Order in the Court

I think somewhere on here Heather and I refer to this as ‘our’ blog. In order to justify such personally possessive grammar I suppose I must make a direct appearance now and again. Today is your lucky day—Heather has given me permission to log an entry.

I got the green light, I think, as a result of my eventful morning this Wednesday past, which she knows is what I’m going to write about. Now some of you who follow this or who scroll down below this already know I was sworn as an attorney by the Virginia Supreme Court this past Monday. Well, it just so happens that my boss arranged for me to handle my first court case just two days later, on Wednesday. The case was supposed to be a softie. No surprise there. You can’t get much greener than I was after all.

The guy who owed money to our client – almost in excess of $200 (wow) – had failed to respond to the court process for several months preceding trial. My job would be to march up to the judge when my case was called and inform him that the opposing party was in default of following court procedure and that my client was therefore entitled to obtain a judgment against him. Things never stay that simple though.

The case was taking place in a city by the name of Suffolk, Virginia, a smallish city (compared with those around this area) about a half hour away from where I live in Chesapeake. As the day for trial grew closer I started preparing myself as best I could for different scenarios of what might happen in court. The day before, on Tuesday, I called the clerk of the court just to make sure the guy was still in default, i.e., hadn’t responded in any way to establish his defenses. ...What do you know? The guy had filed a “grounds of defense” the Friday before. This was interesting news to me. The rules say that any time something of that nature is filed we -- my client and me, that is – are supposed to get a copy. Needless to say, neither of us had seen anything.

Well, I’m sure many of you fail to see the drama in such a situation. I won’t bore you too long with legal technicalities. Suffice it to say that I was sweating my trial strategy a whole lot more after I found this out. I was asking myself, “Would the judge allow the other guy to argue his case after all?” Will I have to try and pick this guy apart on the witness stand? Should I ask to continue the case out for a future date? Last but not least, “What in the world did that guy put in the grounds of defense?” What if there was some earth shattering legal argument in there that left me in shambles?

My solution was simple. I called the clerk and asked if I could come to court early the next day and look at the grounds of defense before trial. The clerk told me that would be just fine so long as I got to the court before 9:00 a.m., as that was the time the judge came in to pick up the files that would be tried that day. Ok, simple enough. If there was some nuanced argument in there then I could let my client know and we could ask to postpone the trial.

Not being one to plan ahead too much, I didn’t do anything further. The next morning I skipped Googling the location of the court as I knew my wife’s GPS would still be in my car from a trip we took a few days earlier. The GPS came up with a listing for “GD Court” in Suffolk, Virginia, and off I went. I arrived in Suffolk at a quarter to 9:00 a.m. At the destination, however, there was nothing but a very, very old looking courthouse that was clearly under renovation. That wasn’t it. I found another court listing in the GPS and tried going there. That was strike two—a city building housing a city attorney, among other offices, but no court. A helpful lady there told me the courthouse I wanted was just a few blocks over on Main Street.

Now I am down to like five minutes. I’m sprinting to the car. I jet over to Main Street. I am looking for numbers. ....She said 150 Main Street. Ummm..., there is a Bank Street. I’m going to turn there. I don’t know why. I think I might have passed 150 already. OH! There is a cop car blocking part of the street. I can’t finish my turn. There’s a little Chevy cobalt going around the cop car; it would be coming at me head-on. I stop my car half way through my right turn. A half second later my car is nudged forward and I hear a dull crinkling sound. A young lady in a very beat up looking 90’s Ford thunderbird is right behind me. She broke her turn signal light and was not looking happy.

Turns out one police officer woman was trying to cross Main Street right when this little fender bender happened. She came over and offered to do an information exchange. At the same time the police officer on the side street poked his head out the window of his car and waived at the officer, as if to say, “ok, I saw that too, but you can handle that.”

So the officer lady didn’t really work all that fast. But in the wait time I realized that the building immediately beside us was in fact the courthouse. No wonder there are so many police officers around! At least I was done looking for the court. I also knew I no longer had to worry about getting there before 9:00 a.m., cause that was long past. At least my case wasn’t until 11:45 a.m. When I finally got the information form from the officer, I just pulled in behind the court and went in and watched the judge who would be trying my case so I could learn his style.

Let me just end by saying that although eventful, the day ended all right. The client decided that we should go ahead with the trial since there was not a lot of money at stake. I got to do the lawyer thing with the witnesses in front of the judge, and in the end the judge entered judgment for us. Then, on the way out of the court room, the guy comes over and asks if he can take care of his bill right there. I was kind of flummoxed for a moment because I didn’t know that was going to happen. But I caught my wits and we sat down and he forked over the cash to settle the judgment that had just been entered. He was pleasant and seemed to bear no grudge. I guess he just wanted to make sure he really owed the money before he paid up.

So that was it. My grand debut. I hope not all court gigs are this eventful!

-Ronnie