Divorce lawyer cries recalling case he shouldn't have won
People either love lawyers or hate them but one thing will always be true, if you find yourself in need of legal assistance, you hope to have a lawyer on your side. But no matter your personal beliefs about lawyers, they're not all out to get unsuspecting people. Many lawyers get into the profession to help people in need and are empathetic to the misfortune of others.
James Sexton is a divorce lawyer that recently sat down with Steven Bartlett on his podcast "The Diary of a CEO" to discuss what he's seen in his work. Things took an emotional turn when Sexton opens up about a case that still haunts him because according to the attorney, he shouldn't have won the case. The clip that shows Sexton becoming overcome with emotion is a small glimpse into the nearly three hour episode about the breakdown of marriages.
In this clip posted to TikTok, Sexton shares about his former client who was a pimp at the time that had been violently abusive to the mother of his children. The woman took the man to court with photographic evidence of the abuse she sustained at the hands of his client. It was seemingly a quick case that should've ended in a victory for the mother who experienced the abuse but that turned out to be wishful thinking.
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Sexton explains, "there was a case that I won that I should've lost. I represented a pimp, that's what he did for a living. He's in prison for a long, long time now, but at the time he had very brutally abused a woman who he had kids with and the lawyer on the other side of the case, the lawyer who represented his co-parent, his victim if you will, was very inexperienced and a judge who was very impatient."
This quickly amounts to a disappointing situation where the judge was being unhelpful to the inexperienced attorney and Sexton is left watching helplessly as the green prosecutor struggles with basic court proceedings. Since Sexton was representing the defendant, he couldn't step in to offer assistance to the prosecutor who was fumbling a case in real time.
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"The key piece of evidence they had was a photograph of this woman's face after my client had allegedly beat her up quite badly. And getting a photograph entered into evidence is very easy but it requires a very specific phrasing," he says before sharing the exact process. "For whatever reason, probably lack of experience, opposing counsel I guess didn't know how to get a photograph into evidence. Now normally in that situation a judge will be helpful but this judge was just not in the mood."
Because the opposing lawyer doesn't seem to understand the process to submit evidence, she never properly enters the photograph requiring Sexton to object to the questioning attempted. The divorce lawyer begins to choke up when recalling how flustered the inexperienced opposing counsel was becoming.
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"I remember looking at the judge and thinking like, 'you're letting this happen. You're letting this happen, don't let this happen.," Sexton says as his voice shakes. "She's poor. She's poor, that's why she's gonna lose. She's gonna lose because she's poor and she can't afford a lawyer and he's going to win because he can afford a lawyer that knows how to put a document into evidence and there's something really wrong about that."
People were moved by the lawyers vulnerability in sharing his emotions around watching an injustice unfold as others share their frustration with how the system works.
"In a weird way, it makes me very happy that he’s very emotional about this. Takes a great amount of empathy to put your work aside and recognize her position," someone writes.
"The way that the opposite lawyer shows more empathy then a judge is actually the worst thing that could happen to you in court," another person laments.
"It had to have taken an immense amount of bravery for this woman to even show up to court and go up against her abuser. the fact that the odds were stacked up against her like this.. heartbreaking," one commenter shares.
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"Using the right combination of words should never be a reason concrete evidence can’t be submitted. That’s insane," another chimes in.
Being a lawyer isn't always easy and sometimes good lawyers wind up representing terrible people while being bound by ethics to do their job to the best of their abilities. It's telling that this case still haunts Sexton and while his client won in court that day with the case against him being dismissed, it may be of some consolation to woman involved that he is now behind bars.