"The Beard Grows, But The Head Does Not Grow Wiser."
"Lawyers work hard and, like us, they're human, many of them."-Dick Cavett
“A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.” - H. L. Mencken
"I tell you, I'll consult my lawyer. And if he advises me to do it, I'll get a new lawyer."-Groucho Marx 
"We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can."
Since starting a site that gathers war stories from "seasoned" attorney, I have had to consider when discretion would dictate that names of those involved be withheld.
This is such a case.
While attending the Bench and Bar presentation last week in Wayne County, I saw a lawyer acquaintance of mine who I hadn't seen in over 5 years. He is "semi"-retired.
He looked good, as heath issues had required that he change his diet and he lost a fair amount of weight. When folks get to a certain age, even if the weight loss improves appearance, you try to find out if the weight loss was intentional.
Anyway, later in the day, I recalled a case, from years back, when this fellow and I were at a Settlement Conference in Wayne County. I was a plaintiff lawyer and he a defense lawyer.
This case was so long ago, that an afternoon Settlement Conference was a common thing. Also, this was so far back, that the judge actually tried to settle the case. Routine referral to facilitation was still in the future.
So, counsel are back in the judge's chambers, shooting the breeze preliminarily, as was, and still is common practice. I am still not sure how this came up, but there was a discussion about some other judges in other circuits.
Now, our Settlement Conference judge was an African-American woman, and a judge who I really liked. In the discussion, about the other judges, the defense lawyer mentions that he has had bad experiences with a judge, from another circuit, also an African American woman.
The defense attorney says, "I think she is prejudiced against white people." I am sure the reader understands that both lawyers at this Settlement Conference were white males.
That stopped conversation in its tracks, all right.
While I casually tried to move my chair out of range of the anticipated lightning strike, our Wayne County judge, after a 5 count of silence, moved on as if nothing had been said. Very classy move.
I was actually FB friends with that attorney for a while. One day, I noticed that his profile showed up in the "People You May Know" box, that shows up in your Facebook feed. This is how I learned that I had been unfriended by the guy. Small loss.
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