Lie, cheat, steal, swindle, manipulate and spin the facts. Yes, this is the picture most people have of lawyers and our legal system. Sadly, in many cases, those impressions are quite accurate.
However, that isn’t the way to truly win in our legal system. This article will briefly touch on the real keys.
My name is Sean Callagy, the founder and President of Callagy Law, a New Jersey, New York and Arizona law firm.
In 2014 I obtained a 33 million dollar verdict. In 2016 I obtained a 27.5 million dollar verdict. That puts me in a micro percentage group of attorneys who can make that statement.
Matt Damon, in the Rainmaker, makes a profound comment at the end of the movie when he decides to leave the law after an amazing victory of truth over lies. Essentially, Damon’s character muses that to keep doing it, he would likely need to become the evil he just defeated. The same evil he asked if he even remembered when he sold out.
Often, I feel that way in this profession. The amount of lies and gamesmanship that exist is enough to make any decent human being want to quit the human race. Then, you find your fair share of judges who let it go on, and even enable it.
So, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right?
Wrong.
Integrity, authenticity and incredible hard work are the real secrets to success in our greatest system of lie detection on earth: the jury trial.
I believe that liars only win when they come up against the less skilled or hard working attorney.
The great benefit of dealing with liars in any case is that they don’t know when to stop lying. They lie so much that they begin to believe their own lies. Judges can become quite anesthetized to lying as well.
Juries, however, despise liars and lying. If you tell one lie as a lawyer, and the other guy approaches matters with integrity, then the liar is in huge trouble every time.
You see, juries, like all people, want to believe and find good in our system. They don’t expect to, but are very pleasantly surprised when they do. It restores their faith.
I believe that most attorneys don’t get this. They will try to hide, duck, dodge or flat out lie, to avoid problems in their cases. That may work for awhile, but it doesn’t work before a jury.
In both of these cases where I had the privilege of representing my clients, I believe the truth came shining through to the jury. That truth included acknowledging certain realities about the parties and the issues.
However, it is not enough to acknowledge a problem and gloss over it. Everyone says “draw the sting” from your problems. The real question is whether the jury believes what you believe. Your credibility, as a lawyer, is everything in front of the jury. Try to cheat on reality just a bit, and you are the lying lawyer they expected. Then, you better hope that the other man or woman is also seen as a lying lawyer and hope the jury believes you and your client is the lesser of two evils.
On the contrary, wouldn’t it be easier to be the voice of integrity, and therefore authority, in the court room?
It takes a ton of work to make this type of presentation. Like Matt Damon suggested though, would you want to do it any other way?
If you would ever want to discuss “how” to do this with a person who’s been blessed to do it, then please reach out and contact me.
By the way, the jury awarded 8 and 16 million in punitive damages in these two cases. How do you think the juries perspective on integrity and authenticity factored into those verdicts?
Sean Callagy, Owner / Founder of Callagy Law
“Fundamentally Changing the Way People Feel About Lawyers, One Client at a Time.”
Learn More About Callagy Law Here:
How To Get A Big Jury Verdict from a Guy That Got 60 Million Total in 2 Years
