Monthly Archive: February 2005

The Honorable William Klatt
373 South High Street, 24th Floor
Columbus, Ohio 43215

February 13, 2005

Dear William Klatt:

I’m a 26-year-old first-year student at Capital University Law School, and I’m writing to you in your capacity as the Tenth District’s administrative judge.  I had the pleasure of participating in Capital’s first-year moot court competitions this weekend at the county court complex.  For reasons that will become clear, you’ll be interested to know that I sat on the left side of the appellee’s desk in courtroom 23-B.

Today, after having wrapped up what I thought was a pretty tough oral argument, I returned to my seat so that my co-counsel could conclude our portion of the argument.

As I sat down, I noticed that I was listing strangely portside, oddly close to the wonderful view you have there in 23-B.  I remember thinking, The judges must have been even rougher on me than I realized if they can induce vertigo. I tried to sit up straight and found myself lurching in the other direction.  The reason for my precarious imbalance soon became clear: one of the casters in my very comfortable chair had come out, putting me in grave physical (and legal) danger.  As exhibit A, I placed the errant caster on our desk.

Co-counsel, valiantly trying to ignore the lurching and scraping noises behind him, continued giving his part of our argument as I righted myself and located a spare chair that had been conveniently placed near our table.

I am certain that your honors did not requisition this “ejector seat” function, but you might want to consider it for certain members of the bar.  I am currently studying products liability, and have a few theories under which you might justify the utility of such furniture.

We won the case, and I believe the judges did compliment us on our “poise.”

I look forward to practicing before the Tenth District Court of Appeals very soon, but perhaps in a more steady position.

Sincerely,
Bill Cash III

So we had two more rounds of moot court today.  I don’t know how but we have advanced to the Final Four, baby!!!  Life is good so far.  We go back for the semi-finals tomorrow and I don’t even want to speculate on who’ll be in the finals.

The opponents are definitely getting harder, but I like to think we are, too.  We’ve dropped a lot of our prepared stuff and we sort of freestyle it now.  Yeah, in front of that bench, we’re just two bad-ass government attorneys.  A lot of times during these things I put my feet up on the desk when it’s not my turn to talk.  The judge, he all right.

A seriously amusing eventuality occurred today on the way into the courthouse.  (The second round was at our state appellate court in the county complex.)  We all pile out of our cars and head for the elevator.  This kind of clean-cut-looking guy follows us.  He is carrying a PeopleSoft bag and he has glasses, so I figure he is some kind of computer nerd just there to check on stuff over the weekend.

We all take the elevator up to 9 together.  I give my mom the instructions: “Look.  You can go in with us, but I don’t really want the judges to know who you are or what side you’re on.  Don’t make a big scene here, OK?”  She promises to be good.

On the 9th floor, we all take the skyway out of the garage and across High Street.  When we get to the courthouse, the door into the courthouse is locked.  There’s nothing to do except turn around and go all the way back down to the street.  And we don’t want to be late!  I’m a little incredulous, so I kind of punch the guy on the arm or something and say, “How come you didn’t know it would be locked?”  “Well, I’m never in here on the weekend.”  “Yeah, all right…”  We get back in the elevator.  Somebody asks him, “Oh, so why are you here?”

He says, “Well, I’m here for moot court.”  Oh shit. I say, “You’re not one of our judges, are you?”  “Well, I don’t know.”

Needless to say, the guy did turn out to be one of our two judges.  There was nothing I could do except lean right in during my intro and say, “Good afternoon, your honors…” and try not to smirk.

Well, we won, so I guess it didn’t cause too much injury.  My mom was pretty amused though.  Let’s let this be a good lesson about being decorous outside the courtroom as well as in.  :)