Ativan and me winning cases

One of the biggest misconceptions people have is that every court case is like something from A Few Good Men and such movies which tend to exaggerate it all a bit. If they made movies that were realistically representing the work lawyers do, no one would watch it.

I myself have never trapped a witness or done anything Tom Cruise or Mathew McConaughey-like in my seven years that I have been a lawyer. In fact, in most cases, it all gets done without any jury and it is all mainly paperwork. One might say that it is among the most boring jobs in the world, unless you love it and unless you are really into it all.

And I am. I love being a lawyer, despite the bad press we get. In fact, I am not a bad guy at all, I think.
However, I had my problems when I started practicing law.

The first few dozen cases were the usual run-of-the-mill ones. It’s only myself, the other lawyer and the judge and it was all pretty uneventful. And then, one day, I was to have my first case in front of the jury. It was nothing spectacular, but it was the first time I was supposed to practice law in front of the jury.

And to make things even worse, the case was quite important locally, which meant that there will also be TV crews outside and correspondents inside the courtroom. From the very morning I could feel my throat closing up and my hands sweating every time I saw anything that had to do with the case.

I was well prepared and more than ready for the case, but there was something inside me, telling me that I could screw up and that I could easily become the talk of the town, how I lost the case and how I was no good. This made me so nervous that I was a lump of shivering meat and sweat by the time I was supposed to utter my first sentence.

Luckily, there were other people in my team and I had to leave it to them to handle the case. It was horrible. I had the feeling that I left both me and the client down. I wanted to make sure that this doesn’t happen ever again and so I went to a shrink, for the first time in my life.

He told me straight away that it was a panic attack. I told him that I do not want this to happen ever again and that I need something that will prevent this if I feel it coming on.

The shrink prescribed Ativan to me and the next time I went to court feeling queasy and nervous I popped my dose and everything was more than okay. I needed it a few times more and after that, I somehow grew out of it. I guess I became more confident and I actually have no need for Ativan anymore. Still, it saved my career.