20 Lawyers Reveal The Most Shocking Cases They Ever Worked On

Lawyers see it all, from everyday legal disputes to jaw-dropping cases that could be straight out of a crime drama.

When they open up about their most shocking cases, it’s clear they’ve been in the middle of some wild situations.

A recent question on Reddit from u/brainstew__ asked lawyers to do just that:

lawyers of reddit, what is the most shocking case you have worked on?

Whether it’s bizarre, intense, or just plain sad, these cases leave an impression on even the most seasoned attorneys. It’s proof that truth can definitely be stranger than fiction.

Scroll on for some of the best responses.

1.

One of my close friends is an environmental lawyer primarily defending individual landowners in corporate cases where discharge or pollution has occurred. A couple years back, there was a case where a well-known manufacturer of latex paints was found to be poisoning a local wetland with runoff. In a grandstanding effort to demonstrate the chemical being discharged near the water was non-toxic, a rep for the company mixed the chemical with a glass of water, intending to drink it dramatically. The glass melted right there on the table. The case was settled out of court the same day.

2.

I worked in foreclosure mediation/diversion court as a counselor. One man I’ll never forget had stopped working and paying bills after his son was stabbed to death at a high school party, and years later, his other son took his own life because he couldn’t live with the guilt of not being there for his brother. What pulled him out of almost killing himself was that the man who killed his youngest son came up for parole. He went and spoke against him getting out, and then realized he had to live for his grandkids.

3.

I used to work as a legal secretary for a personal injury lawyer. He told me about a case where his client had radiation burns from an x-ray machine. The lawyer found an internal memo from the defendant during discovery. It described a serious problem with the machines and said, “This is an issue we can’t ignore… unfortunately, it’s not in the budget.” When the case went to trial, the lawyer told the jury, “Show them they need to put this in the budget next time.” The jury complied, handing down one of the largest verdicts California had ever seen.

4.

My lawyer friend worked a child sexual abuse case where the defendant was the child’s step-father. The abuse happened from the time the child was 9 to 14, and the defense attorney tried to blame the girl for “allowing” everything to happen. The lawyer watched the jury nod along as though they agreed with the idea that a kid in 5th–8th grade allowed herself to be constantly abused. Thankfully, the jury did convict the step-father, but it took a lot of work for them to get there.

5.

There was a case where a woman had been a victim of human trafficking and was sold into a prostitution ring in the U.S. She escaped, applied for asylum, and provided everything she knew to the FBI, putting her life in danger. Despite this, she was still nearly deported. She only won her case because one of the top attorneys in New York took it on pro bono. It was wild how hard ICE fought to deport her and how intense that case got.

6.

There were cases in the UK during the Falklands War in the ’80s where the government claimed bullet wounds and lost limbs due to minefields were “incidental” injuries and not related to the fighting. The government’s own records showed they were just “buying time” in the hope that the claimants would die of their injuries and the cases could be shut down.

7.

I normally defend construction defect and personal injury matters. Early in my career, we got a case involving a husband and wife who ran a foster home. One kid was alleging the husband had molested them. I was assigned to defend only the wife. Then we got more documents and learned this wasn’t the first child to make allegations. The dad had been doing this for years and the wife knew. I instantly wanted nothing to do with the case. A few weeks later, my boss gave it back to the insurance carrier. That was the only case I’ve ever felt morally opposed to handling.

8.

Worked on a case where a male nurse sexually assaulted bedridden patients at a low-income nursing home. One of the women had a hip fracture, and they complained to staff for the longest time, but no one listened because they were old and didn’t have a lot of family. We represented the women, and in our research, we uncovered tons of other lawsuits across the country alleging negligence at other nursing homes run by the same parent company.

9.

It was a family law matter. I represented the mom in a custody battle. The dad lived with his father, who had been convicted twice of raping other grandchildren. Easy case, right? No. Because Mom forbade me from bringing the grandfather’s convictions before the judge. I brought it up anyway, and she fired me on the spot during oral arguments. She ended up suing me. It was a mess. Would do it again.

