Screwing Up

AuthorKenneth P. Nolan
Pages171-175
Screwing Up
171
I remember them all. The time I was too lazy to read 842 pages
of the hospital record and, after the jury tossed me in the gutter, a
smart-ass juror asked pointedly why I didn’t mention the nurse’s
note hidden on page 496. Or when I left my expert’s report on my
desk and the judge, fat face filled with frustration, held out his hand
for the document, and when I mumbled, “I can’t find it,” quickly
and gleefully granted defendant’s summary judgment motion. Or
after my neighbor Mrs. Mullaney called, sobbing that she was
knocked down by this gigantic, vicious dog—“He put his paws on
my shoulders and now I have a broken hip and I have to get screws
and plates.” I started her lawsuit only to discover that the dog was
one of those tiny Paris Hilton pets, weighing about the same as one
of my chins.
And that’s just the beginning. There are plenty more such slip-
ups. Some only known to me and God, which you couldn’t get me
to disclose even if you made me listen to Joe Biden speeches all
day. I haven’t listed these blunders on my website or in the propa-
ganda that sits neatly in our reception area. Yeah, there were times,
too many of course, when I didn’t study all precedent, didn’t read
every word of every document, didn’t go over and over every pos-
sible question before my client, at his deposition, admitted he wasn’t
looking when he crossed the street.

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