TO WIT: RAGING LAMB
I paused outside the conference room for just a moment to take my customary pre-deposition inventory. Hair mussed, check. Nostrils snorting and flared, check. Faux blood
stains on shirt-sleeve cuffs, check. Now just a brief dab to my lips of the dried spittle I carry around in my briefcase and, yep, looked intimidating. Sweet!
I have long known that intimidation is an essential litigation tool for eliciting the truth from recalcitrant witnesses during depositions. To do it well, though, I have to erect a hostile facade entirely around my native human kindness. Fortunately it's not hard for me to do.
On this particular morning I was scheduled to take the deposition of a witness in a difficult and contentious case. The deponent had significant knowledge of a series of Rube Goldberg-like misunderstandings that had culminated in my client's unwarranted arrest. Although the charges had been quickly withdrawn and apologies issued, my client had nonetheless suffered the kind of gut-wrenching, crippling, life-altering mortification that cannot ever possibly be assuaged by any means known to humankind except the payment of money.
Loaded for bare truth, I strode into the conference room like a menacing
leviathan. Opposing counsel ducked for cover, as I had expected. So did the court reporter, but I have to tip her extra for that. As for the deponent, though, she didn't budge. Not an inch. Nothing, nada, gornisht.
"You must be Mr. ________,” she said. “Hi, I'm Trudy. I'm so happy to meet you. I’ve heard such nice things about you. I'm getting married next week. I'm so excited. Maybe I'll name my first child after you. Isn't this just the most beautiful day? Would you like a posy?"
She was, God help me, darling. In an instant my facade was down and my jig
was up. Damn that human kindness. Now what was I supposed to do? I didn't want to take her deposition so much as I wanted to give her a lollipop. I needed to think.
"What do you mean you want a recess?" opposing counsel asked from under the conference table. "You haven’t started the deposition yet."
The deposition was a disaster. I managed to discover only that she loved her mother and father, that she adored all of her siblings and that she was marrying her high school sweetheart, Bif, the quarterback of the football team. The only negative thing I could come up with was the suspicion that those were probably pom-poms under her blouse.
I walked out of the deposition feeling pretty impotent. Was I fatally surfeit with the milk of human kindness? Was I not really the aggressive, wily, intimidating litigator I've always striven to be, fit instead only to practice elder law? Whatever will become of me now?
As I exited the building I was accosted by a wretched, ragtag old lady out in the street. "Would you like to make a donation, mister?" she pleaded, holding up a collection can with a picture of an adorable puppy on it. “It's' for the Old Folks Home."
She couldn't have come a-begging at a better time. "Get out of my way, you old hag!" I said, and with that I kicked her off the curb. Oh, and it was glorious. Clearly, I still have what it takes to be a litigator, and that's really a comforting thing because, based upon what had just happened, I think elder law now is completely of the table.
©2012 S. Sponte, Esq.