Talking Points is not a lawyer (though he did take the LSAT during one very misguided summer in the mid-nineties). But he feels qualified to offer some advice to Joseph Klock, the lawyer who represented Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris today before the Florida Supreme Court.
1. When addressing the Court (especially a potentially hostile one), refrain from sassing, getting in the face of, talking over, or in other ways mouthing off to the justices. While this seems like a sure-fire strategy, it sometimes produces negative results.
2. When presenting arguments, refrain from interjecting or ending statements with gratuitous throw-away lines commonly used on Hardball. Free form prose poems about chads (“hanging chads, banging chads, pregnant chads, schmegmant chads, etc.”) are particularly to be avoided.
3. Avoid legal arguments which imply that the vice-president’s campaign would actually be in a much better position to lodge complaints once the election is certified and his opponent is elected.