10.

I was meeting with a client who told me she needed to sue her doctor because her vagina “fell out.” She proceeded to place a red and white cooler on my desk, opened it, and asked if I wanted to see it. Turns out, she had vaginal reconstruction and the mesh came out in one big blob. This is not my area of expertise, so I sent her to someone with more experience.

11.

Back in the day I investigated and later in my career prosecuted lots of arsons so I worked a lot of fire cases. One time the crews roll up on a garage fire. They are met by the home’s resident holding a blood-soaked towel to his crotch. The medics get him stable and transported. He later tells us the voice told him to eat a whole box of saltine crackers without drinking any water and he was like ok, and did that. Then the voice told him to eat the newspaper and he was like check. Then the voice said to cut off his testicles with a can opener and he was like yep. Then the voice said set the van on fire in the garage and he was like you got it. He did all those things in that order, and there were the scene photos of the testicles right there on the garage floor.
We got him into mental health court and he did pretty well.

12.

My mum’s ex-boyfriend had to defend a triple-murder with kidnapping. Two of the victims were a mother and her three-year-old son. Defendant had some kind of psychosis, I’m not sure what. He attempted to carjack a fourth victim who was able to overpower him, leading to his arrest.
Said ex-boyfriend switched to prosecution after that.

13.

NAL, but personally involved in this horrific case. The travesty of justice was a contributing factor to me dropping out of pre-law in college.

Adding a spoiler tag because this is pretty bad. If there is a trigger warning, assume it applies.

In the late 80’s, my uncle was convicted of violently raping over 30 children, myself and my youngest sister being two of the victims. During the case, my mother screamed multiple times that we were liars (especially when I testified) and trying to ruin his life. It got to the point where the judge asked her to quiet down or leave the courtroom.

The youngest victim was 3. The eldest in their 20’s. A majority of the victims on record were dead from suicide or imprisoned for d**g use. Two boy scout troops were found to have all been victimized.

During the trial, he also admitted to having sex with animals (dogs, cows, sheep). The church (LDS) was VERY involved in his defense, as he was an elder of the church. We lured him away from the path of God, and he couldn’t tell right from wrong.

He was sentenced to six months in a mental hospital. He got out in three, after “finding religion”. Even though he was an elder of the church.

His hoarder apartment had to be cleaned out by me, aka one of his victims. His bank accounts were non-existent, despite me supplying evidence they were opened under false names. My mother repeatedly told police I was lying, despite her brother’s own confession in court.

She ended up cleaning out my bank accounts (after already draining them bit by bit over the years) and giving him and the church the money because I “ruined his life”. And she welcomed him back into her home where he continued to abuse my sister until she moved out.

Since I know there will be some questions. Yes, I am in therapy at this time. Yes, the judge was from the same church. I’ll try my best to answer any others that come up.

14.

Not a lawyer but my Aunt was.

She was the state prosecutor for a case where a guy had gotten into an argument with another guy at a recreational baseball game.

After the game was over one guy left and went home. The other guy stayed at the baseball field with his son.

About like 30min to an hour later they are still at the baseball field and the other guy is back. He has a baseball bat and walks straight towards the dad at the pitching mound and starts hitting him over the head with the bat until he’s unrecognizable. Kid frozen in terror while this guy murders his dad. He then walks over to the kid and does the same thing to him.

My Aunt was amazing at her job and got the guy sentenced to life in prison.

She lost her battle to cancer a few months ago. I loved listening to her stories. She was the best Aunt a guy could ask for.

15.

It was a labor case, in which in the middle of the hearing, the judge (60-year-old male) started to flirt with my client (23-year-old female) in a direct, straightforward way. It was SO shocking that was one of the only cases I got speechless in a trial. Those hearings are closed here in Brazil, so no jury, no recording — nothing.

16.

