I want you all to take a moment to watch the video that is linked here below. I’ve watched this scene quite literally hundreds of times and even today, after all those times, it still gives me chills. Years after watching this scene I did a dissertation on this particular scene because it is one of the most intense interpersonal exchanges captured on film. The intensity of the emotion and the enormity of its impact have always served as a very powerful inspiration for me.
Scenes like this don’t really happen in the courtroom, but I think every lawyer spends his whole life preparing and working and building for that one moment when something like this plays out. I think we are heading to a nationwide example of this scene, a moment when Wall Street and the banking industry will be cornered on the stand and the entire country tear them apart in righteous indignation just like this snotty bastard Lt. Kaffe takes down this infallible imperial force, Cl. Jessup.
It happened once before in this country in 1933, when a young and unknown attorney Ferdinand Pecora cross-examined the titans of Wall Street after the crash of the Great Depression. I will detail more of that later when I finish the book, “The Hellhound of Wall Street”. For now, watch this scene over and over. The American people are Tom Cruise. The banks, Wall Street, the Imperial judges, our out of control government are Jack Nicholson. As you head out for battle every day, as you defend yourself pro-se or if you’re an attorney who is fighting this fight, put in your mind that you want the end result to be a glorious moment like the one in this scene where they are finally cornered and can no longer run from the truth.
