I only cried a little bit today. I might have made it out without crying in front of anyone had the other intern not started crying when I said good bye. In a strange way I was happy when she started crying because it told me that she enjoyed working with me as much as I enjoyed working with her.
It has been less than 12 hours since I left work and I already miss it. Even if I wasn't returning to the hell that is law school I would be sad right now. My internship had everything, great people, doing great work, in a wonderful city. Everyone offered wonderful advice on what I should do for next year and who I should talk to at what agency.
It didn't take my lackluster GPA first semester for me to realize that firm life was not for me. The little part of me that still thought I might one day end up at a firm died this summer. If I worked at a firm, even the most important client would not have as pressing of issues as the cases I handled as a PD intern. Sure Mr. Bigwig might lose $5 million dollars, but Mr. Crackdealer is going to lose 30 months of his life (assuming he is lucky and gets an exceptionally low sentence.)
Which reminds me, Mr. Crackdealer (well Ms. Crackdealer's accomplice really) sent us a letter today. He agreed that his case had issues but thoughtfully pointed out all the issues I failed to raise. I failed to raise a couple of issues that were completely absent from the record. I also failed to raise the issue that he had no illegal substance on him when he was arrested (nevermind the fact he was charged with being an accomplice to delivery).
The other intern tried to one up my sucking up skills today by bringing in a box of cookies. To out do her I negotiated the sale of a new car for one of the attorney's at the office. The car he wanted was selling in our area for roughly $700 below MSRP. I got it for $1300 under MSRP. I get a sick sense of enjoyment out of haggling. My coworker was ready to sign when I got it to $1100 under MSRP but I was persistent that we could do better. I should have made him split the $200 I saved him with me.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
last week
This will be my last week as an intern. I am not excited by this fact. I am not excited to return to the world of gunners. I have enjoyed every single day of my internship. The difference between the actual practice of law and law school astounds me. The only classes that taught me anything useful on a daily basis were Legal Writing and Research. I bitched and moaned a lot about my legal writing professor during law school. I stand by most of that bitching and moaning but I have give the prof credit for actually teaching me some decent legal writing skills.
Super Intern got to argue a case before the Court of Appeals on Friday. She embarrassed herself and the office with her pathetic attempt at oral advocacy. Actually she did an excellent job and we might actually win the case. I credit my excellent cheer leading for the win. Dammit I had a matching tie and REAL pocket square combo just for her oral arguments.
In thinking about what I want to do next summer it occurred to me that the Super Intern won't be there. This saddens me. We shared an "office" together this summer so we spent a lot of time working together. If we had not gotten a long it would have been a much more difficult summer. We bounced ideas off of each other so often that I'm having trouble imagining doing the work without her. We kept each other sane when deadlines approached. We complained about the crappiness of our issues. We shared stories about the hell that is law school. We sucked up to the attorneys with bags of chocolate. We watched as the seagull eggs hatched. We named their father after a prosecutor.
Super Intern got to argue a case before the Court of Appeals on Friday. She embarrassed herself and the office with her pathetic attempt at oral advocacy. Actually she did an excellent job and we might actually win the case. I credit my excellent cheer leading for the win. Dammit I had a matching tie and REAL pocket square combo just for her oral arguments.
In thinking about what I want to do next summer it occurred to me that the Super Intern won't be there. This saddens me. We shared an "office" together this summer so we spent a lot of time working together. If we had not gotten a long it would have been a much more difficult summer. We bounced ideas off of each other so often that I'm having trouble imagining doing the work without her. We kept each other sane when deadlines approached. We complained about the crappiness of our issues. We shared stories about the hell that is law school. We sucked up to the attorneys with bags of chocolate. We watched as the seagull eggs hatched. We named their father after a prosecutor.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Terminations suck
I've been working on a termination of parental rights case for the past week. My case sucked because it was winnable at the trial level if my client hadn't left in the middle. I'm not sure what I did to deserve the termination case, but I promise to never do whatever it was again. Nothing in life is bad enough to deserve a termination case as punishment. And I got the good termination case.
