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So. Urm, update. I've not been on the computer much lately, due to both an exorbitantly large amount of work (which I'm not doing, because I'm really not in the mood), more sickness, and my normal and regular bout of major and horrendous depression. So. Stories about those. First the mock trial, because that was earliest. (Though I've always had an exorbitantly large amount of work, so I suppose that predates everything, but still.)
OMGYAYZ!! Totally kicked ass at mock trial on Thursday. Like wow. They didn't score us very highly, but it was higher than the other team, so that means we won like whoa. (And since the scoring is very objective, it doesn't really mean that much. Because we got 7s and 8s out of 10, and for those graders that's probably really good as they only gave the other team 4s and 5s and such. And they took away the bit where the scoring mattered except in case of a tie, so it actually doesn't mean anything. Unless we tie for a place that will let us go to regionals.)
To clarify some things to start out, because I'm pretty sure I might have mentioned some of this without realizing that you won't get it without the background: my side was the prosecution (versus the defense, obviously) in a case of assault and robbery where allegedly one professor guy at a university wanted some priceless journal page things from way long ago (Meriwether Lewis's pages, from the Lewis and Clark expedition, if you care, but probably not, because it was all fake) that the other professor (in our team's case, this one was female) had, because the pages would basically invalidate all the stuff that man-professor was saying in his upcoming book. So man-professor allegedly attacked girl-professor in her office, took the pages, and made off with them. The defense's theory being that girl-professor had her teaching assistant knock her over the head and steal the pages because she knew that they were fake and wanted the publicity. The case seemed to us to be quite defense-tilted; were I on the jury, there'd be enough doubt to give me pause, but thinking about it now, most of the defense doubt-provoking stuff didn't get in because it was hearsay or whathaveyou. Still. Way enough reasonable doubt just in the case to make the defense happy.
And as an overview of the scoring, there are two "jury members" and a judge, all of whom are lawyers, and we do our thing: be lawyers and witnesses and stuff and smack down on the other team's lawyers and witnesses and stuff. And the jury people give us points per event (like direct examination of witness one got this many points, witness one got this many points, cross examination of witness four got this many, etc.) and pick who, overall, won the trial (not who would win were it a jury trial, as this trial was very defense-biased, but which team had more total points). The judge just picks best overall (though oftentimes they don't realize that and give us points anyway, as they're using the same form. Which, if you remember that far back, was why I wanted to do the one judge last year right there on the lawyer table, because she gave us points anyway and I had the highest score of any event by like 2 points at a 9. Which is practically unheard of, considering that she was giving other guys 4s.That and she was kinda hot.) The votes for best overall are called ballots; getting all three is the best, as that means that the jury and judge thought you rocked (or at least did slightly better than the other guys). Which is what we got. Yayness.
My mum came to this one (I wouldn't let my family go last year because I was still too nervous, though in retrospect I should have, seeing as how I can't stop talking about how much I rocked last year second round) but she missed my cross, which is always my best, because she left right before it to go put more money in the parking meter. Totally managed to miss my entire event. She goes up to me after and was like "I thought you were doing more than one thing, but I only saw one," and I was like "Aww, that means you missed my cross, doesn't it?" because I knew if she missed one of them, it had to have been my good event, just because that's how my luck goes.
Still. I was good, my direct exam witness was really good considering I rewrote my questions right before the event and we only had time to go over the new ones twice beforehand, the other lawyers on the team were really good, considering they wrote entire exams for the first time in the few hours before the trial because one of our lawyers was sick (I respectfully submit here that so was-freaking-I, but I showed up.) and did them all just like that (I would have taken one of them, but one went to Ryan, who had found out that she wasn't going to be there during school and had time to start writing them out, and the other went to whoever showed up to trial the earliest to take and polish the other one Ryan had written, which was the other girl.)
