One of the best courtroom movies ever made is “Witness for the Prosecution.” In this classic film noir, you can see what makes a great lawyer, and what separates him from all of the others. Spoiler alert! The movie’s climax shows the great barrister, Sir Wilfred Roberts, exonerate his client, Leonard Vole, from a murder charge. Wilfred is overweight and has a weak heart. He also has a stalwart nurse at his side. The nurse is about to seize this victory as a pretext to shoehorn Wilfred into a plane for a much-needed rest in Bermuda. Suddenly there is another murder, in plain view of a room full of witnesses. The newly accused happens to be the “witness for the prosecution” in the Vole case. Wilfred is turning a magnifying glass, eyeing the colorful light from its prisms, and you can see his wheels turning too. How can you exonerate someone who commits a crime before so many witnesses? It isn’t easily done. The nurse comments on the newly accused, having just “killed” someone. Wilfred, without missing a beat, puts down the glass, turns to the side, faces the nurse and says to her “not killed, assassinated.” The viewer can imagine the temporary insanity defense with the jealous lover angle, see the nurse offer a celebratory but medicinal flask to Wilfred, anticipate cancellation of the Bermuda flight, and count on Wilfred’s return to the courtroom to represent his newly accused client. All is right with the world. Well, maybe not so much for the newly deceased.

This is what we were put on earth to do, to keep our heads in adversity, to see things that others don’t, to find those unique solutions, and to persuade others that what we see is what they also should see. Things are no different in our current pandemic age. For many people, it seems like the world is crashing all around them, with both emotional panic and financial extremis, all caused by the lack of demand for goods and services and a very contagious virus. It is gut-wrenching to see how much sickness and death is affecting so many lives all around us. Workers outside the home have more risk than those who can socially distance, and companies struggle with solvency while in many cases striving to deliver goods and services in the face of continued infections. For those of us in Pennsylvania’s workers’ compensation practice, it was first things first. We addressed the opening of the courts, the state of the medicine, the reactions of employers, the furloughs and layoffs implicating reinstatement of benefits, and how best to manage a law firm in these challenging times. And in our practice, these times are bringing out the best in so many, a coming together among friends and adversaries that you just don’t normally see.