When Steven Molo and James Figliulo came up with the idea to put together Your Witness, Lessons on Cross-Examination and Life From Great Chicago Trial Lawyers (Law Bulletin Publishing, 2008), they undertook a big task.  And they pulled it off.

The book is a compilation of 50 lawyers war stories, each telling a tale designed to make a point about some aspect of cross-examination.  As you can imagine, getting 50 lawyers to put words on paper, especially without an advance retainer, and then coordinate what they have to say to a degree sufficient to produce a cogent book isn’t easy.  Like herding cats, great lawyers can be notoriously uncooperative.
    
                              

But somehow, Molo and Figliulo managed to get this book done, and have produced a remarkable piece of work.  As the cover says, these are the stories of great Chicago lawyers.  So it comes as no surprise that the book is Chicago-centric, and some of the names are better known there then elsewhere, though many are nationally known trial lawyers.  If you’ve been in this game for a while, you’re bound to know at least a few of the writers, and that will give you a good appreciation of the quality of the group that Molo and Figliulo have put together.

The book consists of 50 short chapters, each essentially a vignette presented by the writer of his experiences in court.  Some have a few war stories, while others just one, but each chapter seeks to demonstrate one higher order concept of cross.  This isn’t about cross-examination as taught in law school, but the fine points that distinguish the master cross-examiner from the yeoman.

What is fascinating about the book is that the points frequently conflict, often trip over one another and, to the unobservant, are too vague to provide a clear rule to follow.  That’s the trap for the inexperienced, and this is not a book to bolster an inexperienced lawyer’s desire for a quick and dirty list of rules that will turn him into an expert overnight.  It’s all about the subtlety of the fluid nature of cross-examination, and more importantly, about appreciating rules when there are no rules.

One of my favorite chapters is by former Cook County Judge, Gene Pincham.  Plain spoken, he offers small bites from his 50 years in the courtroom that ultimately lead to a theme that repeats throughout the book:  Once you know “the rules,” find those that work for you and be yourself.  While we can watch and admire how other lawyers perform, that doesn’t mean that we can put on their face and make it work.

Lawyers are natural raconteurs.  They LOVE to tell stories of their exploits in court, so the concept of this book appeals to our base instincts.  Unfortunately, the stories don’t always come out with the details intact, and Molo and Figliulo disclaim the accuracy of any particular tale.  It’s not terribly important, however, since the point is to provide entertaining stories that make a point, not to provide an historically accurate recounting.  Forgive the lawyers their trespasses, as it could ruin a good story.

On the other hand, you have to really enjoy reading war stories to get through this book.  Frankly, other lawyers’ war stories don’t hold as much interest for me as they may for others.  Some are rather pedestrian.  Others  are shamelessly self-aggrandizing (shocking, right?).  And still others aren’t as good as my own war stories. 

I found it curious that the editors chose Tom Durkin for the opening chapter, since his first few paragraphs consisted primarily of name-dropping, which nearly made me put the book down and leave it in a place where I would never find it again.  Not being a Chicago lawyer, I couldn’t care less who Durkin knows or hung out with, and this homage to himself and his coterie of big-time Chicago lawyer friends was a real turn-off.  But once I got past it, forcing myself to avoid regurgitation, it was worth the effort.

The book can be spotty from chapter to chapter, as some stories are more interesting, some points more sophisticated and some writing simply better or more readable than others.  But I don’t imagine that can be avoided when dealing with 50 different lawyers, even with the best of editing.

Also unavoidable is the lawyer tendency to be pedantic, resorting to the typical puffery of the greatness of the law, platitude-envy and cliché.  Lawyers, especially those who have enjoyed substantial financial success at the practice of law, espouse its wonder and majesty.  They can’t help themselves, and they feel it would make them seem disingenuous to enjoy the benefits of the law while admitting that it’s anything short of the most wonderful system ever invented. 

This too is a forgivable sin, and largely a sign of the old-time lawyer requirement that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.   Just take it in stride and understand that these lawyers know just what a lousy system it is, but they will never admit it publicly and will instead spout the party line.  Just ignore it.

As light reading for the experienced lawyer and layperson, this book will be fun if you enjoy war stories.  Imagine hanging at the courthouse bar, listening to the guy at the end who is buying beers and telling about his many victories.  If you’re still willing to sit there and listen when he stops picking up the tab, then this book is for you.  There are no magic secrets revealed in Your Witness, and chances are you’ve already learned everything the book has to tell the hard way.

If you have zero tolerance for ambiguity, this book will make you crazy.  But then, you are probably in the wrong line of work as well.  One of the pervasive points of this book is that cross-examination is all about ambiguity, and this is a great lesson in itself.  Sure, you want rules.  Tough, it doesn’t work that way.  Get over it.

For the newer lawyer who wants to learn the tricks that most of us get after making 20 years of mistakes, Your Witness is a fast-track course in the finely nuanced art and science of cross-examination.  No, it won’t make you a better cross-examiner, but it will tell you how great cross-examiners do it.  After that, it’s up to you to figure out which points will work for you, absorb them, run them through your head a few thousand times and put them effectively to use. 

So if you think you’re doing a great job as a trial lawyer, but have less than 20 years in the well, chances are that Your Witness will have plenty to offer you, as well as save you (and your client) from learning it the way the writers did.  They don’t call it trial and error for nothing, you know.

Update:  Mark Bennett’s review can be found here, and Mark Draughn, the WindyPundit reviews here. 

I received an emaiil from Steve Molo, who reminded me that:  “the author royalties from Your Witness are being donated to the Chicago Bar Foundatio
n ,which supports about 40 not-for-profits that bring legal services to the less fortunate in the Chicago area.”