The other intern (we'll call her Senior Intern) in my office has a case where a developmentally disabled couple had their children taken away for a wide variety of reasons. Exhibit 1 is a photo of the couch in the their house. A couch covered with dog shit. The same dog shit that the social worker saw the children eating. Senior Intern represents the mother. In drafting her appeal she utilized In re Fake Name. Turns out the father in In re Fake Name is the same father of the children in her case. He apparently is the developmentally disabled mack daddy of our state. He preys on developmentally disabled women and sexually harasses the social workers. He does odd jobs for a man who owns a junkyard. The junkyard owner doesn't pay him in cash. Instead he gets all the junk his front yard can handle. He has an excellent business plan though. Once he has a big enough collection of junk, people will come in off the street and offer to buy his junk.
Lessons learned from working a termination.
1. Never piss of a social worker. The best mother on earth could have her children taken away by a disgruntled social worker and psychologist.
2. There is no right answer when speaking with a psychologist.
"My children frustrate me __ None of the time. ___ Some of the time. ___ All of the time." If you select the first option you are lying. The second option shows you need to work towards the first one. The last option just means you are honest.
If you express fear that the Department is going to take your children away (perhaps because they are working to take your children away) you are paranoid. Paranoia means you may become explosive and verbally lash out at your children. This may cause your children anxiety, which may lead to development issues for them. Thus you are clearly unfit as a parent.
3. When the Department says "services" they mean "hoops," hoops for you to jump through like a circus animal. You had better not hit the side of the hoops. Only a perfect leap through the hoop shows your dedication to fixing your parental deficiencies.
4. Being a victim of domestic violence is apparently a parental deficiency. (And previous cases have shown that being raped by 10 different men means you are unable to protect your children.)
5. Judges will believe anything said by a State psychologist or social worker.
6. If one of your parental deficiencies is your failure to maintain employment, the State will schedule your visitation during work hours.
Some good news as well. My stupid pro se client realized what a dumb move he made and asked the Court to withdraw his motion.
The other intern (we'll call her Senior Intern) in my office has a case where a developmentally disabled couple had their children taken away for a wide variety of reasons. Exhibit 1 is a photo of the couch in the their house. A couch covered with dog shit. The same dog shit that the social worker saw the children eating. Senior Intern represents the mother. In drafting her appeal she utilized In re Fake Name. Turns out the father in In re Fake Name is the same father of the children in her case. He apparently is the developmentally disabled mack daddy of our state. He preys on developmentally disabled women and sexually harasses the social workers. He does odd jobs for a man who owns a junkyard. The junkyard owner doesn't pay him in cash. Instead he gets all the junk his front yard can handle. He has an excellent business plan though. Once he has a big enough collection of junk, people will come in off the street and offer to buy his junk.
Lessons learned from working a termination.
1. Never piss of a social worker. The best mother on earth could have her children taken away by a disgruntled social worker and psychologist.
2. There is no right answer when speaking with a psychologist.
"My children frustrate me __ None of the time. ___ Some of the time. ___ All of the time." If you select the first option you are lying. The second option shows you need to work towards the first one. The last option just means you are honest.
If you express fear that the Department is going to take your children away (perhaps because they are working to take your children away) you are paranoid. Paranoia means you may become explosive and verbally lash out at your children. This may cause your children anxiety, which may lead to development issues for them. Thus you are clearly unfit as a parent.
3. When the Department says "services" they mean "hoops," hoops for you to jump through like a circus animal. You had better not hit the side of the hoops. Only a perfect leap through the hoop shows your dedication to fixing your parental deficiencies.
4. Being a victim of domestic violence is apparently a parental deficiency. (And previous cases have shown that being raped by 10 different men means you are unable to protect your children.)
5. Judges will believe anything said by a State psychologist or social worker.
6. If one of your parental deficiencies is your failure to maintain employment, the State will schedule your visitation during work hours.
Some good news as well. My stupid pro se client realized what a dumb move he made and asked the Court to withdraw his motion.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Defense 2, State 0
Good news. Got a verdict in the prosecutorial misconduct case yesterday. Jury acquitted on 1st degree murder and hung on 2nd degree and manslaughter.
Just goes to show the damage that prosecutorial misconduct can cause.
1st trial with misconduct, guilty of 1st degree murder.
2nd trial with essentially the same witnesses and evidence, jury can't even agree to manslaughter.
(Although I think one of the jurors was so disgusted by the fake pocket square that they refused to convict.)
Just goes to show the damage that prosecutorial misconduct can cause.
1st trial with misconduct, guilty of 1st degree murder.
