Dan Small: We each find our own path in our own way. Some trial lawyers know what they want to be from a very tender age, perhaps influenced by family or friends, or maybe by movies or TV. I have no such history. I was supposed to be a teacher. Several great teaching experiences culminated in a part-time job during my senior year in college, teaching at a program in Boston that brought high school kids from the inner city and the suburbs together one day a week. I taught an interactive course in politics and government. I loved it. I loved the challenges, and I loved the kids. The program offered me a full-time job when I graduated, and I accepted. They told me that having a Harvard degree was very nice, but if I really wanted to be paid slightly more than the ridiculous pittance they were offering, I should get my teaching certificate, which Harvard didn't provide.
So I went west for the summer after graduation and took graduate courses in secondary education at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I was hooked. Then three things happened.
First, when I returned to Boston eager to start teaching, I learned that the program at the last minute had not received its matching funding. So there was no program that year and no job. I was fortunate to find exciting roles at Harvard's Institute of Politics and the Kennedy School of Government. And gradually, although I continued to love teaching — and still do — the plan to do it full time faded. Unsure of what else to do or what kind of law I might want to practice, I nevertheless went to law school.
Second, during law school, I wrangled a summer internship at the United States Attorney's Office in Boston. It had never occurred to me to be a prosecutor. Indeed, my family's and my own political leanings made it a strange choice. But I was curious. I took a trial practice course in law school, but I had no idea what it really meant to be a trial lawyer. Fortunately, I was assigned to work principally with young, up-and-coming Assistant U.S. Attorneys who happened to have several great trials that summer. I remember standing in the well of the courtroom one day after a long and exhausting trial day. I looked around and I said to myself, this is it. This is what I want to do.
Third, as the saying goes, sometimes the best results come when you're thrown in the deep end. I was fortunate to have that experience. Coming out of law school, I turned down a job with a great private firm to accept a trial attorney position with the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Although based in Washington, D.C., my primary job was to travel around the country investigating, developing and trying cases for the department. I started in the Fraud Section and ended up in the Organized Crime Strike Force. As a result of twists and turns that could only happen in the government, I very quickly got thrown into the deep end on several challenging and significant cases. Many of those experiences form the basis for some of the stories I'll share in upcoming episodes.
I learned a great deal about trials from the lawyers I worked with in the U.S. Attorney's Office that summer in Boston and from many other mentors and experiences since then. But perhaps the most important thing I learned is that if someone wants to be a trial lawyer, it's not something that can be learned from a book or in a classroom. Certainly, those things can help. But true trial practice comes from practicing it with all of the triumphs and tragedies that go along with it. Nowhere is the phrase "practicing law" more accurate than in trial work, where we spend a lifetime learning and practicing. Trials are hard work. The popular image of a lawyer standing up and winging it in court is, in reality, usually an invitation for disaster.
The famous trial lawyer Vincent Bugliosi put it very well. He said, "It's simply not possible to powerfully articulate a great number of points, one immediately following another extemporaneously. There is a best way to make a point, and to find it takes time and sweat on the yellow pad."
My hope from this series is that trial lawyers, at all levels of experience, can benefit from the time and sweat that I poured into these real challenges and real cases. Undoubtedly, some of you would have handled some of these challenges differently. Some of you would have handled them better. But that too is part of the learning experience. I leave it to the listener to enjoy the stories and to figure out what lessons from them are most helpful to you. Good luck in court.
