It was Hunter’s first closing argument. James E. Harrison was the senior partner assigned to Hunter for this trial.  He had miscalculated the time the judge would spend with the lawyers going over the jury instructions, and he arrived after the closing arguments had begun. He was a little dishelmed for early afternoon. His navy jacket was wrinkled, and it looked as if he was wearing yesterday’s white starched oxford shirt. He slipped his tall frame into the courtroom, quietly opening the heavy doors.  He sat in the first row with other spectators. The handful of lawyers scattered in the courtroom had come to see if this young woman was really the new “hot-shot, cracker-jack, stand-up-lawyer” everyone was talking about.

Judge Mulley looked up over his large framed glasses as Harrison took his seat. His black robe was open over his wide frame as he raised his eyebrows at his former law partner, Harrison.  The Judge inclined his head slightly towards the plaintiff’s table and nodded.  Harrison returned the nod.  He knew as soon as the plaintiff had finished his portion of the closing argument that Harrison could move to his place at the defense table.

But would that bother Hunter, he wondered?  Would that throw her from her closing argument?  She was a new lawyer.  If there were a bad result, a large monetary verdict against the defendant, the client would have expected Harrison to be at the defense table. He grimaced as he thought of how he was in such a silly predicament at his age. Hunter was looking left toward the jury box as the plaintiff’s attorney gesticulated wildly in his final moments.  As the plaintiff’s attorney’s voice reached a high pitch, Hunter dropped her head and turned it around as she caught Harrison’s eye.  With a wry smile, Hunter raised her eyebrows to Harrison just as Judge Mulley had.

Harrison thought, “That girl is good.  She acts as if she has been here a thousand times.”  His questions to himself answered, as the plaintiff’s attorney sat down, Harrison walked through the bar and took his seat at the defense table, trying to look the part of the senior, established, blue-blooded attorney.  Judge Mulley pursed his lips, giving him a deadpan look.  Harrison remained serious while returning the look with a bow of the head and a “Your Honor” spoken quietly.  Hunter remained head down, a slight but almost imperceptible smile gave just the exact amount of time for the disruption of Harrison to clear, her head raised towards Judge Mulley as he said, “Ms. Corey, Mr. Harrison for the defense.”

One of the lawyers sitting in the very back on the courtroom on the center aisle was Jack Skelton. He had come early, “as opposed to that idiot Harrison,” he thought.  Harrison had left the young associate on her own to navigate the jury charge, the law presented by both sides to be argued and decided on by the judge.  A crucial part of the case that could give good grounds for appeal should this new young lawyer “get sent to the moon” in her first case.  But Harrison was not present for the jury charge conference and Skelton, drinking coffee in the judge’s chamber, pretending to check on the status of one of his cases, had stayed to participate in the conference.  He could feel Old Mulley’s eyes on him as he said, “Why Jack, my boy, since you’re here, why don’t you just pitch in for Harry.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” said Skelton, absently brushing a piece of lint off his blue blazer and then tracing his index finger across his right eyebrow. Why was he nervous? It was not his first closing argument. He nervously traced his right eyebrow three more times.   Hunter smiled directly at Skelton, making him feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. “What is it?” said Skelton to Hunter.

“It looks like you’re coaching third base,” she replied.

Skelton frowned in uncertainty. Hunter quickly mimicked his actions, brushing lint off her imaginary blazer and tracing her eyebrow with her index finger all four times.  Judge Mulley started laughing, and Skelton, feeling a fresh wind blowing in, smiled broadly despite himself.  He shook his head.  He had been caught, and he knew it.  It was both unnerving and exhilarating at the same time.  He was nervous as a cat on a tin roof, and she was as cool and at ease as if she had given a thousand closing arguments.

As the lawyers walked into the courtroom, Skelton hung back in the judge’s chambers.  “Looks like she might be the real thing,” Mulley said, gesturing toward Hunter in the courtroom

“Yeah, maybe,” said Skelton, as he indifferently shrugged his shoulders.  But he knew as sure as he stood there that he was one big, fat liar.

Litigation Counsel of America prints this excerpt from the upcoming novel, "The Courtroom Lawyer," with permission.  All rights reserved to Barbara F. Olschner and no reproduction may be made without permission of the author.

Barbara Olschner was licensed in Alabama in 1984, practiced law in Birmingham until 2001, primarily in insurance defense, when she moved to the Florida Beaches of South Walton. Barbara tried over 100 cases to verdict before she closed her law office to work on specialized class actions, mass tort litigation, real estate, and tennis. In 2010, she was a Congressional candidate for Florida CD2. She has just completed a political memoir about that race entitled “The Reluctant Republican: Moving America to the Center”  as well as the novel, "The Courtroom Lawyer."