I just finished a brutaltwo-day trial involving very contentious land rights between two large, neighboring family farms. The families hate each other for years of alleged transgressions on both sides. Anyway, emotions were very high and my clients (in their late 70s) had told me that they had put all their trust in me to secure the rights that would allow their grandchildren to continue their farming/ranching operations.
Lots of stress--especially since my husband was on call this entire weekend at the hospital, so I was trying to get ready for the trial with a 17 month old who wanted nothing more than to play with me every second of the day--and she was being so cute, it was hard to tell her to go play with blocks or something to give me another few minutes to revise my outlines.
To get to the point--by yesterday afternoon, I was just beat from no sleep, litigation stress , and feeling a complete lack of "work-life balance." One of the "sons" on the other side (he was in his 40s) was testifying, and I was asking him some pretty pointed questions to basically reveal that he had been lying about some of his earlier testimony. He got really snippy with me and his tone of voice was really harsh. We had a break in the middle of cross-exam, and one of the farm employees on our side came up to me during the break and told me that he had just gone to the bathroom, and in the hall right outside the bathroom, the mother of this witness (also in her 70s) was ripping her 40-year old son apart and telling him that "you had better straighten up and be nicer to that pregnant lady!!" Yay for a good mama! Made me laugh--and, sure enough, after the break he was much nicer!
I am now trying to figure out how many more trials I can schedule between now and October to get maximum use out of this unexpected advantage!
Re: "Pregnant lady" for the win!!