When the Truth Emerges: 36 Lawyers Shocked as Their Clients Unveil Jaw-Dropping Confessions
That’s probably mild compared to the things that I see in bankruptcy, but most I probably shouldn’t disclose. One of the major tenets of bankruptcy is that a debtor has to make a full and honest disclosure of their income, expenses, assets, and debts, so naturally, there are tons of reported cases of people hiding things to try to get out of their debts without surrendering assets.
Immigration (deportation defense) case. Our defense against deportation required showing “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” that my client’s US citizen children would suffer if he was deported. I had reviewed the law and facts of the case with him ad nauseam. He and his wife had reviewed their testimony with me a number of times. The children’s hardship did not seem like it would be strong enough to win the case because the parents told me that the kids were relatively healthy, doing well in school, and didn’t have any other noteworthy issues. All of the documents that they brought in supported their testimony. While testifying in court, the wife admits that they have a child (that they had not mentioned before) with a rare medical condition that required trips across the state to see a specialist every few months. During a short recess so I could figure out why they hadn’t disclosed this at any point in the last 3 years, they confessed that a family member who “knew a lot about this stuff” told them that having a citizen child with a serious medical condition hurt their case. The judge denied my request for a continuance to get evidence and expert testimony for the medical issue because they had ample time to provide the evidence before and hadn’t disclosed this, and ultimately, the judge denied the application because he found that that portion of their testimony lacked credibility due to it being disclosed at trial and they hadn’t provided corroborating evidence.
Hiding a crucial fact from them is not going to make the problem go away; it’s just going to make the eventual outcome much, much messier. So please, for the love of all that is holy, just tell your lawyer. They can handle it. What they can’t handle is a surprise witness, a hidden videotape, or the “minor detail” that the stolen jewels are, in fact, still in the glove compartment of your car.
Which one of these cautionary tales had you facepalming the hardest? Let’s cringe together in the comments!
Child Custody case where I represented grandparents seeking conservatorship of a preteen girl from bad bio parents. Asked all the usual questions in preparation about their home, who lives there, any criminal or CPS history, who the child would be around or alone with. Nothing remarkable. Child care plan involved the girl riding bus home from school and spending a couple hours at home before grandparents returned from work.
During the hearing, it comes out on cross of my client that their son who had recently been released from prison and is required to register as a s*x offender was residing in a trailer home on the property. (Where he would have a couple hours per school day with potential access to the child…)
We still won because the parents were horrible. Client later explained that we only asked them about people living *in the home* and it didn’t seem relevant to them. /facepalm
In our firm, crucial information the client didn’t tell us is referred to as “having a s*x offender living in the backyard.”.
I was representing a man that was accused of s******y assaulting the young daughter of his girlfriend (who was married to another man).
The key issue was whether or not my client’s DNA profile should have been at the scene (only skin cell tissue had been recovered, not seminal/bodily fluid DNA, and it was not an exact match, but rather a match to a profile that included him).
A few weeks before trial he finally told me that the woman’s other son was likely his (they had been having an affair for more than 5 years). The fact that the boy shared his DNA was a pivotal reason that the DNA profile would have been present. [Edit – grammar]
A big issue was a language barrier as my client did not speak English and we used an interpreter for all of our communications.
Police officer: I know [Mr. Defendant], I’ve arrested him on 3 prior occasions and he always gets away.
After 7 attempts to prep this witness to find out what can k**l the case and his career, he stonewalled me every time. I even said I’d prep him during his night shift. This case hinged upon the police officer’s credibility.
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