That long-looming trial is now an actual in-progress trial. I'm not there every day, but I've been there a few times, watching the arguments and examinations. Like everything else about my job, it's an interesting learning experience.
I've learned, for instance, how important it can be to take good, quick, handwritten notes during the proceedings. Perhaps it actually is a point in favor of the perennial effort to ban laptops from law school classrooms that this is a skill future litigators will need. (Of course, (1) not every law student will become a litigator; (2) this is nothing that a course on shorthand couldn't better address; and (3) you never know when you'll want to crank up your laptop and review your handily-typed notes from one of the areas of common law that you covered your 1L year that may now salient to your current case...)
I've also learned how litigation essentially is a game of project management. Going into it there's myriad details to prepare and manage, all building up to the main event, which itself has different little events that all weave together the issues of fact and law that are presented to the court and laid down into the record. Therefore, like with any big project, the consequences of decisions made early on can be felt months down the road.
And, of course, like any big project, it sucks up lots and lots of time...