Taking a Break.....

Here I sit, on the eve of my first felony trial. Between my business account, trust account and money in my wallet, I may have twenty dollars to my name. My rent is now ten days late and my secretary has still not received her check for last week. My client has only paid one-tenth of the fee I quoted him and yet, I have shut down my practice for the last four or five days for him, for his trial. My key witness - the witness whose testimony I was building my entire theory of the case upon is now changing his story on the eve of trial. I am starting to think he may change it once again while he is on the stand. I started the day feeling great about the case, swore I would lose by this afternoon and now am thinking I am an idiot if I can't win this thing. In a few hours, I will probably be drafting my own entry for the BODA section of the State Bar Journal. I have my evidence together, but I can't help but feel that if I had one more week, the case would get better. One more week. That would give me time to explore those avenues of defense that are now flooding my brain. That would give me time to follow up on those seemingly innocuous witness statements that have now taken on entirely different meanings as I replay them over and over in my head. This is it. I am a criminal defense lawyer.