Going to Court

That's my job and I do it well. We had a speaker at Toastmasters who gave a speech about a book on successful people and one of the tenets of the book was that you had to do something for 10,000 hours to be an expert. So Leon looked over at me and asked me if I had 10,000 hours in as being a lawyer yet. Gee when you do the math (and that is much easier as an attorney since we are paid by the hour) it is a ton--way more than 10,000, but I digress.

So a few days ago, my staff showed me a form prepared in our office by them that they have been using for eight years that I have never seen before. The form was titled Judgment. There is no place on the form for the Judge to sign it. Now this is law 101--nay even more basic than that. Look up Judgment in the dictionary (ok, maybe Black's Law dictionary)--a judgment has to be signed by the Judge! So I get really bent out of shape calling into question every judgment we've done in the past eight years--panicking as to how I could be so stupid as to trust my staff. Then we found a form done by another attorney (not our office, me or my staff) and there was no place for the Judge's signature. I'm living in the twightlight zone was all I could think of. Apparently there is a rule that allows the clerk to sign certian types of judgments and this type is one of them. I knew that there were types of judgments that the clerk could sign, but it is a very narrow area, so my initial panic was not completely unfounded. Perhaps being an expert is not all that, but I digress.

So I was going to court this morning. I wanted to walk through a Writ. The clerks never let you walk through a writ. Never. But you always think that your unique set of circumstances should be the exception to the rule. My writ initially was put through in the normal manner--sent down with a process server. It used to be that you had to have a convoluted Application to do a Writ, but that requirement was done away with years ago, since the Application really just repeats the information in the Judgment that is already signed by the court, but I digress. My writ request was rejected because I did not have an application and I did not name one of the defendents on the writ. HUH? I do a quick search of local, local forms and sure enough, there is an old Application form that this particular courthouse is still using. As for the unnamed defendant--why does the clerk care that I am not enforcing my judgment against one of the defendants? It is a micky mouse reason to reject the writ, but I digress.

So I went to court this morning. I am running out of time and I need this writ quickly. My writ was rejected for (really bad epithets) reasons. Now I wasn't really going to "Court" in front of a judge or anything--I was just going to the clerk's office. But I dressed in a suit. Ok, it's not my best suit or even very formal--it's probably the most casual a look that might be termed a "suit". So when I say I was going to court, maybe you wouldn't have known it to look at me.

So I'm standing in line at the clerk's office. There's a guy at the counter with a big pile of papers. He's obviously a process server with a pile of things to be filed. They work in volume. There was no clerk at the window--probably off looking for something for this guy. So we are waiting and waiting. Soon there are three or four other people in line behind me. We are all waiting and waiting. There is a clerk at the criminal window with no line, but she doesn't call any of us over to her line. So we wait.

Then a guy in a really good looking suit comes in. This guy is an attorney--it is written all over him, from his shiny shoes to his $400 haircut and the smirk on his face. He goes to the clerk at the criminal window and announces loudly that he has an ex parte for civil, can he get priority and go to the head of the line. She nicely tells him that he's at the wrong window and that he'll have to ask the civil clerk when she returns. He siddles up to the guy already at the window ahead of all of us in line. One of the people behind me says, hey, get at the back of the line. And he says, Attorneys get priority--let's see what the clerk says. Me, I was grinning. If attorneys get priority, then I'm ahead of him. But he looked right through me. No $400 hair cut on me--no shiny shoes and my suit--nope. No one would mistake me for the attorney.

Luckily (or unluckily actually) the clerk tells him to go to the back of the line. He was like a large child who stomped off ready to throw a tantrum. However, my tiny victory of not being displaced in line was short lived because when I did get to the clerk, she categorically refused to allow me to walk through my writ. I could drop it off and wait and see if it was accepted in the normal course--two to three business (nope--court) days. Oh well. Two more hours of experience. Did I mention that attorneys count travel time as billable hours. The five freeway is really slow all the time (and there is that Ruby's along the way that serves 50-50 shakes--50% ice cream and 50% orange juice--yes I am quite the expert at going to court.)