Would you feel guilty?
I am now handling a civil case. I got engaged only after the presentation of the plaintiff’s long line of witnesses. I’m only one year into practice (6 months in litigation) and I typically try my best to be friendly with the opposing counsels. I often become chatty with them while waiting for our case to be called. Whatever happens during the trial stays in trial. If I’m embarrassed, I don’t take it against the opposing counsel. I even approach them after the hearing ends and bid them a courteous goodbye.
There was this one time when I sat beside the defense counsel while we both waited for our case to be called. We chatted a lot. He told me about his years in practice and I asked for advice to ease the anxiety every trial. He also ranted about the profession after many years in practice. The accused, who was sitting beside his counsel, chimed in. He was eavesdropping and learned about a mutual experience that we had.
To cut a long story short, I plan to use that mutual experience in my cross-examination of him, for the purpose of proving his personal knowledge of the acts he’s accused of doing.
Now I feel guilty. At that time when we were talking to each other about our experiences, I didn’t think I could use that information. He freely shared this information with me. He was quite friendly, and so was his counsel.
Now I feel guilty about using this information against him. Huhu.