SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING BLUE...CAN I GET A WITNESS?

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING BLUE...CAN I GET A WITNESS?

When I was in high school, '64-'66, I played in a band. We were actually pretty decent. We - Bedlam, Inc. - played lots of gigs and around Dallas. We opened once for Paul Revere and the Raiders and once for Chuck Berry. My dad gave me a Gibson ES 335 - B.B. King's guitar - a very nice jazz axe. But to get the sound I wanted, I bought a '56 Stratocaster, used, for $210, and a Fender Showman Amp. My Strat was Dakota red, a rare custom color. Ser. No. 11111. It had a great neck, which is one key to a great guitar. I played lead guitar, mostly blues and dance music, and it was perfect for that.  

After high school, I dragged the old red Strat along with me, through college and then law school. Then I got into practice in the Dallas DA's office and got married. So for about three decades, I chunked it under my couch and pulled it out to play infrequently.

One day in 1998, I got to wondering what the thing was worth. I found a copy of George Gruhn's book on Strats, and lo and behold, found out it could be worth some serious money. Then George Gruhn himself came to Dallas for a guitar show. I took it out to him, in its original case, and for $15 he appraised it for $18,500.  

So, what's the point? I'll tell you. That old blues guitar was irreplaceable, value-wise. Clapton himself plays one almost exactly like it, and John Mayer's -- which has been randomly sanded, stripped, scratched and sandblasted, is similar. The hand-wound pickups from the '50's just don't sound like the new ones. They're old-school gritty and whangy, and in Strats, grit is gold, and whang is platinum. 

You can't find them anymore. You can't make them. You can copy them, reproduce them, customize new ones, or tear them apart and remake them, down to the "T," but they still won't sound the same. They are what they are, and all the equalizers, fuzz boxes, distorters, overdrives, boost pedals and tone controls in the world can't give you the same sound. You can't fix perfect.

 Same goes with witnesses. A good witness is like a '56 Strat. And let me just say that in my experience, giving a '56 strat to somebody who doesn't know how to play one is a useless effort. It won't hurt the Strat. You can drop those off a building - almost - and they'll survive. But you won't get the grit, or the whang, or the tone, the pushed note or the whine. Just listen to Stevie Ray Vaugh, Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa or Mark Knopfler. You'll see what I mean. They aren't Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, John Denver or Tommy Emmanuel. They don't want to be. They don't need to be.

So please get this. A great witness is priceless. People don't realize that. Don't fall for the idea that they're fungible, like engines in Chevrolets. Don't ever undervalue your bestwitness, and don't ever undervalue or underestimate the opposition's best witness. They are to die for. And the reality is, most trial lawyers -- or people who occasionally try cases -- there's a difference - really don't know how to use them. Lots of times, they don't air them out, don't ask them enough questions, don't find out enough about them, don't humanize them, and don't present them in the right light - direct or cross. The result is disastrous on occasion, as the famous Bill Gates deposition shows so clearly. They leave little nuggets -- and sometimes big nuggets -- for me and others to find on cross. Meaning no disrespect, that famous Bill Gates disaster might not have needed to happen. We'll never know what really took place. You have to give credit to the lawyer who cross-examined him, but still. You have to wonder whether Bill took the time to be prepared, but still.

When to look: every time. In every case you have that goes to trial, and every one that might.  The big firms, in my humble opinion, often overlook this angle. But that's where you -- every lawyer taking any case to trial -- ought to spend time locating all the witnesses there are. I've written about this before, and I'll write more about it later on because it's a big, overlooked deal -- a huge deal. The main point - I'm not kidding you, the inescapable point - is that you have to take the time to find out what your witness is really worth. And that takes practice.

Oh - and if you'd like to see the appraisal for my old red '56 Strat, here it is.

That's it for now,

Brady

Brady Sparks, P.C.

“Trials and Trial Consultancy-restoring your passion for trial work"