War Stories: Stewart’s First Trial Ignited a Passion

If even a little bit of that is true you're gonna lose this case and I'm like thinking wait is he talking to the defense lawyer and then of course on Mike yeah that's right that's right he's gonna lose this case judge so when I graduated from law school I didn't want to go work at a large firm that was something that was very clear to me in law school I had actually interviewed at a few large firms and I was not impressed with the culture that was at those firms so I thought I'm gonna start my own firm at some point so of course I I get out of law school I come back to California and I hang out a shingle and I start practicing out of my house and I remember this client came to me and he was very I don't even know how he found me it's so funny when I think back over the years of all the clients that have found us they find us in some of the funniest ways but this client found me and he had a trial that was starting the next day in Victorville California and when I went to law school I thought I was gonna be a tax lawyer so after I got through the first two years of courses in my third year I didn't take any trial courses because I didn't think I was gonna be a trial lawyer I didn't think I just say can I have anything to do with trial work so I just took as many tax classes as I could so here I come in and this guy comes into my eye my home actually I think I met him at a Starbucks and he's got a trial starting tomorrow it's a trust matter I don't know a whole lot about trust and wealth others from what I took when I was in law school in Louisiana which had to do with a completely kind of different set of law than California and so I tell the guy because I'm a young lawyer young starving lawyer I'll do your trial for you I mean how hard can it be so all night I did my typed out my opening statement and I looked through the sparse file that he brought I read the trust I read kind of what was happening I understood what the defense lawyer was gonna argue and I showed up the next morning in Victorville at 8:30 for the trial to be called to order and there was a visiting judge from Los Angeles and if you ever wanted to see the most judge this was him I mean this guy was no-nonsense he had been retired from Los Angeles but because San Bernardino needed some more judges he was sitting in up in Victorville and he was he was not friendly he was not happy to be there I don't think and he just wanted to get things moving forward so he calls our case and I step up to the front of the courtroom for the first time in my entire career and there's an opposing counsel over there looking at me and I remember you I remember it it was almost like things went in slow motion the opposing counsel he was a little heavyset and he had a hankerchief and he was he had a bald head and I remember as I was walking up he pulled his handkerchief out and he was wiping the sweat off of his head and I remember I was all going in slow motion I'm looking up at this judge and the judge is like opening statement let's go and so I I said to the judges like your honor can I can I sit I didn't know if I should stand or sit so I said can I sit while I get my opening statement and he didn't answer yes or no some kind of a grunt came out of his mouth I figured that meant I could sit so I read the opening statement and the whole time I was so scared and so I get done with my opening statement and the judge leans back in his chair and he looks at the defense lawyer and he goes before I even hear your your defenses to that if even a little bit of that is true you're gonna lose this case and I'm like thinking wait is he talking to the defense lawyer and then of course I'm like yeah that's right that's right he's gonna lose this case judge and so the the judge sent us out into the hallway so we go out in the hallway and this lawyer takes his handkerchief out again and he's white penis is white fitness edie and he'd been practicing for 20 years he told me and he had done a lot of insurance defense he clearly was a senior lawyer he had done some trial work but he also didn't have a lot of experience and trust in estate matters and so we both were kind of on equal footing as far as understanding trust and Will's went so we he was talking to me in a language that was foreign about do you want to stipulate put this on the record I didn't know what a stipulation was I didn't know what on the record and so I told him yes to both of those because it makes sense to say yes because and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about ultimately the case was settled my client received my client and his siblings received what they were to get including a particular couch this case came down to a particular couch in the house that everyone wanted and and the case was over I remember walking out of the courthouse that day and this just rush of adrenaline that went through my body I knew that I had not known anything that I had done that day I knew I'd gone in and and had the courage to go in there and do the trial but it was such a great feeling the taste of victory the taste of doing something good for your client and that was the day that I started my path on becoming a trial lawyer now it's a long painful path and I can tell you there's a lot of an embarrassing experiences between then and and and the lawyer I've become today but I remember that was my first case right when I opened up my own shop went in there I've got a good result for the client by accident thanking thankful for this old judge was persuaded by my opening statement and the opposing counsel agreed so that was one of my first cases and in fact that was my first case and it ended up being a trial and yeah it's all come from there and that's where I said yesterday. [Music]