Part of it is just a competitive desire to win. Part of it is a commitment to the client and the cause that you’re advocating for. But part of it is also just the discipline of understanding that it’s a marathon and not a sprint and preparing yourself. I mean, for example, most of the time, I tend to go out late, say up late. I like to do things at night. I’m much more nocturnal than I am a morning person.

But in a trial, I’m always in bed by 10:30 PM at night, no matter what else is happening. No matter how much work remains to be done, I’m gonna go to bed because I’m gonna get up at 6:00 AM in the morning, and I wanna be sure I get 8 hours of sleep. Because by getting 8 hours sleep, I make sure that throughout the trial I’m rested, alert, able to take advantage of opportunities.

But that takes a lot of discipline because lots of times when I go to bed, there’s lots of things that I want to do. And you’ve gotta have the discipline to let it go, get up the next morning, pick it up, and of course it helps to have a lot of other people that are staying up all night getting that work done. But even knowing that, it’s a little hard to drop it yourself ’cause you’re so personally involved in it.

So, it’s a question of commitment and passion, but it’s also a commitment to discipline, to being sure that you’re preparing yourself. If you’re doing a marathon, you don’t run full out. When you’re doing a trial, you can’t do a three-month trial, or even a four-week trial the way you would a two or three day trial.