Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame (2004): 62 Years in the Practice of Law

• Citation: Vol. 27 No. 1
• Publication year: 2014
• Author: By Kurt W. Melchior
• topic: Business of Law,Civil Procedure

Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame (2004): 62 Years in the Practice of Law

By Kurt W. Melchior

Kurt W. Melchior

When I was first establishing my practice, many people talked about Joe Ball. When he died 13 years ago at the age of 97, his L.A. Times obituary described him as "one of the country's most respected trial lawyers." Joe was the first inductee into the California Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame; and I remember the awe with which he was regarded by many, and the very open, approachable person I met when I was introduced to him at a State Bar convention. So it is a bit hard to write about my own journey to that exalted place, since I never thought I would be within the same frame of reference as Joe Ball. And here I am in my sixty-third year of practice myself — hard to believe!

Now, California Litigation wants my "anecdotal, inspirational and educational thoughts." Let me start with what I think it means to be a litigator — a trial lawyer.

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Many nonlawyers think of lawyers as paragraph splitters — as people who dissect events and ideas into technicalities, who will do anything to have their client prevail, to win. There is, of course, some truth in that description; but to me, a trial lawyer is first of all a person who becomes the voice, the sword and the shield, of someone in society who has problems which are beyond their own means to solve. The lawyer steps into that person's shoes and becomes their voice, their mouthpiece if you want to use a derogatory term. The client sees his lawyer as perhaps his only champion in a tough situation: the lawyer literally stands in for the client and speaks for the client, who is too overcome with doubts or emotions and has neither the skill nor the detachment to speak for him or herself.

That takes strength, courage and an understanding on the lawyer's part, both of the client and of the broader world. When we start out on a legal career, we seldom think of such Darrow-like powers and duties, but we learn as we go. To me, it is just as hard to develop the skill of understanding how the world would see the client, and in a civil case — where I have spent almost all my career — how the other side, and eventually a judge or jury, would see the client and his case, as it is to figure out the intricacies of the client's case. Another tough part of the lawyer's task is the duty to explain to the client the entire configuration of the case, including the "other side" of his problem: How the world may not see the situation as he does — and how that...