In Which We Find the Game

I often say that criminal-defense trial practice is about playing “what’s really going on here?” At every phase of a trial case, we are dealing with people who aren’t telling us the whole truth, because they don’t know it, don’t know its importance, don’t want to tell it, or don’t want us to know it. The facts are usually, at first glance, bad for us (else the client wouldn’t be a client), but there is always more to the story than the facts reveal at first glance. So the criminal-defense trial lawyer’s job is to figure out what’s really going on, the interesting twist, which is probably not explicitly stated, and to turn that truth to the client’s advantage.

In improv class we’re working on finding “the game of the scene,” the interesting twist, which is probably not explicitly stated and…hey, that’s “what’s really going on here?”!

On an assault case recently a prosecutor described the disputed issue like this: “she says she pulled the gun on him because he was assaulting her; he says he was defending himself because she pulled the gun; that’s the game.” I might not agree with him that that is the game, but I agree with him that there is a(t least one) game.

Without a game there is no trial.