Last night in court, I was in an elevator full of attorneys on our way up to our individual courtrooms. We were there for a trial skills course, tonight we would all be doing a voir dire. There was a judge in there with us too who said “ok. Everybody CALM DOWN. Remember: have fun with all this. I can hear you all breathing hard. Remember to have fun.”
My paralegal said the same thing to me when I was burned out and lost preparing for my first trial. She wrote “smile” on a post it and wrote “have fun with it” on another at different points. To save space, I combined the post it’s and voila- we have what my paralegal told me, a judge told me, and how Smile in the ARENA came to be.
Smile, have fun, if we aren’t having fun what are we doing any of this for? Smile, I’ll see you out there!