
I thoroughly enjoyed last week’s Tex-ABOTA meeting where I got my tail thoroughly kicked by incoming ABOTA president Steve Quattlebaum of East Oklahoma in the “Masters in Trial” program at Texas A&M- Texarkana.
We put on a toxic tort case and I drew closing for the defense team opposite Steve, who actually wrote the case problem several years ago. Kinda like arguing theology against Pope Francis. He knows the problem just “slightly” better than I do! But very happy to join the East Texas – ABOTA team for the trial.
Our audience was comprised of East Texas and Arkansas ABOTA chapter members, as well as a large contingent of local high school students, who stayed after to deliberate, along with the designated jury of local luminaries. The “real” jury didn’t complete deliberations, but its 6-3 initial vote on the warnings question echoed the 7-4 vote by the students, who then voted unanimously for the defense on question #2 – the causation question. (Both teams claimed victory at dinner). It was great seeing the interest in the high school students.
And also great for me to see the spectacular campus A&M – Texarkana has become. I first saw it in 1984 when it was East Texas State University’s satellite campus in Texarkana, and I was the student representative on the ETSU’s honorary doctorates committee. We voted Malcolm Forbes an honorary doctorate to be awarded when he was visiting Texarkana and I borrowed my history professor’s car to drive over to Texarkana for the ceremony. All I knew about Forbes at that time was a quote in an article “How to Write A Business Letter” he’d written to the effect that “words are like inflated money – the more you use, the less each one is worth.” That’s always stuck with me. Which (in a world of page and word limits) is fortunate.
I also got one of the highly sought-after Yeti mugs for my efforts, and isn’t that what it’s really all about?