Trial Prep

I was watching The Good Wife on DVR last night and it kind of gave me a flashback.  The main character was sitting preparing arguments on a  case and in her head she was making the arguments and then had a dialogue going on with what the other side was going to argue.  Trial prep is ultimately what takes so long on a case because you have to prepare everything you are going to do and then prep against everything opposing counsel is going to do.  Sometimes this leads to overkill on a case, other times, no amount of preparation can combat some random fact that comes out that is given more weight than normal.  There is no shame in losing if you have a bad set of facts.  That is beyond your control.  However, preparation is controllable.