Staying Calm and Collected During Emotional Cases
Are you in the middle of a very emotional and intense case and you’re not sure how to handle yourself in court? My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m a Tulsa attorney with Wirth Law Office. I’ve been practicing for seven years, primarily doing family and criminal law. I want to help you by giving you just a few tips to make law easy, and to help you navigate the court process.
Today I want to talk about trying to keep your cool in court. Way easier said than done in this case, especially if you’ve got situations where the case is just very emotionally charged. Tempers are running high. People are on a short fuse. It’s very, very easy to lose your cool in these types of situations. I understand that this sounds like common sense, but as much as you might want to just twist off, you cannot do that in court.
Handling Emotional Court Cases
It’s not even just twisting off, but just trying to make sure that you keep your emotions in check so that way you can present yourself as calm, rational, intelligent, and articulate whenever you’re giving testimony. I had a case a few months back where my client froze on the stand. It was a very emotionally charged case. My client was looking at losing his parental rights, and the weight and the gravity of it, I guess, just hit him all at once whenever he was on the stand to where he couldn’t get through questioning.
He froze having a panic attack. The hearing had to be paused. We had to close the record. We had to get med techs out to check him out and make sure that he was okay physically because he absolutely couldn’t talk, couldn’t move. I mean, thank goodness he was breathing. Sometimes it’s unavoidable. In that instance, I’m not entirely sure what we could have done differently, in that case, at least.
Preparing for Your Court Appearance
But the best thing that you can do is try to talk with your attorney before the court to make sure that you feel prepared. Talk with your friends and family before the court to make sure that you get all of the tears and the anger that you’re feeling. Let it out. Let it out in an appropriate way. Let it out in a way that’s not going to impact how the court sees you on the day that you’re having your hearing.
It’s not a crime to be emotional. It’s certainly not a sin to be emotional. And I’m not going to fault anybody for having big feelings. These are big feeling-type cases. But what you’ve got to do is you have to be able to just keep it reined in and keep it focused while you’re in court. Talk with your attorney. Talk with your friends and family. Talk with a counselor. Talk with whoever you need to to help you prepare for it.
Get Help Before Your Court Date
So that way, once you get into the courtroom, you’re able to just be focused on your task. If you have questions about this or you have court coming up and you think you’re going to need help, please feel free to contact 918-879-1681. We are always available to give you a hand. Once again, my name is Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Firm, and I’m here to help you make law easy.
