Need a Character? The Top Five Characters Who Might Be Watching

When I teach at writers conferences about using the law in stories, sometimes writers have no idea how helpful the law can be. One of the ways the law can really help your story is the characters. The great part about lawyers is they don’t have just one background. Where doctors have to have studied certain things, lawyers can study absolutely anything in undergraduate school. So they make great characters who can give you infinite possibilities. If you’re writing a murder mystery, you need witnesses. But many other stories need someone to see something happening to move the plot forward.

I want to talk about some other people operating in the legal system who move around enough or who have enough information that they might be useful to your stories. I’m going to tell you about five of them, but my book, The Writer’s Guide to the Courtroom: Let’s Quill All the Lawyers, has loads of suggestions if you need more.

1. Bailiffs: Bailiffs keep order in the court. They see and hear everything that goes on in court, so it’s their job is to observe. As characters, they can be witnesses, blackmailers, or heroes. They are the ones who protect the judges if there is any violence, and they protect the jurors, witnesses, and lawyers as well. They frequently have to lend a hand checking lawyers in for hearings, handling evidence, calling witnesses in, and other administrative tasks. They escort the jury to and from the jury room, and stay outside the door to make sure they stay safe, sequestered, and get what they need. Maybe they overhear jurors discussing a case with a reporter. Or they witness their judge accepting a bribe. They may be the one person who can identify the guy who delivered the poisoned lunch to the jury.

2. Runners and messengers make deliveries, do copies and run errands for the attorneys. This puts them in a place where they can move around and observe activities of all your characters. Courier services will usually handle most same-day deliveries, but many larger firms have in-house people dealing with deliveries. Did the runner in your story deliver flowers to a prosecutor with whom a defense lawyer is having an affair? Did they have the package of incriminating tapes they were supposed to mail but took home and listened to instead? In-house runners or messengers will also assist with copying and other more menial tasks. These make great characters because they know all the office gossip. And maybe what evidence was destroyed.

3. Process servers hand official documents to people who don’t want them. Lawsuits, orders to testify in court or bring documents, and orders to stop doing something are items your characters won’t be happy about. Many people try to evade process servers, who have to get clever to serve those individuals. Fake flower deliveries, disguises, sneaking in the back, could be used for humor or get your process server killed. Maybe they see the character with a prostitute. Having a character who moves around lots, who is observant and who sometimes has a law enforcement background could come in handy in your story, couldn’t it?

4. A court reporter’s job is to write down every word said in court, listen to every word of every legal proceeding they cover, and write it down accurately. A missed word can be catastrophic to a trial. What if one of these reporters hates your attorney character because he yelled at her? They’re almost invisible, which makes them great witnesses. During breaks, lawyers and witnesses forget they’re even there. Court reporters hear all kinds of things they probably shouldn’t. You can have one hear a bribe during a break. Or a death threat during a deposition.

5. Paralegals assist lawyers in investigation and research, prepare documents, organize and review client files, draft court documents, interview clients and witnesses, and assist at trials. The fact that the paralegal works so closely with the attorney puts them in a unique position for your story. They may know about a bribe, malpractice, or perjury. Maybe they were instructed to shred documents in the middle of a trial. Remember the paralegal character in The Riches? She found out Doug Rich may not be who or what he said he was.

So next time you say the law can’t help with your story, think about characters you need to observe something in your story. It doesn’t have to be a murder. Characters who are in a position to observe are handy in any type of story.

Guest post on The Top Five Characters Who Might Be Watching

Need a character? My guest post on The Aspiring Mangaka & Writers Club blog talks about five legal characters who make great witnesses and observers for any genre.Titled The Top Five Characters Who Might Be Watching, the post is about some people operating in the legal system who move around enough or who have enough information that they might be useful to your stories.  If you’re writing a murder mystery, you need witnesses. But many other stories need someone to see something happening to move the plot forward.

If you're a manga writer, you'll definitely want to check out The Aspiring Mangaka & Writers Club. Ever wondered when you can see your manga or novel on the bookshelves whenever you enter a comic shop or book store? Aspire to be a mangaka or writer but don’t know how or where to begin? Already started on your manga or writing but want some honest opinions on how you can improve yourself? You might start with this website, which is packed full of useful information and networking.

BAILIFFS CAN MAKE GREAT CHARACTERS IN YOUR STORY

I want to talk about some people operating in the legal system who move around enough or who have enough information that they might be useful to your stories. I’m going to tell you about them every once in a while. My book The Writer’s Guide to the Courtroom: Let’s Quill All the Lawyers has loads of suggestions if you need more.

Today, I’ll talk about bailiffs.

Bailiffs keep order in the court. If your character’s cell phone goes off, if there is talking, or if someone gets violent, the bailiff is the one who will remove the offending party. They see and hear everything that goes on in court. It’s their job is to observe.

As characters, they can be witnesses, blackmailers, or heroes. They protect the judges if there is any violence, and they protect the jurors, witnesses, and lawyers as well. They frequently have to lend a hand checking lawyers in for hearings, handling evidence, calling witnesses in, and other administrative tasks.

One of my favorite things about bailiffs is they escort the jury to and from the jury room, and stay outside the door to make sure they stay safe, sequestered, and get what they need. This means they are in a great place to observe any shenanigans that take place during jury deliberations.

Some of what a bailiff might witness in your story:

• Death threats among lawyers, witnesses or parties
• Physical altercations (even murder)
• Bribery
• Judge’s misbehavior
• Ex-parte communications with judge
• Text messages he’s not supposed to see (since he has to tell people to turn off phones)
• Switching exhibits
• Jury tampering
• Jurors checking the internet or talking to people about the case
• Juror arguments (it gets tough being with the same people for long periods)
• Notes or other items being passed to jurors
• Tampering with juror food
• All kinds of conversations, either before hearings/trials or on breaks
• People coming and going at the courthouse

Observation of any of the above can go any way your imagination takes you. For instance, a greedy bailiff could uncover a note that went to a juror from one of the attorneys in the middle of a trial. Instead of taking it to the judge, does he go to the lawyer and ask to be paid off? Does the lawyer pay him, or does the blackmailing get him killed.

Or, your bailiff could stumble upon her judge taking a bribe. Does she ask to be cut in? Take it to the police? End up dead?

A heroic bailiff could uncover an attempt to assassinate a defendant. He could throw himself between the victim and the bullet. Does he get a huge reward or end up in a lawsuit against the city for poor security? Does he become a media darling and run for office? Does he end up paralyzed and sad? Maybe that makes him an ideal hero for a romance novel. Or is he killed? Children’s writers looking to knock off parents might start their story a year after he dies. How does your protag deal with a heroic death of a parent?

In a sci fi or fantasy, you have to build a new world. You could have a bailiff observing and participating in your brave new justice system, show us how it works. After all, the individual rights and responsibilities of your invented society will affect your characters’ daily lives.

So, to recap, bailiffs observe and move around the courthouse in places most people can’t go. That makes them useful to any story needing a witness, murder victim, blackmailer, or hero.