Handling the four-week trial against the neo-nazis and white supremacists behind the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, took an emotional toll on Roberta Kaplan of Kaplan Hecker & Fink, Karen Dunn of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and the rest of the trial team representing people injured in the weekend’s violence. That much was apparent back when they answered my questions post-trial in 2021 after a federal jury awarded their clients nearly $26 million in damages.

Those emotions are made more palpable in “No Accident,” a documentary by filmmaker Kristi Jacobson set to debut on HBO tonight at 9 p.m. ET and available to stream on Max. The film chronicles the trial through the eyes of the plaintiffs and their legal team. I got an early screening of the film yesterday. Two scenes struck me as good indicators of what the lawyers went through. In one, Kaplan Hecker’s Michael Bloch reads a daily security email tracking white supremacist internet chatter during the trial. The words “Michael” and “Bloch” show up largest on the screen and in a red font. In the other, Kaplan is seen suffering from a migraine after returning from the courtroom after the verdict comes in: the compounded stress of the moment and the prior month of trial work finally catching up to her.

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