I represented Mason McDuffie Mortgage Corporation, the world’s largest mortgage banker.

They had a vice president branch manager write, on company letterhead, a $21 million loan commitment for a student apartment project in Tempe, Arizona, at the University of Arizona.

Mason McDuffie then refused to honor that loan commitment because the branch manager wasn’t authorized to make it and the company had not approved it. I was working for their errors and omissions carrier in London, Lloyds of London.

I told them, “Wait a minute. He’s a branch manager, a vice president. It’s on company letterhead. The $210,000 loan commitment fee was written out on a check to Mason McDuffie. He forged Mason McDuffie’s signature and deposited it into his own account. You’ve got a bad guy—you can’t win this case, so we need to settle.”

I tried to get Lloyd’s coverage counsel in Los Angeles to coordinate with someone in New York, who would talk to a solicitor in London, who would go to the coffee house and talk to the underwriting group. It came back, and I said, “No, you don’t understand. Let me fly to London and explain to the investors in this loan at Mason McDuffie and the insurance group that you need to settle.” They wouldn’t settle.

This case went to an eight- or nine-week-long jury trial. Everything went my way.

The lawyer on the other side worked on a contingent fee. He was a personal injury lawyer and did not understand the complexity of loan commitments. He was so confident he would win that he was condescending in the courtroom—and the jury hated him. I knew I was going to win, so I focused on salvaging every advantage I could.

Things began to happen in the courtroom that worked in my favor. I tripped up their expert. I tripped up their broker. The broker made a major mistake because the branch manager, the vice president, was from the San Diego office, not the Phoenix office. When I asked why he hadn’t called the Phoenix office, he said, “Their name wasn’t in the phone book.” I knew they were in San Diego, so I called that office myself.

Over the noon hour, I subpoenaed the librarian from the City of Phoenix Library and had her bring all the phone books for that year and two years on either side—white pages and Yellow Pages. I rolled them into the courtroom and asked the witness to check. He lied. He shouldn’t have said that because Mason McDuffie’s name was indeed in both the White Pages and Yellow Pages. He admitted, “I guess I made a mistake,” and that revealed him as a liar, which poisoned the jury against the other side.

I received a unanimous verdict in about five hours. The jury had been turned off by the lawyer and his witnesses, who were unprepared and cavalier in answering a simple question, such as why they didn’t call the Mason McDuffie office in Phoenix. Their excuse, “They weren’t in the phone book,” was unbelievable.

This case demonstrates one of the most important things you must do with your witnesses: prepare them for landmines. Teach them not to step on them. Don’t say what you don’t know. Don’t interpolate or extrapolate, because you may bury a landmine for yourself.