Man, my cross examinations rock. That's all I'm going to say. Except no, I'm going to talk about myself and how good I am at this lawyering thing some more, because it's making me feel good about myself. I very, very nearly got the judge to not let in the evidency bit that the witness I was crossing based everything he was talking about on. Though he would have been able to talk about it anyway because of some expert witness exception, I don't know if the other team would have known that, and it would have thrown them off like whoa (and probably objected to the fact that their witness continued to talk about it, even though I knew the exception, because if you don't think they know the exception, it's always worth a try). Though I did throw them off like whoa, because objections do that. And the judge definitely looked like she was on my side and that she agreed with me, but that she knew the case and knew that the guy had nothing to talk about really without the evidence, and so let it in for that reason. Because she looked at me and kinda shrugged like "I think I have to." and then was like "Weeell. . . . I'll . . . allow it." I was a bit afraid my objection sounded kinda snotty, though. I was all "Hearsay, because [technobabbly lawyer speak]. And the [technobabbly lawyer speak] exception doesn't apply because [more technobabbly lawyer speak]. Could have been written by the janitor, for all we know." And everybody laughed. Because janitors are funny. But then I was like hmm. Maybe that was not good, the janitor comment. But I didn't mean for it to be funny so much as the extreme example about how we don't know where the document came from. (Which sounds more like lack of foundation than hearsay when you're just hearing it from me, but with the exceptiony bits and the special kind of hearsay it was, it fit.)
And then (as that was during the other team's direct examination of the witness that I was then to cross), I stood up, put on my Alex Cabot glasses of doom (though they're really the "Alexandria glasses she needs so she can actually see the facial expressions of the witness she's examining of doom", it makes me laugh to think of them as my Alex Cabot glasses of doom when I'm crossing, because then I'm like "Yeah, see her? That's Olivia Benson. She's a detective, and she could kick your ass. (So could I, for that matter.) And I'm hitting that. Yeah. So step down, bitch!" and I think of all of that when I'm walking up there and putting on my ACGoD all dramatically and it gives me this bit of an intimidating confident swagger and I'm not so nervous because I'm laughing inside and thinking of both femslash and how hot Mariska is.) walked over nearish-farish from the witness (I almost typed 'victim' there for some reason. Well, because I kicked his ass. So, reason. But still. I didn't mean to think of it.), and set in on him. And he rolled over. I love it when they do that. He fought a little, which was better than during the practice round, because the girl then just completely rolled over and I didn't get to even start badgering the witness a little and show off how I can fight back. But then he gave up and just answered my questions. It's like fishing. After a while, they just give up. And I knew, right before my last question, that I had him. And that's so cool; that you know that he's got no other way to answer this question but in the way that completely spells out motive for the defendant (when he's a witness for the defense) and you get to pose the question and then just sit back.
And then, of course, he chose to fight on that one. I think that I maybe tipped him off to that question being the sinker, because right before/during the question, I caught myself doing this little smug smile thing, and I saw his eyes go really wide as he realized how much of a freakin' corner he was in and tried to figure how to get out. But then he tried to evade my question by not answering it (which is the easiest thing for me to fight). So I was just like "I don't believe you answered my question. Would you like me to repeat it?" And he nods, and I do so, (the question was something really simple like "Wouldn't that require him gaining access to the pages?", the pages being the stuff that was stolen and the 'that' being all the stuff that I got the witness to admit to that backed him into that corner in the first place; it meant motive, basically) and he says yes. And I was like "No further questions." *even smugger smile, sits down, takes off ACGoD in triumph, thinks about shagging Olivia Benson*.
But then in re-direct, I screwed up and missed a leading question because while I was busy going "Wait, you can't lead in re-direct, can you?", the witness realized the same thing I did and answered his team's lawyer's leading question really fast, so by the time I had started to stand up, he had already started the question, thus making it an untimely objection and worthless. And then he did it again, which I totally wasn't expecting because I figured he'd catch himself after the first time, but again the witness started answering before the lawyer had finished the last word of the question (and it's bad form for one lawyer to interrupt another), thus making me not able to object again. But he could only come up with two questions. (I don't even remember what they were because I was so busy beating myself up for not jumping up immediately after the first leading question and instead waiting a split second and second guessing myself.) And neither of them could do anything for the big hole that his witness (and by extension, the defendant) had fallen into.
Still. Yayyayyay. Though sucky at me having to be a witness next time. I've never done that before, so I'm most definitely much more nervous about that (though it's an easier job) than I was this round, because, as I believe I've covered, I kinda kick ass at cross examinations. Not to toot my own horn or anything. ;D I'm still really pissed about being assigned to be a witness, not to mention being the worst witness of the bunch (it's the one I crossed this round, meaning that not only is there not much for him to say in direct examination to help the defendant, it's actually pretty detrimental to the side if you've got a good crosser going against you).
Enough bragging. For now. I think I've been feeling bad enough lately to justify the bragging I've done, however. Yay, self esteem boosters.
More stories to follow. But not now. Because it's late. (And this was like 4 times longer than the history thing I should have done by Friday and have not yet, due to random excuses and mostly the aforementioned depression bout.)