2nd trial with essentially the same witnesses and evidence, jury can't even agree to manslaughter.
(Although I think one of the jurors was so disgusted by the fake pocket square that they refused to convict.)
Thursday, July 5, 2007
prosecutorial misconduct
Watched a closing argument in a murder case today. The prosecutor essentially argued that because the defendant was in the car when the gun was passed around and didn't hurl himself out the window he was an accomplice.
A couple other observations from court:
Fake pocket squares make you look like a tool, don't wear them.
Bowties work for 1% of the population. For the other 99% they make you look like more of a tool than your fake pocket square.
Don't wear brown shoes with a black suit.
Jurors get pissed off when they find out they were an alternate. Seriously the lady looked like she was going to cry.
Listening to jury instructions is boring.
A couple other observations from court:
Fake pocket squares make you look like a tool, don't wear them.
Bowties work for 1% of the population. For the other 99% they make you look like more of a tool than your fake pocket square.
Don't wear brown shoes with a black suit.
Jurors get pissed off when they find out they were an alternate. Seriously the lady looked like she was going to cry.
Listening to jury instructions is boring.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
pro se defendants
I worked my ass off for the past week and a half writing a motion for discretionary review. The case didn't have very good issues, but I scraped the bottom of the barrel writing something. My second issue was so "creative" that my supervisor told me he was surprised I was able to create as strong of an argument as I did.
Then yesterday we learned that the factual basis for my first issue was actually different so I couldn't make the argument. That left me with crappy issue #2. Ok fine we aren't going to win but at least all my work wasn't in vain. I reformated the motion to only include the single issue.
Then today we got some mail. Our client decided to write and file his own motion. Said motion contained 15 appendices, no citations to any court cases and raised a prosecutorial misconduct issue for the first time. The issue I had argued was not mentioned at all.
A week and a half of work for nothing. I can't even use what I wrote as a writing sample because it is such a god awful weak argument.
Then yesterday we learned that the factual basis for my first issue was actually different so I couldn't make the argument. That left me with crappy issue #2. Ok fine we aren't going to win but at least all my work wasn't in vain. I reformated the motion to only include the single issue.
Then today we got some mail. Our client decided to write and file his own motion. Said motion contained 15 appendices, no citations to any court cases and raised a prosecutorial misconduct issue for the first time. The issue I had argued was not mentioned at all.
A week and a half of work for nothing. I can't even use what I wrote as a writing sample because it is such a god awful weak argument.
Monday, July 2, 2007
representing the majesty of the People
I came across the following quote while doing research on a Petition for Review . I really like it and it is the first time I have used a citation from the 1800's.
The district attorney, representing the majesty of the People, and having no responsibility, except fairly to discharge his duty, should put himself under proper restraint, and should not in his remarks, in the hearing of the jury, go beyond the evidence or the bounds of a reasonable moderation.
People v. Greenwall, 115 N.Y. 520, 526, 22 N.E. 180 (1889). How I wish prosecutors remembered that. 118 years and prosecutors still don't get it. When is society going to realize that a conviction at any cost, includes the cost of our constitutional rights?
As part of her justification for telling me I have no conscience, my bus friend said "well most of them are guilty anyway." Right there in her statement is the reason why everyone deserves a defense attorney: "most". Most is less than All. Most understands that some defendants are in fact innocent. Most realizes that in order to treat the falsely accused fairly we must presume that everyone is innocent unless and until we can prove otherwise. It's as if our system had a presumption of some kind, a presumption of innocence.
Has anyone switched over the Word 2007? I've been using it for the past month and while I like many of the changes that have been made, I'm noticing some serious flaws. I cannot get the Table of Contents feature to work correctly. It insists upon changing my formatting. I've unchecked the box saying "build table of contents from: Styles" yet it continues to change the styles of the selected text. Also for some reason the Table of Authorities decided to randomly make some of my entries bold.
It also has a new setting to automatically add a space between paragraphs. I'm not sure how this feature could ever be useful.
If anyone understands Word 2007 any better or has any suggestions please leave a comment. Since I'm just an intern I have a feeling that when I finally snap and start swearing at and punching my computer it won't go over well.
I'm 60 pages from finishing Defending the Damned. It's no Courtroom 302, but I've enjoyed it so far. I'll write more once I finish it.
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