with defense counsel. To my surprise, Smith wanted to leave him on the jury. “It’s very risky to leave a lawyer on a jury in any case, let alone a case where the lawyer is friends with the defense counsel,” I said. “I trust him,” Smith said. “And won’t it show the other jurors how confident we are in our case if we leave a friend of the defense lawyer on the jury?” Smith had no legal training or formal education, but his emotional intelligence and animal magnetism was very high. He was right. At the end of jury selection, Judge Oden-Orr read the numbers of the jurors remaining on the jury. When the lawyer-juror’s number was read, he turned to me and my client in front of the entire courtroom and excitedly thanked us for allowing him to remain on the jury. “So far, so good,” I thought. In my opening statement I relied almost exclusively on my trial consultant, Adam Wolfe. Wolfe had spent the last month developing a compelling case theme and stunning visual demonstratives that, in hindsight, may have won the case for us in opening. The second day of trial went even better. We called only four witnesses in our case-in-chief: (1) my friend (and local landlord tenant expert) Kevin Mehrens, (2) Masha, the person who first found Frank the cat, (3) Ashley Andrade, the landlord’s ex-wife, and (4) Smith, my client. Our first-year associate, Nate Haberman, did a great job handling the direct examination of Masha. The jury seemed to appreciate the fact that a brand- new lawyer was getting valuable courtroom experience. The star witness of the trial was Ashley Andrade. As it turned out, she had become so passionate about civil justice during her nasty divorce that she had taken the LSAT and applied to law school during the pendency of our case. By the time of our trial, she was a 2L. On direct examination Andrade told the jury how her ex-husband stole Frank the cat and how he freaked out after receiving a call about the case from The Oregonian. She testified she and Devon Andrade left disparaging remarks about the case in the OregonLive.com comments section under an alias. She explained how she had bought a disguise and a burner phone before anonymously dropping Frank off at the animal shelter. The cross examination of Ashley Andrade by the defense attorney was a perfect example of why it is important to avoid asking a question on cross when you do not know the answer. In an effort to attack Ashley Andrade’s motives, defense counsel asked her if she had ever used an online alias to make disparaging comments about her ex-husband. The question backfired and may have been the most impactful testimony of the entire trial. Q: Since The Oregonian article, have you ever used an alias? A: Possibly in one other context. The Cat Worth Seven-Figures continued from p. 35 36 Trial Lawyer | Fall 2024
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