Edit: Huh. I don't have any lawyer icons, do I? Yeah, lawyer fandoms aren't really my biggest ones. They're on the fandoms I cycle through list, not the primaries. Still. They called Troi "Councilor", so she counts.
OMGYAYZ!! Totally kicked ass at mock trial on Thursday. Like wow. They didn't score us very highly, but it was higher than the other team, so that means we won like whoa. (And since the scoring is very objective, it doesn't really mean that much. Because we got 7s and 8s out of 10, and for those graders that's probably really good as they only gave the other team 4s and 5s and such. And they took away the bit where the scoring mattered except in case of a tie, so it actually doesn't mean anything. Unless we tie for a place that will let us go to regionals.)
To clarify some things to start out, because I'm pretty sure I might have mentioned some of this without realizing that you won't get it without the background: my side was the prosecution (versus the defense, obviously) in a case of assault and robbery where allegedly one professor guy at a university wanted some priceless journal page things from way long ago (Meriwether Lewis's pages, from the Lewis and Clark expedition, if you care, but probably not, because it was all fake) that the other professor (in our team's case, this one was female) had, because the pages would basically invalidate all the stuff that man-professor was saying in his upcoming book. So man-professor allegedly attacked girl-professor in her office, took the pages, and made off with them. The defense's theory being that girl-professor had her teaching assistant knock her over the head and steal the pages because she knew that they were fake and wanted the publicity. The case seemed to us to be quite defense-tilted; were I on the jury, there'd be enough doubt to give me pause, but thinking about it now, most of the defense doubt-provoking stuff didn't get in because it was hearsay or whathaveyou. Still. Way enough reasonable doubt just in the case to make the defense happy.
And as an overview of the scoring, there are two "jury members" and a judge, all of whom are lawyers, and we do our thing: be lawyers and witnesses and stuff and smack down on the other team's lawyers and witnesses and stuff. And the jury people give us points per event (like direct examination of witness one got this many points, witness one got this many points, cross examination of witness four got this many, etc.) and pick who, overall, won the trial (not who would win were it a jury trial, as this trial was very defense-biased, but which team had more total points). The judge just picks best overall (though oftentimes they don't realize that and give us points anyway, as they're using the same form. Which, if you remember that far back, was why I wanted to do the one judge last year right there on the lawyer table, because she gave us points anyway and I had the highest score of any event by like 2 points at a 9. Which is practically unheard of, considering that she was giving other guys 4s.
My mum came to this one (I wouldn't let my family go last year because I was still too nervous, though in retrospect I should have, seeing as how I can't stop talking about how much I rocked last year second round) but she missed my cross, which is always my best, because she left right before it to go put more money in the parking meter. Totally managed to miss my entire event. She goes up to me after and was like "I thought you were doing more than one thing, but I only saw one," and I was like "Aww, that means you missed my cross, doesn't it?" because I knew if she missed one of them, it had to have been my good event, just because that's how my luck goes.
Still. I was good, my direct exam witness was really good considering I rewrote my questions right before the event and we only had time to go over the new ones twice beforehand, the other lawyers on the team were really good, considering they wrote entire exams for the first time in the few hours before the trial because one of our lawyers was sick (I respectfully submit here that so was-freaking-I, but I showed up.) and did them all just like that (I would have taken one of them, but one went to Ryan, who had found out that she wasn't going to be there during school and had time to start writing them out, and the other went to whoever showed up to trial the earliest to take and polish the other one Ryan had written, which was the other girl.)
Man, my cross examinations rock. That's all I'm going to say. Except no, I'm going to talk about myself and how good I am at this lawyering thing some more, because it's making me feel good about myself. I very, very nearly got the judge to not let in the evidency bit that the witness I was crossing based everything he was talking about on. Though he would have been able to talk about it anyway because of some expert witness exception, I don't know if the other team would have known that, and it would have thrown them off like whoa (and probably objected to the fact that their witness continued to talk about it, even though I knew the exception, because if you don't think they know the exception, it's always worth a try). Though I did throw them off like whoa, because objections do that. And the judge definitely looked like she was on my side and that she agreed with me, but that she knew the case and knew that the guy had nothing to talk about really without the evidence, and so let it in for that reason. Because she looked at me and kinda shrugged like "I think I have to." and then was like "Weeell. . . . I'll . . . allow it." I was a bit afraid my objection sounded kinda snotty, though. I was all "Hearsay, because [technobabbly lawyer speak]. And the [technobabbly lawyer speak] exception doesn't apply because [more technobabbly lawyer speak]. Could have been written by the janitor, for all we know." And everybody laughed. Because janitors are funny. But then I was like hmm. Maybe that was not good, the janitor comment. But I didn't mean for it to be funny so much as the extreme example about how we don't know where the document came from. (Which sounds more like lack of foundation than hearsay when you're just hearing it from me, but with the exceptiony bits and the special kind of hearsay it was, it fit.)
