I appeared for another oral argument recently, and it was my second in two weeks. That’s relatively unusual in the appellate world; very few cases reach the North Carolina Supreme Court, where every case has oral argument, and only a small percentage of cases heard at the North Carolina Court of Appeals are scheduled for oral argument. Having two oral arguments in as many weeks was remarkable.
You can view the argument HERE.
While last week’s case involved contract law, this most recent case was criminal and involved the Constitutional right to counsel. My client and another client are co-defendants, so I split my time with the other defendant’s attorney. Usually I would have 30 minutes to present my case, but for this case, I had less than half that time. It was imperative that I explain the case concisely and spend my time wisely. That required anticipating the judges’ questions even before they were asked.
In this clip from that argument, you can see two indications that I was successful at identifying what the judges wanted to know. First, you will see that I made a point about the “appearance of a conflict” which one of the judges immediately latched on to, admitting that he had planned to ask me about it. Later, you will see that I listed out three questions that I thought the other side should have to answer. When the other side’s attorney had her argument, one of the judges asked one of my questions to her almost verbatim.