War Stories: There’s Always Room for Change…And Other Embarrassing Stories

And so all you hear is tinkling ding ding ding ding ding ding as the court as the coins fly to the far end of the courtroom everybody hears it everybody instantly knows that's me because I'm the only one standing up when you first start practicing law especially if you're going to be in court a lot you're gonna spend the first year - pretty much embarrassing yourself and I had plenty of that when I started off and when I think about it now it's probably a good thing that I embarrassed myself early because once you embarrass yourself in court then you don't worry anything about anything next time and so you kind of get over the fear of going to court but when you first go especially I was practicing in downtown LA there's a lot of people so you show up to court there's a lot of attorneys sitting in the seats there's the judge sitting up front as a court reporter there's a lot of activity and energy and you feel like everybody there knows exactly what is going on and what and they know everything and you know nothing that's just that's just the feeling you get and in the beginning you think judges know everything and you know nothing and so it's always a nerve-racking experience until you get used to it after you've gone a few dozen times so I was in LA once and I was waiting for a hearing and it was a particularly long calendar I was like at the very end and for some reason I had change in my pocket and loose change and I was sitting there and you're kind of you know turning this way and turning that way and shifting and somehow we finally got to my calendar there's still a good number of people in the courtroom by the way it wasn't empty they got to my calendar and they called my case and so okay I stood up and somehow when I stood up a quarter a couple of quarters from my pocket somehow had come out and was they were resting on my pant and when I stood up they fell down into the cuff of my pants so back then I had cuffed pants to this day I never buy cuff pants for that reason but anyway back then I had cuffed pants and there's two quarters in there I take the first step the change goes flying out of the cuffs of my pants across the floor of the courtroom the floor the courtrooms tile and so all you hear is ding ding ding as the court as the coins fly to the far end of the courtroom everybody instantly knows that's me because I'm the only one standing up and everybody kind of knows what it is and I am absolutely mortified I mean that's not the type of attention you want to draw to yourself as a young lawyer and so I have no choice I have to walk up and talk to the judge is my case has been called and so I walk up there I put on a brave face and the judge this lady who is a very good judge but she just takes her head and she just puts it down on her desk because she doesn't want to laugh in my face which I really appreciated but she was laughing nonetheless and so so that was one of the most embarrassing times I had in court and it's silly now to think about but it actually was liberating because once she threw a change across the courtroom you really can't embarrass yourself after that and so you feel I felt more confidence next time I went to court of course I took some precautions I never take change to court to this day I am to my pockets I never wear cuff Pants to this day but with those precautions in mind I could go back to court and I could feel a lot more confidence because I knew whatever I did whatever I said it wasn't going to be that amazing. [Music]