of a party, the judge usually directsthe winning party to prepare an order or judgment for the judge's signature. The judge does not have time for this.
13. State trial judges tend to be regular folk, not intellectual elitelike appellate justices.
14. Escort guards tend to be decent people. Most prisoners age glad tobe on the field trip and most guards realize there's nothing to be proven by jerking prisoners around.
15. Judges like to make fun of lawyers who make silly arguments, eventhough the judges know that the lawyers are duty-bound to argue their clients' best cases, no matter what.
16. Most judges know they don't know everything.
17. Issues of policy and law and right and wrong never go a jury.Arguments about whether such-and-such is moral are made the judge. The only questions juries get to decide are those of fact, as in "did he or did he not know that his testicles were too large for the bike?"
18. Nobody cares when someone admits to committing a minor crime,except in custody battles.
19. Lawyers spend at least five times as much time trying to cool outtheir clients as they do trying to stir them up.
20. Having a judge rule against a lawyer on every single objection maybe a very good thing for the lawyer's client because the judge will have given them numerous grounds to appeal while depriving the other side of any.