Oral Argument

I had my 1st oral argument before the Indiana Supreme Court on Wednesday. I have argued before the Court of Appeals before, but this was a different experience. I was surprised by how close the judges were to the attorneys (I was also surprised with attorney John Maley (Richmond native) walked into the courtroom audience with an entire Catholic girls’ school class).

I had prepared every which way - memorizing factual distinctions on relevant cases, etc., but the discussion was more “what-ifs” than grilling the attorneys on the case law. The court staff was very courteous and helpful and the entire experience overall was pleasant - at least compared to the dread I felt leading up to the event. . . .

It was a criminal case and the issue was 4th Amendment - search and seizure. You can catch the whole experience on video, at the Court’s site, here - go to 10/15/2008 and look for Meredith v. State. the argument starts around the 4 minute mark.

On your first visit, you get an official coaster:

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.