Page 99 - ACTL Journal_Sum24

Patrick did have one minor detour after undergraduate school, when he served as an intern at the White House during the Reagan administration. That internship, while a broadening experience, was enough to convince him that law school would be a better choice for him than politics.
Son Patrick is the oldest son, but third in line behind two sisters, Erin and Brigid. He has a broad-based plaintiff’s prac- tice similar to John’s. He was drawn to the law for a number of reasons, and says he thought that the ability to use the law to right wrongs would be a good way to make a living while doing the right thing. He was about twelve when he first went to the courthouse with his father, although his first impressions were not all that impressive. There was a lot of sitting around and a lot of boring stuff. He also visited his dad’s office, and again was hugely unimpressed by the num- ber of huge books, with absolutely no pictures at all.
But as he aged, Patrick began to appreciate the law for its dy- namics, and how it can be a tool to effectuate policy, for civil justice, and to help folks. He said his dad talked about law all the time and had always shared legal stories and anecdotes at the dinner table. “He’s a remarkable man who has led a remarkable life, definitely one of the last of the true trial law- yers.” He says that John comes from the old school where you could try two different cases in a week with little discovery or depositions. That meant that John was very skilled at walking into a courtroom with skeletal information, putting a case to- gether, examining and cross-examining witnesses, and doing the opening and closing arguments – it was just the canvas on which he painted.
Patrick recalls starting one trial with his father, but Patrick had to leave for a different trial before it was completed. He says that was an “interesting” two weeks, and he would never do that again. Their styles are really different. He de- scribes John as very technical, very aggressive and very re- lentless, while he has a softer approach. He is more thematic and more big picture in approach. His general theory is that about 80% of what happens in a trial really doesn’t matter. Juries just want to know who’s right and who’s wrong, and what evidence you have to prove it.
The trial they started together was a products liability case. The judge sent them and the defense attorneys to a separate courtroom to pick the jury, outside of the judge’s presence. Patrick had never heard of that before, but John told him it happened all the time. They started picking a jury. John took what Patrick characterizes as a few liberties during voir
dire, with which the defense lawyers were not pleased. For example, one of the potential jurors asked John if the plaintiff was aware that the product, a battery, was dangerous. John re- sponded “No, it looks about as dangerous as the court report- er’s steno machine.” The potential juror then asked whether this type of battery had ever exploded before. John replied:
“We don’t know. They won’t tell us.”
The defense lawyers raised their concerns with the judge. John started to argue, but the judge stopped him and said, “I have a transcript.” John quickly said, “nothing further.” The Judge then told them all to return in three days, and “we’ll pick a jury in front of me.”
Patrick has tried five or six cases with brother Matthew, whom he describes as good on evidence and good on strategy. Because Matthew is younger (the youngest of the seven), and because he was born as technology was starting to boom, he is a better technician than Patrick or John – and he is also good because he knows the case better than anyone else in the courtroom.
One of Patrick’s cases resulted in a multi-million-dollar award for a construction worker who suffered a compound femur fracture. In another, he represented a young boy who had been sexually abused by a former soccer coach and teacher. The school district denied liability as only one instance had occurred on school property, although the abuse spanned an entire year, defending on the basis that it was a parenting issue. The jury returned a record-breaking verdict in the boy’s favor, re-affirming Patrick’s faith in the justice system.
Patrick recalls one of the toughest cases he tried was a gen- der discrimination case on behalf of a women who want- ed to be on the LAPD SWAT team. It was a six-week trial, and the LAPD set up a command post in the courthouse.
Every time a name was mentioned, the LAPD would find the witness and interview him or her. By the time the LAPD started its defense and then called all those witnesses, it was definitely an old school trial because Patrick did not have statements or depositions from any of them.
On another case, he had a very conservative ex-military judge who wasn’t letting him introduce any of what he thought was good and essential evidence. But Patrick came to realize that the judge tended to nod off in the afternoon and lose interest
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