WYLD Trial Advocacy Program

For the last 11 weeks or so I have been involved in the Washington State Bar Association's (WSBA) Washington Young Lawyers Division (WYLD) Trial Advocacy Program. This at first only involved two afternoons/evenings a week. The speakers have mostly been good and I would recommend it for any of my Washington Lawyer friends interested in trial practice. (If anyone signs up for this course next year and wants to know which nights are great to skip out on, let me know.)

The last two Saturdays of the program (incidentally the last two weekends) are day long mock trials in front of real judges. Special thanks to my husband Dan, and to friend Mike for taking time to be witnesses in both trials. The first weekend my trial partner and I defended a personal injury suit against our client sport's bar who created and maintained a dubious game called "human darts" that involved a velcro suit and it's huge corresponding velcro dart board on the wall. We won, even though as one juror said "look, it's obvious this game wasn't made by Mattel."

Yesterday (Saturday) we were plaintiff's in a wrongful death action against a Mt. Everest mountain guide company who negligently pushed a client up the mountain to his death. Despite a contract between plaintiff (decedent) and the guiding service with an express assumption of the risk clause, we also won that one. This one was especially fun and included our expert mountain climber's impromptu story on cross about some avalanche that killed his one and only dead client and his answer to defense counsel that No, none of his dead clients have ever sued him (found humorous by jury, judge, and pretty much everyone but defense counsel).

I found there's this euphoric high you get after a trial (at least, after you win a trial) that I could get addicted to. Now I want a criminal law position more than ever.