Divorce lawyer Dustin S. McCrary, who is the founder of the Law Office of Dustin S. McCrary, has seen a fair share of battles over child custody, alimony and spousal support, property distribution, and domestic violence, and according to him, the legal professional is extremely draining.
“When you choose to be a lawyer, you are choosing a path that often requires putting in long hours to study and prepare for each case,” he wrote. “Clients can be demanding [and] your assignments can start off as fairly low stakes and shift into stressful high-stakes scenarios overnight.” After all, it can be difficult to disconnect yourself from the lives of your clients.
So when Reddit user Brainstew__ asked lawyers to describe the most memorable cases they have ever worked on, the discussion was quickly fiilled shocking, bizarre, and sometimes downright unbelievable stories from the courtroom and beyond.
#1
I used to work as a legal secretary for a personal injury lawyer. He told me about a case where his client had radiation burns from an x-ray machine. In the avalanche of documents he received from the defendant during discovery, he found an internal memo. The memo described a serious problem with the machines and continued: “This is an issue we can’t ignore… unfortunately, it’s not in the budget”.
When the case went to trial, he told the jury, “Show them they need to put this in the budget next time.” The jury complied, handing down one of the largest verdicts California had ever seen.
Image credits: AmbitiousSquirrel4
#2
There were cases in the UK during the Falklands war in the 80s where the government claimed bullet wounds and lost limbs due to minefields were “incidental” injuries and not related to the fighting.
Like people just randomly generate holes in their chests and limbs fly off during birthday parties etc.
The government’s own records showed they were “buying time” in order that the claimants would hopefully die of their injuries and the cases could be shut down.
Image credits: WimbleWimble
#3
Back in the day I investigated and later in my career prosecuted lots of arsons so I worked a lot of fire cases. One time the crews roll up on a garage fire. They are met by the home’s resident holding a blood-soaked towel to his crotch. The medics get him stable and transported. He later tells us the voice told him to eat a whole box of saltine crackers without drinking any water and he was like ok, and did that. Then the voice told him to eat the newspaper and he was like check. Then the voice said to cut off his testicles with a can opener and he was like yep. Then the voice said set the van on fire in the garage and he was like you got it. He did all those things in that order, and there were the scene photos of the testicles right there on the garage floor.
We got him into mental health court and he did pretty well.
Image credits: anon
#4
My mum’s ex-boyfriend had to defend a triple-murder with kidnapping. Two of the victims were a mother and her three-year-old son. Defendant had some kind of psychosis, I’m not sure what. He attempted to carjack a fourth victim who was able to overpower him, leading to his arrest.
Said ex-boyfriend switched to prosecution after that.
Image credits: Porrick
#5
Not a lawyer but my Aunt was.
She was the state prosecutor for a case where a guy had gotten into an argument with another guy at a recreational baseball game.
After the game was over one guy left and went home. The other guy stayed at the baseball field with his son.
About like 30min to an hour later they are still at the baseball field and the other guy is back. He has a baseball bat and walks straight towards the dad at the pitching mound and starts hitting him over the head with the bat until hes unrecognizable. Kid frozen in terror while this guy murders his dad. He then walk over to the kid and does the same thing to him.
My Aunt was amazing at her job and got the guy sentenced to life in prison.
She lost her battle to cancer a few months ago. I loved listening to her stories. She was the best Aunt a guy could ask for.
Image credits: ScubaNoname643
#6
It was a labor case, in which in the middle of the hearing, the judge (60-year-old male) started to flirt with my client (23-year-old female) in a direct, straightforward way. It was SO shocking that was one of the only cases I got speechless in a trial. Those hearings are closed here in Brazil, so no jury, no recording — nothing.
Image credits: alekdefuneham
#7
Slayer statute, interpleader case in federal court. Client murdered her husband to collect insurance proceeds. Found out that she promised to pay 2 dudes to bind his hands and feet with duct tape, execute him, and burn him in an alley, for $20k each, to be payed out of the insurance funds.
She lost.
Image credits: roymunsonshand
#8
So…I see a lot of messed up injuries in my line of work (personal injury.) like permanent metal in people, scars, mental trauma. Videos of car accidents, broken bones, you know, messed up stuff.
But what gets me the most is health insurance companies. Basically, let’s say you have Kaiser, you get hurt they pay the bill. Unfortunately, if you get hurt by another person and recover funds from them, then your health insurance company (or workers comp) is entitled to be paid back from the money you get. Oh and the government gets first dibs too if you have Medicare or state funded health insurance. However bad you think the system is working, trust me, it’s worse.
Image credits: PizzaNoPants
#9
I’m an attorney, but the case that stuck with me most was one I sat in on during undergrad. I was a criminal justice major and frequently had to go watch trials for class assignments. I was in the military at the time, so I had to cram these hours in randomly — if we had a light day, or I could take a long lunch, I would go to the closest courthouse and check what was available. One day, I went down to the federal courthouse in Baltimore and checked the list: one criminal case, nothing else going. I head upstairs and quietly walk in. Despite that, clearly, everyone checks me out, which is odd — usually, no one pays attention to the gallery. At the first break, a guy comes over and asks me who I am and why I’m there; he’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) with the Air Force, so I show him my ID and explain I have to watch criminal trials. He gives me a weird look but doesn’t push. As I’m sitting there, I slowly realize I SHOULD NOT BE HERE. An Air Force couple has a son, and gets divorced. She takes her son with her to her duty station in Japan and remarries a civilian employee there. Dad is deployed, then moves station, and keeps bugging her about when he can see the son; at some point, she just stops responding. A few months later, after Dad has filed a report with her command, requesting they make her communicate with him, Dad gets a call from an OSI agent who he knows, asking him for his son’s full name and date of birth. Dad gives it to him, and the agent says, ‘Look. I didn’t tell you this, but you need to call OSI on her base.’ Mom had gone to the field, and her 8-year-old son had been bugging the stepdad while he was gaming. Stepdad got pissed off and beat the kid with the first thing to hand — a piece of banister from the stair he was working in. Mom came back from the field two days later and found the son unconscious, still on the floor. Because the stepdad’s last home of record was in Maryland, he was tried in federal court in Baltimore. I sat through the ER doc who treated the son, who talked about seeing the internal crush injuries, and the coroner who talked about how hard you would have to hit an 8-year-old on the front to cause bruising on his back. I also sat through the dad talking about finding out his son was gone. After that day, I always went to misdemeanor court for my hours.
