Last night, some Tweets by @tcita caught my eye:
Protip: don’t do anything that might upset those who hold the keys to seeing your client. And also control every moment of his day.
.@jrushie It never ceases to amaze me how little lawyers think about their interactions with guards.
It seems like common sense when you say it like that. How you interact with the guards might not be a legal paper or proceeding, but how you treat them could affect your client’s interests. So treating the guards right is important.
Her Tweets took me back to an exchange I had with Chris Bradley a few weeks ago. Chris wrote a piece about how he just showed up to a deposition, having no idea what he was doing, but sometimes showing up is enough. I started to take him to town on it, but I ended up writing a sort of incomplete, half-assed blog post about how to defend depositions. Alex Craigie was kind enough to remindΒ me that my summary was inadequate with some tips of his own. Scott Greenfield mentioned the discussion today on his blog.
The more I think about it… it was never about how to take and defend depositions. And my response to Chris missed the boat. It ended up being another inadequate pieces about depositions.
This is the piece I should have written: it all matters. That is why you don’t just show up.