Thank God it's FRIDAY and other small victories

WOW. Today was freakin' weird. We've been in trial for the last two days on a very intense divorce case that I have found myself very invested in as I've worked on it for a year now and become friends with the client. It's really very sad because he didn't want a divorce, but she was having some issues with her mental stability and he just wanted her to get help, but it has now snowballed into an all out sticky custody battle. I sometimes refer to it as the Viva Las Jesus divorce because at one point she was hearing voices and had some demonic cleansing done on her house and well, I just thought the whole thing was bizarre. We have two court ordered psychological reports that say she has issues yet we are having to fight our asses off for this one. I say we - I mean the attorney. I'm not actually up there fighting, I'm quietly and madly taking notes and biting my tongue. I can't say anything because I'm not a lawyer and it's probably a good thing because if I were and I had license to say something, I would be saying a lot of shit and probably be in trouble a lot. So for the last two days here we are and the attorney is presenting this case and we are getting objected to right and left and the judge is interjecting his impressions and opinions and it finally gets to be so much today that the attorney had to ask him to recuse right in the middle of the trial. So of course it went to "chambers" and we vacated the court room while they worked all that out. For those of you that may not know the processes that go on in a courtroom, asking a judge to recuse means asking the judge to remove himself from the case. This is a small town and this attorney will have to practice in front of this judge for the rest of their career so this is a pretty gutsy and insanely difficult decision to make - one that would make you sick to your stomach to think about. So as I am packing up our stuff and am out in the hall, my hands were shaking at what I had just seen happen. Stuff like that doesn't happen very often and it was a big deal. The client walked out and commented that it only showed the incredible amount of integrity to do that and I was hoping to God he was right and that the attorney wasn't in there flushing their career down the loo. It turned out that they all talked and she explained our views of it and the judge apologized and it all worked out OK, so onward with the rest next week. WHEW!! He also told her he thought she was a great attorney and that he respected her for that because he knew that could not have been easy for her to do - so that was great that the judge was so cool about it.
In the mean time, I went upstairs to the big courtroom to watch the master at work. They had closing arguments in a big front page rape trial that has been going on all week and I really wanted to see Mr. Jones' closing; they are movie quality, after all. Yeah, he fascinates me and I love to hear him speak to a jury. Closings took two hours and ended a bit after 7 and at 8:30 I got the call at home that the jury was back and it was NOT GUILTY! WOO HOO! I didn't work on this one, but I know they worked like hell on this one and it was awesome to see this man go free because, well, I just thought he was innocent and deserved to get his life back.
I finally got home and I tell ya, I just felt absolutely drained after this week. Worked til 2 a.m. Wednesday then had two full days of courtroom drama and I was TIRED. Will have to work on Sunday to get ready for Monday but at least I get a bit of a reprieve. That business today with her having to make a decision like that and watching all the getting run over today made me really rethink that whole I-want-to-be-a-lawyer thing. It made me wonder if I would be able to pull that off. I guess you do what you have to do when your client is relying on you, though.
I'm gonna miss the office when I leave and I'm going to miss Mr. Jones and his cases. My last day is Friday and I am really not ready for it to be here so soon. I'm excited about the new one, but still a little nervous about it and hoping I made the right decision.