I was dating a nice woman back in 2016. In our first conversation, I asked her what she did for a living. She was a paralegal for a malpractice firm at the time. I asked her if there were any interesting cases happening. She said “Yes, one we are going to lose.”
I was interested… I asked what happened.

She told me “Well, we are defending a doctor who made a mistake. One of his patients was suffering from an eye condition that required a unique recovery. After surgery, the patient had to lie face down for the entirety of their day to prevent further eye damage. It had something to do with eye pressure and a gas buildup near the back of the eye. As it turns out, the patient wanted to fly on a plane and would intend to keep their eyes down through the whole flight. The doctor we’re defending didn’t tell the patient that they couldn’t fly during the recovery.”

The next part definitely sucked. When the patient took off on the plane, everything was OK. During descent, which people with ear problems can attest, the rapid change in pressure f****d up this patient’s condition. They went completely blind in both eyes due to the descent of the plane.

Predictably, the doctor did lose the case. It was definitely an interesting first conversation to have with someone.

17.

Slayer statute, interpleader case in federal court. Client murdered her husband to collect insurance proceeds. Found out that she promised to pay 2 dudes to bind his hands and feet with duct tape, execute him, and burn him in an alley, for $20k each, to be paid out of the insurance funds.
She lost.

18.

I’m an immigration lawyer. I do mostly VAWA and asylum, but I handle other stuff on occasion.
I had a prospective client come in a few weeks ago. He’s interested in pursuing a relatively straightforward application. He tells me that he might have a criminal history that could affect his immigration. It’s only one arrest though, he says. It happened in 19XX. And it’s not serious.

“OK,” I say. It happens. Nobody’s perfect, and a single arrest is generally not a deal-breaker.

So, as I’m talking with him, I decide to Google his pretty unique name. A news article comes up, from his country, in his language. It’s dated the same year he said… 19XX. Hm.

I ask him: “what kind of crime did you say it was?”

“Oh,” he says, “I think it was drug related.” I figure, alright, marijuana arrest or something: nothing we can’t overcome.

I click through to the article. The photo on the article sure looks like a lot like the prospective client. Turns out, prospective client’s arrest was not for marijuana at all. It was for cocaine. And not a little cocaine. This guy was caught attempting to smuggle XX pallets of cocaine. I must have looked a little bug-eyed, because the guy gave me a sort of sheepish look and a shrug.

Hm.

I tell the prospective client, maybe we should start by filing a few FOIA requests (Freedom of Information Act Requests) to see what comes up, and we’ll go from there. He agrees, and that’s that.

I’ll double check my suspicions against the government record, and let the client know what can, or cannot, be done.

Suffice it to say, getting caught smuggling multiple pallets of cocaine is not a small-time arrest. But, you never know what is or isn’t true, and you should always do your due diligence.

19.

Legal Videographer here…
Grand Parent Custody case where the dad got photographed molesting the 8yo daughter under the Christmas tree. Kid goes for a medical exam and the doc reports extensive injuries usually associated with sex abuse. Then checks a box to indicate the injuries were not related to abuse. Police say nothing they can do about it because of the checked box. The mom ‘commits suicide’ “because the dad didn’t want to sleep with both at the same time” according to him… and the person holding the gun when she shot herself gets a misdemeanor iirc. Police lose two polygraph tests and a couple r*pe kits. Grandparents lose custody case… oh his dad was a magistrate in the same county… and the dad gets full custody.

20.

So…I see a lot of messed up injuries in my line of work (personal injury.) like permanent metal in people, scars, mental trauma. Videos of car accidents, broken bones, you know, messed up stuff.
But what gets me the most is health insurance companies. Basically, let’s say you have Kaiser, you get hurt they pay the bill. Unfortunately, if you get hurt by another person and recover funds from them, then your health insurance company (or workers comp) is entitled to be paid back from the money you get. Oh and the government gets first dibs too if you have Medicare or state funded health insurance. However bad you think the system is working, trust me, it’s worse.

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