Friday, May 28, 2021
I'm a lawyer. Getting closer to a completely retired lawyer every day, but still a lawyer and have always been a lawyer. If you're a basketball player, or a retired basketball player, you watch highlights of great performances, MJ, Kobe, Bird. To a lawyer David Boies is Jordan or Kobe or Bird. This is a legendary performance by a legend--Wilt's 100 point game. So, to a lawyer, this is mesmerizing. Two heavyweights going at it, Ali-Frazier, Boies-Bill Gates, in United States v Microsoft, Gates' deposition in 1998. The entire thing is over eleven hours long. I have spent, off and on several hours today watching four hours of the whole and various other clips. I am in thrall to David Boies. This is a masterclass in how to depose a witness. Boies developed a photographic memory as compensation for being dyslexic. He never forgets the question he as asked, Gates dances away from it, Boies does not get distracted and relentlessly bores in, again and again and again. One of these rope-a-dopes lasts over six minutes. Boies destroys Bill Gates fighting on Gates' home turf, the computer software industry. Non-lawyers will find this mind-numbing not mesmerizing. This is the first clip I watched today, deemed "highlights."