Gentle Reader,
While it is often justified, I don’t typically start my monthly missive to you with an apology. This month is different. I apologize for the puns, past and future. I also apologize for the strained metaphors that will follow.
It is Redneck High Holy season in this part of the world, and I have abandoned my office in the Levison Towers for a second story office with a view. By office, I mean treestand, and by view, I mean view. I am in the woods hunting as I write this, in fact.
Deer season was a big deal when I was growing up, even though deer herds in rural Oklahoma back then were anemic at best. Still, we gathered gear and were in the woods before sun up until well past sun down for the entire season. The season usually coincided with Thanksgiving. My mother recently reminded me that we were gone from the house either before or shortly after Thanksgiving dinner was served. Deer season was a bigger deal than eating it seems.
Like everything else, hunting has changed over the years. I sit in my treestand now with iPad in hand, reading magazines or working on cases. Electronics have given me freedom to leave the office more, but get away less. Where I used to look into the woods and enjoy my time in nature, I now look into the woods and think about how far into the weeds a day out of the office will put me.
Trial practice has some similarities to deer hunting. There are hours of inactivity, followed by moments of adrenaline fueled excitement. I was hunting last week and just as I was ready to get out of the tree and go home, two little deer entered the field in front of me. My heart raced! Neither of those animals were harmed, but I was excited to see them just the same. Unlike trial work, being close to prey undetected is as rewarding as winning.
I have tried cases where the most important moments come unexpectedly at the end. I was in a rural courtroom on a case that was going nowhere. Jurors told me afterwards that but for the last witness, they would have voted against my client. Three days of evidence didn’t seem to help my client much. Just when I thought all was lost, a witness came in unexpectedly and turned the entire case in our favor. Sometimes you win just by sticking around.
Both trial and hunting require the right garb and equipment. Trial practice is as it has always been- suit and tie. Deer hunting has morphed from green clothes to camouflage patterned outfits to state of the art scent reducing suits. While scent covering sprays help in the woods, I have met a few folks in court who could benefit from a spritz. Different smells though. Usually.
My trial equipment is now high tech- tablet or computer, projector, computer animations and so on. My woody equipment has changed as well, but like the trial stuff, escalating price is the constant. Not that I have ever been as good as my gear in either case, but it doesn’t stop me from shopping.
As I write these words, nothing is moving in the woods except my fingers on the keyboard. It is getting cooler here in the Midwest and the rut is approaching. That is the time when male deer run through the woods with abandon, hoping to woo the female of the species. They appear haphazard, but they are so focused on what they want that the method and risk don’t faze them. Trial lawyers’ television commercials have that in common as well. I much prefer the deer version.
Still, the air out here is clean and crisp. There is a primitive feel to things, sitting in a tree and hoping both for game to appear and that it doesn’t, lest I have to pursue and prepare the harvest. As a hunter, I often feel remorse after a successful hunt- I am a meat eater but killing a creature isn’t something I take lightly. As a trial lawyer, I never regret winning for my client.
Like a hunting trip, good fortune can make all the difference in trial. Being in the right place at the right time and recognizing it is the difference between success and failure. Often I sit alone with a bad suit and bad smell in both instances. I am glad to be alive and experience hunting and trial, but a bad day hunting is better than a good day in trial. Mostly.
©2015 under analysis llc. under analysis is a nationally syndicated column of the Levison Group. Spencer Farris is the founding partner of The S.E. Farris Law Firm in St Louis, Missouri. His past hunting results are not a promise of future results. Comments or criticisms about this column may be sent c/o this newspaper or directly to the Levison Group via email at farris@farrislaw.net.