Page 43 - TA Magazine Winter 2022
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W A R Y
O F
A
WHIMSICAL
WORLD
22 Pushing through the detached fog to return to a grounded reality 22 22
Y ANDERSON WINTER 20 Y ANDERSON WINTER 20 Y ANDERSON WINTER 20
BY KIM WEHLE
38 39
of whom have individual ideas about what lawyers do and why they are in
law school. But despite these differences, students consistently come to law
C ach fall, I teach a class of about 70 brand-new first year law students, all C C
TRA school with two prevalent beliefs (or myths) that take months of rigorous TRA TRA
classroom work to dislodge. The first is that there is a single “answer”
Eto legal questions, and that the job of a lawyer is to find the answer. The
second, and related, myth is that lawyers must argue vigorously for their client’s side,
period. In truth, both beliefs are off-the-mark.
If my describing these beliefs as “myths” surprises you, it’s understandable. We live in a deeply polarized
culture, in which the mere fact that two people have different points of view on politically-charged issues
can often devolve into personal attacks and animosity. It’s as if there is no gray area anymore—that you are
either on the right team or the wrong team, and if it’s the wrong team, there is no saving you.
Most of us also grew up watching lawyers depicted on television scoring points for dramatic effect that
have little basis in reality. In both criminal and civil cases, for example, there’s virtually no circumstance in
which one party brings in a surprise witness in the midst of trial to offer the key to the truth in shocking,
never-before-heard testimony—with the subsequent takedown of the villain in the narrative as the result.
FREDRIK BRODEN
Lawyers disclose their witnesses to each other long before trial under established procedural rules. Even
