I've told this before here, but it's been a while.
Way back, I did hundreds of divorces (simple, basic, low cost, and almost all women clients).
We had multiple offices, so we took turns on court days; one friday a month, I'd be downtown Detroit doing 9-10 divorces.
Pro confesso, meaning one party, no dispute, just short 4-5 minute walk-throughs in front of a judge.
Most of the cases you'd have were taken in and worked up by other lawyers, so you had not met these people (women) before. All lawyers were supposed to put notes in the file of anything out of the ordinary (I did, but they didn't). So I'd look at my next file for Mrs Jones, and stand outside the courtroom and ask...
Is Mrs Jones here? And she'd raise her hand, and I'd give her a short prep on what to expect.
Ok, this is easy, all yes or no questions, except even in no-fault I have to ask the basic reason for the divorce. Now really, it's no one's business, and you don't need to go into any detail or say anything embarrassing, just say you couldn't get along or were incompatible. (A half dozen of my clients had been married to men who later decided they liked men and not women, and that is a story no woman likes to tell in a courtroom.)
So one day, my client is an older inner city black woman, and she looked like she'd had a hard life, and was not friendly at all. I give her the talk, and then we go in to the courtroom.
When called, she takes the stand, is sworn in, and I run through the yes-no questions, no problem.
Then I ask her to turn to the judge and tell him why she wants a divorce, and she tells the judge....
Well, I shot the miserable sumbitch 6 times, and he didn't die. (this is an absolutely true story) See, it made complete sense to her, if he had died she wouldn't need a divorce.
With 40 lawyers and clients, the courtroom is never really quiet, and the judge is half asleep but suddenly you could hear a pin-drop, and the judge sits up in rapt attention.
I had no idea she would say this, but the judge is giving me the stink eye like I put her up to it.
I have 50 questions, but I cannot ask one of them because I have no idea what she might say, under oath about attempted murder, arrest, statute of limitations, police reports, yada. She is my client, and I owe her a fiduciary duty to protect her, and I also need to not lose my license to practice law for being a dumb ass by getting her to confess to attempted murder under oath in a courtroom. By rights, the judge should have immediately read her her Miranda warnings, but didn't. And I'm not going to.
So long seconds go by in total silence while I try to figure out how to handle this. So finally, I look at the judge and say...
Well your honor, I'm satisfied there's been a breakdown in this particular marriage (laughter in the courtroom), do you have any further questions for my client? He looks at her, and her great big purse on her lap (big enough to carry a full size 6 shot revolver; no magnetometers in those days), and he slides down in his chair and rolls all the way away from her and says....
No sir, I think you are right, I find that all details of the case are before the court, and I hereby order a final divorce. And he bangs the gavel down.
She's up and out a side door inside the bar, and I run out the back door to catch her and find out what the F happened with her shooting her husband 6 times, and she steps into an elevator, and the doors close, and I never see her again.
Well, that was different.
Then there was the stark naked hooker being perp walked down the crowded courthouse hallway one morning (not even shoes). I'm waiting with another young client outside the courtroom, and tell the cops
hey you should put a raincoat on her or something.
We did, but she don't want no raincoat. She had stripped naked in front of a judge upstairs who immediately disqualified himself, and she was being taken to another judge for a criminal contempt hearing. Buck naked.
There's more, but I'll spare you. For now.