And then (as that was during the other team's direct examination of the witness that I was then to cross), I stood up, put on my Alex Cabot glasses of doom (though they're really the "Alexandria glasses she needs so she can actually see the facial expressions of the witness she's examining of doom", it makes me laugh to think of them as my Alex Cabot glasses of doom when I'm crossing, because then I'm like "Yeah, see her? That's Olivia Benson. She's a detective, and she could kick your ass. (So could I, for that matter.) And I'm hitting that. Yeah. So step down, bitch!" and I think of all of that when I'm walking up there and putting on my ACGoD all dramatically and it gives me this bit of an intimidating confident swagger and I'm not so nervous because I'm laughing inside and thinking of both femslash and how hot Mariska is.) walked over nearish-farish from the witness (I almost typed 'victim' there for some reason. Well, because I kicked his ass. So, reason. But still. I didn't mean to think of it.), and set in on him. And he rolled over. I love it when they do that. He fought a little, which was better than during the practice round, because the girl then just completely rolled over and I didn't get to even start badgering the witness a little and show off how I can fight back. But then he gave up and just answered my questions. It's like fishing. After a while, they just give up. And I knew, right before my last question, that I had him. And that's so cool; that you know that he's got no other way to answer this question but in the way that completely spells out motive for the defendant (when he's a witness for the defense) and you get to pose the question and then just sit back.
And then, of course, he chose to fight on that one. I think that I maybe tipped him off to that question being the sinker, because right before/during the question, I caught myself doing this little smug smile thing, and I saw his eyes go really wide as he realized how much of a freakin' corner he was in and tried to figure how to get out. But then he tried to evade my question by not answering it (which is the easiest thing for me to fight). So I was just like "I don't believe you answered my question. Would you like me to repeat it?" And he nods, and I do so, (the question was something really simple like "Wouldn't that require him gaining access to the pages?", the pages being the stuff that was stolen and the 'that' being all the stuff that I got the witness to admit to that backed him into that corner in the first place; it meant motive, basically) and he says yes. And I was like "No further questions." *even smugger smile, sits down, takes off ACGoD in triumph, thinks about shagging Olivia Benson*.
But then in re-direct, I screwed up and missed a leading question because while I was busy going "Wait, you can't lead in re-direct, can you?", the witness realized the same thing I did and answered his team's lawyer's leading question really fast, so by the time I had started to stand up, he had already started the question, thus making it an untimely objection and worthless. And then he did it again, which I totally wasn't expecting because I figured he'd catch himself after the first time, but again the witness started answering before the lawyer had finished the last word of the question (and it's bad form for one lawyer to interrupt another), thus making me not able to object again. But he could only come up with two questions. (I don't even remember what they were because I was so busy beating myself up for not jumping up immediately after the first leading question and instead waiting a split second and second guessing myself.) And neither of them could do anything for the big hole that his witness (and by extension, the defendant) had fallen into.
Still. Yayyayyay. Though sucky at me having to be a witness next time. I've never done that before, so I'm most definitely much more nervous about that (though it's an easier job) than I was this round, because, as I believe I've covered, I kinda kick ass at cross examinations. Not to toot my own horn or anything. ;D I'm still really pissed about being assigned to be a witness, not to mention being the worst witness of the bunch (it's the one I crossed this round, meaning that not only is there not much for him to say in direct examination to help the defendant, it's actually pretty detrimental to the side if you've got a good crosser going against you).
Enough bragging. For now. I think I've been feeling bad enough lately to justify the bragging I've done, however. Yay, self esteem boosters.
More stories to follow. But not now. Because it's late. (And this was like 4 times longer than the history thing I should have done by Friday and have not yet, due to random excuses and mostly the aforementioned depression bout.)
Edit: Huh. I don't have any lawyer icons, do I? Yeah, lawyer fandoms aren't really my biggest ones. They're on the fandoms I cycle through list, not the primaries. Still. They called Troi "Councilor", so she counts.
