Witness number 10, attorney at law

I hope you all read ISBA member Phil Hamilton's article about his turn at jury service in the June 2010 Illinois Bar Journal. (It's here if you missed it.) Phil describes his stint as a juror and the sometimes surprising lessons it taught him about lawyering. That got us at the IBJ thinking: what about lawyers who have played other nonlawyer roles in the justice system? Lawyer as deponent, lawyer as witness, lawyer as client, and so on. Wouldn't it be interesting to hear from ISBA members who have fresh experience of this kind, we wondered, especially if it gave them a new perspective on how to be lawyer? "I was the client from hell. Okay, not quite. But here's what I learned about serving clients -- about what matters to them -- that I didn't really understand before...." Have you done this kind of role-reversal lately? Did it make you a better lawyer? Are you willing to write about it? If so, and if you're an ISBA member, we'd like to hear from you. Send me an e-mail at mmathewson@isba.org.