Image credits: kithien
#10
I’m an interpreter not an attorney, but I had a school case to interpret regarding bullying. The school decided to have a court case decision made in house. It was 12 kids and their parents on a stage in the cafeteria. The school officials were there and a school advocate who acted as judge. Apparently the seniors would trap the freshmen in a designated bathroom after lunch and jump them. Four seniors and eight freshman who were beat up individually, there were supposed to be nine but one was in the hospital. They showed surveillance of how the seniors picked the freshmen to beat up and there were 2 teachers aware of this, in one of the videos one of the teachers helped the seniors by pointing out who the freshmen were. This was a hazing technique that was going on in this school for years but this case was to make an example of those involved. The teachers involved were only mentioned when the bullys admitted receiving assistance in pointing out who to beat up, the teachers never got in trouble. Only one bully was expelled and all the freshmen were suspended. It was unjust and sad. This case went on for 3 days and each case lasted 3 to 5 hours after school.
Image credits: SwtPvega5_
#11
IANAL but periphery of a divorce; anesthesiologist and his wife; dude has tons of money and a huge secondary stash of gold and other non currency assets that he doesn’t disclose; keeps lowballing wife and she keeps arguing for the proper financial disclosure – he laughs as she has to keep paying for her attorney to file to get access to the assets that he won’t disclose and they can’t prove –
He kept lowballing her and refusing to settle all while he continues to make huge money and she struggles – he dgaf – he wanted to win and make her suffer and drag it out
Divorce initiated because of his infidelity.
Image credits: DeepBlueSomethings
#12
I was just an articling student at the time but we got a phone call that I still makes me laugh each time I think about it.
A woman calls in asking for advice on immigration law. I tell her I can’t give advice but I can take details and book a meeting. She wants to know about claiming refugee status. I ask her where she is a refuge from. She then tells me that she doesn’t want to claim refuge status, her sister does.
So I ask her where her sister is from, she tells me from Hong Kong. (This was almost a decade ago btw) So I ask her why she is fleeing Honk Kong. She tells me that her sister isn’t fleeing Hong Kong, she is visiting on a 6 month visa.
So I ask why she want to help her sister get refuge status. She says she doesn’t, she wants her sister to leave. Now, at this point I’m thoroughly confused. So I get her to elaborate.
Turns out, her sister is visiting and, to quote her, “She is ruining the family!” Her sister has threatened to stay on after her visa expires and this lady want to know whether she can actually do that. The short answer, no legal advice required is that she can’t just stay, she has to go through immigration. So she asks what to do about her. I tell her, if she doesn’t leave when her visa expires, call the cops. She says thanks and hangs up. I dissolve into fits of giggles.
Image credits: kitskill
#13
Not a Lawyer but a law student. For my contractual law class is had to learn a verdict from The dutch supreme court which was pretty awfull. The situation was as follows:
A mom was cooking dinner, from where she was standing she could see her child playing outside. Suddenly a taxivan drives in the street and hits the child a quite a high speed. This sends the child of flying trough The air. When she hits the ground she has a lot of momentum so she slides over the street. The mother, obviously in shock, runs up to the child. When the mother grabs her child het hand vanishes in The back of the Head of the child. So the mother stands there with her hand in The scull/brain of the run over child.
This was the first time ever in dutch law that emiotional damages where accepted.
Image credits: JoPie23
#14
Not a lawyer but a paralegal! We had a client who claimed to be the daughter of a man, but his other daughter claimed that wasn’t true. The mans estate went to probate court and they both had rival petitions going to be the administrator…(which in California you get money for along with your share of the estate) She was a nut and my boss regretted taking her on everytime we had to deal with her and after her trying to exhume the body, breaking into his house to “gather evidence” and sending us on a wild goose chase to family members in Arkansas who would vouch for her, claiming the decedent always said our client was his daughter.…..Cut to month later, we get a call from our client: the police are outside her house, she’s barricaded in and has a gun to her husband. She won’t come out, she keeps calling our office to talk the her attorney (who is not in that day) and I’m talking to her tell her and watching the police on the news at the same time. She ended up stabbing her husband, not killing him but leaving him a vegetable and she went to jail. Never found out if she was the real daughter or not.
Image credits: pinotprobs
#15
A mother sold the family farm out from under the son who was supposed to inherit it. Someone shot her (nonfatally). There were so many suspects that almost every lawyer in the county was assigned to defend one of them. Forensics eventually narrowed it down to two suspects, but each so adamantly pointed at the other as the shooter that it was going to be hard to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt of either one’s guilt. They both pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and served two years.
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