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"Practicing" attorneys
12/21/05
by JT
Some of you out there in the HippoNation may know that fellow Deadly Hippo staff writer Clay has been commissioned by cbssportsline.com to write a couple of articles per week. We are all very proud of his accomplishment and regularly read his articles so that we can regularly tell him how badly he sucks ballsac. In the aforementioned articles there are an identical two sentences present in all, just a little ditty about Clay and what he does. These same sentences consistently send my brain into an imaginative whirlwind. This will often leave me laughing out loud at my desk while spending the next hour or so in a mental vacation running possibility after possibility in my head.... two simple sentences...
Clay Travis is a CBS SportsLine contributor. He is a practicing attorney in Nashville, Tenn.
You may be asking yourself, "What is so funny about this sentence? Has JT finally drank himself into insanity?" Whether or not I am clinically insane due to drink remains to be seen, but there is a reason why this is so funny to me. Because I am a former basketball player, my brain computes everything with some sort of connection to sports. So when I think of a practicing attorney, I imagine something completely different than what it actually means. For example, during my basketball career at the University of Colorado, we would practice at least once per day (more often twice). During these practices we would work on basketball skills such as shooting, ball handling, defense, drop step dunks, reverse pivots, two handed chest passes, and shot fakes. We would work on our offense, go over scouting reports, and run and then run even more... run beyond the limits that God believed he had set in place for living creatures. When can we stop running Lord!?!?! Often coaches could be heard in the background. On a basketball court it could be considered that they were yelling helpful tips and suggestions to their players. On the street the same suggestions would be considered merciless insults and would undoubtedly start a fight. All of these things were involved when we were practicing. As we all know practicing law is different than practicing basketball. But somehow in my cerebrum there does not have to be a difference. These are the thoughts in my mind when I here the term "practicing attorney". And my imagination begins spinning out of control as I ponder exactly what Clay's attorney practices must look like:
1. Is he sitting in front of a mirror practicing his looks of pity, concern, outrage, etc. to use for added effect with the jury.

Clay practices lawyering in his throwback 14th century french lawyer suit
2. Is there a smaller courtroom, maybe without as many seats? Something that they use for practice? Do they have audio tracks to simulate crowd noise? Such as the shocking gasp from those present as Clay unveils that Tony is not that babies daddy... followed by the mock gavel and judge saying that "one more outburst like that and I'll hold you ALL in contempt!"?
3. Does he have a wily proven former attorney serving as his coach? Who would this be? I picture Clay in the practice courtroom getting reemed by Andy Griffith as Matlock after he drops the ball again on his opening statement. "You cannot f*ck this up Clay!" Matlock would scream. "If you lose the jury in the opening minutes then you'll be playing catch up the rest of the game! It will throw of our entire gameplan!!!" Get your shit together or I'm benching you and starting Johnson!!" Then Clay wouldn't say anything, but just stare off at one of the walls with a pissed off look on his face as he takes his verbal beating. Then he would bitch about it in the locker room after practice.
Coach Matlock screams at his lawyers during practice
4. Is there a locker room at the practice courtroom where the lawyers can shower up after a hard practice? Do they have lockers where they keep their thousand dollar court suits? Do they have practice suits that aren't quite as nice but still allow them to practice attorneying sufficiently? Maybe a suit from Kohls, or JC Penney. Do they wear throwback Hugo Black, Dwight Murrow or Cicero suits to their practices?

This Hugo Black throwback suit goes for over $400 at Foot Locker
5. Are their harder working practicing attorneys who stay after practice to work on their objections, how they allow objects into evidence, and how they cross examine witnesses? Do these hard working suck asses sometimes end up in heated one on one lawyering, debating the legalities of Title IX restrictions or Roe v. Wade?
6. Does Coach Matlock make them sleep in the courtroom after losing a couple cases in a row so they learn to "defend their house"? Does he bring in motivational lawyer movies to try to get them going such as "A Time to Kill", "A Few Good Men", and "The Devil's Advocate". Then he would pause the movie towards the end of "A Time to Kill" and yell at his practicing lawyers. Saying things like "You see that Matthew McConaughey right there??? That's how you handle a jury f*ckers! Shit... Thats a real lawyer.... 'now imagine that girl is white'!?!? Why can't you say some shit like that Clay!?!?"

Many attorney's practice day and night with the dreams of being as good
a lawyer as Matthew McConaughey
7. Do they tape the court cases and then go over the film the next day while practicing? Does Coach Matlock repeatedly stop the film to unload on his lawyers? "What's the f*ck was that Clay?? Why didn't you object right there?? He was clearly badgering the witness!! WHERE'S YOUR F*CKING HEAD TRAVIS!!!?!??! HE IS LAWYERING THE ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT OUT OF YOU!!"
8. Do they have to run if they have a bad practice? For example, if Clay and his fellow attorneys were to repeatedly botch the closing arguments would they have to stop and run suicides?

Some attorneys run windsprints after consecutive poor objections
This is just a random sampling of how my brain operates. This thought process inevitably leads to different subjects in which people are practicing.... such as:
Practicing CPA's - I'm not even sure how you practice doing taxes. Although, since they only work a couple months per year maybe they do spend the rest of it getting some practice reps in. I bet they practice by doing the taxes of famous rich dead people in order to get their accountant skills tight. Like JFK Jr. And then they debate on whether they can still write off his jet as a business expense....

A google image search of JFK Jr brought up this picture.
Practicing surgeons - This is probably the scariest practicing label out
there. I'm pretty sure if you are going in for triple bypass surgery on
the ole' ticker, the last thing you want to hear before they cut your chest
plate out is a nurse saying, "Dr. Smith is one of the best heart surgeons
practicing today."
"Can I have my open heart surgery after practice? Maybe on gameday
or something?"
Practicing homosexuals - There is no such thing as practicing being a homosexual if you are a man. Once you've had another man's penis in your mouth it's not practice. You've become a gay my friend and there is no going back. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Now if you are a girl, especially a very hot girl, and you want to practice being a homosexual; you can practice as much as you want. In fact you can use the practice gym at my house... it's in my bedroom, don't mind me.

Keep practicing girls... seriously...don't mind us
Practicing Jews - I'm not going to go into this one... some things are best left in your head. But if you want a sneak peak.... everyone is dressed like Mike Myers in Coffee Talk.
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