A friend asked me to detail this whole process, so I will do so here. I should point out that the severity and length of these phases are directly proportional to the length and intensity of the trial.
1. Immediately Post-Trial: Beer and Recap
In my experience, two things are absolutely necessary after nerve-fraying time spent in front of a jury. The first is a cold beer. Preferably on tap, but something in a bottle will do if it tastes decent, so long as it is transferred to the mug of my choosing. For me, cracking open a beer after a trial is the psychological reverse of putting on the suit before jury selection. As one begins the process, so the other ends it.
The beer must also be paired with another human being. After any trial, I've got something to share. Maybe it is funny. Maybe it is sad. Maybe it is just confusing. Regardless, something noteworthy happened, and the noteworthy thing was wrapped up in a veritable sea of other data. Having another set of ears is critical to the whole mess making sense and slowly forcing its way into my cosmology.
2. A Few Hours After the Fact: Holy Shit, I'm tired!
I can't speak for other trial attorneys, but in the days immediately preceding the trial, as well as during the trial itself, my body and I make a bizarre compact. My body will, for the duration of the trial, overlook its usual demands such as food and sleep. This can be extremely useful in those frantic hours of preparation before and during. However, there is the price afterwards.
The first thing I get back is my appetite. I've been known to overlook multiple meals during the trial period. Usually a few hours after the trial, I get insanely hungry. I'm talking "eat a large pizza by myself" hungry. I've been known to go to a restaurant and order dinner twice, much to the confusion of my server.
It is worth mentioning that the food eaten in this period is not healthy food. This is 100% indulgence-ville, population: Me. If it isn't fried, bread-related, cheese-bearing, tasty meat, or Japanese... I probably don't want it. In my old age, I've at least started to exercise some restrain in my diet. Phase 2 is my brief respite from that, so that I can appease the stomach gods.
Usually this gorging is immediately followed by the the other thing I've been putting off: sleep. Once I'm no longer adrenalized, my post-adjudicatory feast is followed by at least six or seven hours of sleeping like the dead. Sad as it is to say it, that's a long period of sleep for me. I'm usually a light sleeper, but this is different. My wife coming in or getting out of bed won't wake me up. Nothing short of physical blows will. Evidently, last night, I inadvertently locked our bedroom door while she was out watching TV. No amount of knocking could wake me up, so she unwillingly slept on the couch... I'll be bringing her Starbucks at work this afternoon.
Moving on...
3. The Morning After: I can brain again!
Post-trial, my various systems come back online in order of complexity, with the most sophisticated, my mind, coming back at the last.
A jury trial is an extraordinary mental exercise. You've got to know your case backwards and forwards: all the facts that you are using, as well as your opponent. You pass them through the filters of evidence law and theatrical showmanship. You do all that while making a proper appellate records. You also have to function as a sort of half-assed psychologist, helping your client keep it together in front of the audience (read: jury).
In short, you spend hours being as brilliant, persuasive, intuitive, and cunning as you possibly can. It is exhausting.
I retain my mental agility for phase 1, but once I hit phase 2? Forget it. I'm a mindless oaf. My brain has done its work. It is no longer scared or excited. It just wants to rest. You doubtless would not enjoy my company at one of my post-trial "double dinnners", because I eat like a man doing a job. A man possessed, even. There's no witty discussion. Just food.
After food and a decent night's sleep, I start acting like my normal self. Once properly caffeinated, I may even attempt jokes and witticisms. That said, this "mental recovery" can get pretty squirrelly. Depending on the level of strain, it might take as long as two days for the brain to regain its full capacity. At present, I'm two days out from a trial and I still feel a smidge dumber than usual.
4. The Evening After: Jesus Christ, look at all this shit that has piled up!
Of course, affairs such as a jury trial are labor intensive. The practice of law consists of a thousand little jobs that you regularly do to keep clients happy and cases moving. Trial preparation and practice force you to put about five hundred of those jobs on hiatus so you can be ready. The problem is that the workload does not know that you are at trial, and frankly, it doesn't care. It keeps piling up like a petulant, scorned mountain.
Once you've mostly regained your faculties, you start to notice all the stuff you haven't been doing it. After a trial week, my voice mail and letter bin are usually explosively full. That has to be dealt with. There are new cases to review and clients to talk to.
Your reward for working your ass off is to work your ass off some more, catching up.
It is no different at home. If there are a thousand little jobs that keep a law practice running, there are a million required to run a house with a toddler in it. There's a certain amount of triage that goes on when I am at trial. While I marginally give a damn about dishes, laundry, and vacuuming when things are normal, that quantum of "give a damn" dwindles down to nothing during a trial. As a result, my home is usually a reeking pit once I am done with a trial.
That said, all that mindless manual labor is good opportunity for brain recovery.
And that concludes it. By the time I get everything caught up, the roller-coaster is over and I am back to situation normal. I am sure most other trial attorneys have their own unique phases of recovery, and the associated practices to go with them, but those are mine.
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