When my week started on Monday, the only thing on my court schedule for Friday was taking misdemeanor appointments.
One line on the calendar.
Simple. Straightforward. Predictable.
But criminal court doesn’t care about your calendar.
By the time I finished, I had been in four courts on three different floors, circling the building like a human GPS rerouting every ten minutes.
Court One — the client who didn’t check in
Court started at 9:00, but Fridays in Harris County are the big arraignment day in misdemeanor court, so there was no reason for me to rush into court at the exact moment the docket started.
I walked into my first court ready to see my client.
File reviewed.
Notes prepared.
Plan in place.
He hadn’t checked in.
Not in the hallway.
Not anywhere.
So I told the bailiff, “I’m on appointments in another court. I’ll be back when I can,” and headed to the next floor.
I didn’t make it back to that court until almost noon.
Apparently, I timed my return perfectly.
The coordinator had just called my office to let me know my client was waiting for me.
Of course he was.
Timing is apparently a group project.
Court Two — the community service question
I went to another floor because I needed to verify something important.
My client had told me he was completing his community service. If he had completed it, I could get his case dismissed.
But there was another problem.
He wasn’t supposed to be appearing that day because he had told me he would be completing the community service. That’s why I needed the DA to verify it.
The chief in that court didn’t have the answer and asked one of the newer prosecutors to contact someone in the diversion department.
“Sure,” he told her, “but I’ll need some time for a response.”
“No problem. I’ll come back later.”
So I left and went to handle other things.
Then I came back.
The DA I needed to talk to was at the bench, so the chief told me to come back again.
So I did.
And eventually, when I came back for the third time, the DA’s were gone.
I never got the verification.
By then, it was nearly 1:00 p.m.
And the judge had forfeited my client’s bond and issued a warrant because he hadn’t shown up.
Which was exactly the problem I had been trying to resolve all morning.
I was trying to verify that my client had completed the community service he told me he was completing so that I could get his case dismissed.
Instead, I left the courthouse without the verification and with a warrant I now had to deal with.
Come back.
Yes.
Again.
Court Three — the client who missed court and got re-arrested
One of my clients had missed court earlier in the month and got re-arrested.
I went to see her.
But they hadn’t brought her over from the jail.
The bailiff told me they didn’t have any females but they could make another run later. She asked me to wait while she made a call.
Unfortunately, the call didn’t get me any closer to seeing my client.
“They’re gonna call me back in 15 minutes,” she said. “Do you have another court to go to?”
Of course I did.
So I couldn’t see my client.
I couldn’t update her.
Just another “come back later.”
Still no appointments so I decided to go to the attorney floor and decompress for a few minutes.
At that point, I had been to three courts and had accomplished exactly nothing.
Court Four — the on-call court
Meanwhile, I was taking misdemeanor appointments in a completely different court.
Different judge.
Different coordinator.
Different rhythm.
So I had to keep an eye on my email like it was a heart monitor.
Because at any moment, a new case could drop.
A new client could appear.
A new problem could land in my lap.
And I’d have to sprint to wherever they needed me.
Meanwhile, my other courts were still waiting.
The missing client could show up.
The jail could finally transport my client.
The DA could finally verify the community service.
Or nobody could call me back.
Which, frankly, was also a very real possibility.
So my day became less about working through a schedule and more about managing a moving target.
I went back upstairs.
I went back downstairs.
I checked my email.
I checked in with a bailiff.
I looked for a prosecutor.
I waited.
I moved.
I waited some more.
And eventually, some things got done.
Not everything.
Because court doesn’t work like that.
You don’t arrive at 9:00, complete the task you came to complete, and neatly check it off your list.
Sometimes you spend an entire morning trying to find the person you were supposed to talk to.
Sometimes your client is in custody but hasn’t been transported.
Sometimes the person you need is waiting on someone else.
Sometimes you need five minutes of someone’s time and spend two hours trying to get it.
And while all of that is happening, you still have a law practice to run.
The emails don’t stop coming.
The phone calls don’t stop coming.
Clients still need answers.
Discovery still needs to be reviewed.
Motions still need to be drafted.
Trial prep still needs to happen.
Court settings still need to be entered.
And somewhere in the middle of all of this, I still have to remember what happened in each of those four courts.
That’s the part people don’t see.
Court doesn’t replace the rest of my work.
Court creates more of it.
By the time I leave the courthouse, I have new information to process.
New calls to make.
New court dates.
New tasks.
New problems.
And usually, a few things that were supposed to be handled that day but now have to wait.
Because court took the time I thought I had for everything else.
And that is the real trick of criminal defense.
It’s not just being prepared for what you know is coming.
It’s having a plan for the unexpected without letting the unexpected make you forget everything else.
My calendar said Friday was simple.
One court.
One line.
Misdemeanor appointments.
Criminal court had other ideas.
Four courts.
Three floors.
A missing client.
A client waiting in jail.
A dismissal that needed to be verified.
And an on-call court that could have summoned me at any moment.
By the end of the day, I finally left the courthouse.
But I wasn’t done.
Because court isn’t my workday.
Court is what happens in the middle of it.
P.S. And for anyone wondering what happened with the warrant in Court Two: on the following Monday, I received an email confirming that my client had completed his community service on Friday.
He had been given the community-service offer months earlier and had previously signed up for community service but failed to show. The judge had set the case for bond forfeiture, which meant a warrant would issue if my client didn’t appear in court.
My client told me he was going to complete the community service that Friday instead of appearing in court. Given his history, I wasn’t going to simply assume he had followed through.
I was trying to get the DA to verify that he had actually shown up for community service that day. If he had, I could ask the judge to hold off on the warrant.
He had.
I just couldn’t get anyone to confirm it before the courthouse closed for the day.
The State filed the dismissal on Monday, and because the case was dismissed, the warrant issue was resolved as well.
On (In)justice 