I got del taco for breakfast. Solid decision.

Fairly lively discussion on yesterday's thread concerning how judicial appointments are usually dominated by political concerns, rather than the actual legal abilities and reputation of the applicants.

Now, that's an unfortunate dynamic we all know about, but an additional point of interest was also stressed-that being that sometimes there are no outstanding lawyers to choose from, which then offers some justification to focus on politics and demographics when choosing form an uninspiring, mediocre field of applicants.

And Exhibit #1, as to such point, was the current 12 applicants vying to replace Judge Gonzalez. They were derided by some posters as being long on ambition, but short on legal ability.

That seemed quite a harsh assessment, so I examined the list myself.

And yes, I recognized several of the 12 names, but I only recognized such names as such applicants were people who have made multiple attempts at being appointed or elected as judge, as opposed to being known for great legal skills and reputation.

I think 3 of the 12 would do a fine job in my opinion. I don't want to mention who they are as that could be interpreted as an insult to the other 9.

And it could be that some of these remaining 9 would do fine. I just don't know them

I don't know, but what I do believe, after decades of practice, is that discovery, in general, is a grossly over-rated litigation technique.

By the time I get to trial, the documents that I score points with were either provided by my own client, or in some cases obtained by subpoena or releases.

I have seldom obtained great documents from the opposing side, via traditional discovery requests, that have really been used to great effect at trial to gain points with the trier of fact, or to discredit witnesses, etc.

I asked several colleagues, and once they're really gave it some thought as to really effective documents or information they used at court proceedings, they agreed that the vast majority of the time they obtained them directly from their client, or via methods other than discovery requests served on the other side.

Now, a lot of this may vary depending on what area of practice we are talking about.

Now, that all said, although myself and the colleagues I spoke to agreed that we have not obtained too many dramatically game-changing documents through discovery, that written discovery was still quite valuable for a different reason–when parties fail to adequately respond, eventually that can be used to gut certain claims or defenses they offer.

In a time when everyone is complaining about everything and everyone in the world, I would like to celebrate Bill LaBorde at Oasis Court Reporting. He is a genuine, authentic, and hardworking member of our legal community. If you're looking to try a new firm, or if you have the choice between the many in town, please consider Bill/Oasis. He goes above and beyond in ways that most people will never find out about, he is a friend to our community and I would love to see him have all the successes he deserves. Thank God for people like Bill!