Working for the man

A friend of mine at another law school got an externship working for a prosecutor. I told her we could no longer be friends. She didn't believe and somehow our friendship continues.

Today she told me that she can only do her job if she pretends that the defendant isn't actually a human. She is happy to have the law on her side most of the time, but isn't sure if that is a good thing.

I continue to believe that not doing law review was a good decision. My slacker load combined with moot court is enough to make me quite busy. I can't imagine spending hours each week reviewing citations. Just the thought of having to check other people's citations for hours on end makes me want to crawl into a hole and cry.

I'm reaching my target audience

Someone found this site using the search terms "law school 1l beaten." The search terms "social worker suck" were also successful. Now I am hoping for "prosecutor's are evil" or "don't wear brown shoes with a black suit."

Dating a 1L is interesting. I'm very laid back and just don't care about law school this semester. I still go to my study group once a week. I still read for my classes and I still pay attention in most of my classes. I've even started outlining already. I just don't let the stress freak me out. 1L girl is letting the stress get to her and starting to freak out a bit. I'm not sure I will be able to handle this.

Last year the girl I dated went (even more) insane the month before finals began. She spent every single day in the library from 8-midnight studying. She would take a break from studying once a week. She wouldn't even take a break to go out to dinner with me. Usually the only time I saw her was if I gave her a ride home when she finished studying. I couldn't handle her neurosis. Her stress became my stress. I'm glad we broke up before finals because dumping her released a lot of stress from my life and let me enter finals calm and collected.

My study group has a much more relaxed approach to studying. Last time we studied we managed to spent an hour and 45 minutes actually doing work and only about 15 minutes watching videos on youtube. Insanely productive.

I got the State's response to the brief I wrote over the summer awhile ago. I knew by virtue of the fact that I was given the case that the issues were not that strong. It still sucked to see the State rip my arguments apart. I read so many half-assed, badly written briefs from the State over the summer and so of course in response to my brief they actually wrote something decent. We might still have an chance with the second issue but I just know the court will buy the State's argument on the first issue. Seeing a real attorney respond to something I wrote gave me that "real lawyer" feeling again.

Seriously?

So your friend is in trouble with the law. Being a good friend you try and help your friend out by seeking out some legal advice for them. You turn to the best legal source available: the blog of former PD intern second year law student with a mediocre GPA.

In trying to get the 2L's legal advice you butter him up telling him about "his idiot woman public defender." Nothing inspires me to help more than denigrating women and those in the profession I am seeking. If only you could have called her sexuality into question.

I now understand why everyone else has a disclaimer next to their email address on their blog. I was thinking about giving him some legal advice. I hear that does wonders on the character and fitness portion of the bar exam. Oh it doesn't? Oh ok, guess he's screwed.

In unrelated, and overly personal, news I am no longer rumored to be the creepy 2L who is dating a 1L. I AM the creepy 2L. Go me.

Have I mentioned that I hate law school?

Today at 12:30 I found out that I had a mandatory meeting at 5:45. I was one of the lucky ones. Some people didn't find out until 3:30. During the meeting where this was announced someone shouted, "This is bullshit." In response someone else said "I believe he speaks for the rest of us." The meeting was pointless as well. But hey I had nothing better to do today than spend 10 hours at the law school.

The rumor mongering is starting up again. Actually it has probably been going on the entire time it just involves me finally. The latest rumor is that I'm dating a 1L. Great now I'm the creepy 2L who preys on the fresh meat.


The 1L's are still so idealistic. There are a lot of them who are interested in criminal defense work and public interest law. I can't remember if my class was like that at the beginning. If we were it has been soundly beaten out of us.

Legal Movies

I heard from Senior Intern recently. She's been busy and hasn't had a chance to write much. She just started an internship at the juvy branch of her local PD office. I'm very jealous.

She emailed me to thank me for her birthday present. I sent her three fabulous legal movies that everyone should watch.

The first film was Super Troopers. Besides the excellent criminal procedure hypos and numerous civil rights violations, the movie opens with three stoners arguing about property rights on the beach. Property law and criminal procedure, my least, and most favorite, areas of law, together at last.

Movie #2 was My Cousin Vinny. It was sent as inspiration to fight for her clients no matter how bad the case may look. The clients may just end up being innocent. It is also good inspiration for young attorney's facing their first big trial. They just have to have a girlfriend who knows a lot about cars.

Movie #3 was The Firm. This was sent so as to remind her that all firms are evil and she should never work at one.

If I had unlimited money I would have included: The Life of David Gale, A Civil Action (although the book is way better), and The People vs. Larry Flynt. I'm sure there a lot more great legal movies out there but this is my list. Any of my 4 readers have any better ones to suggest?*

*First person to say Legally Blonde gets banned.

anonymity and job search

I have a lot of topics I want to blog about but I can't figure out how to do while maintaining my anonymity. Of course I've already given away enough details that all of my friends and coworkers could ID me instantly. I mostly maintain the anonymous status of my blog to prevent future employers from finding it.

I've applied for a couple PD internships next summer already. I've also applied for an internship at a non-profit working on prisoners' rights issues. I realize it is important to show that I am a "true believer" if I ever hope to get a job at a PD office and I hope that prisoners' rights work shows that. I figure working for prisoners shows my understanding that the guilty still deserve legal representation. I think prisoners work shows that even more than PD work. In theory a higher percentage of clients in a PD office are innocent than I would encounter doing prisoners' rights work.

I signed up for moot court yesterday after learning one of the moot courts offered has a criminal procedure case this year. Now I just have to hope I don't get assigned to the State's side of the case.

The Opine Editorials* linked to my post about marriage for same-sex couples in Iowa. I was all excited to have new readers until I went and read some posts at the Opine Editorials. The blog uses the term same-sex "marriage" with marriage always in quotation marks. The blog is devoted to "defending" marriage as between a man and a woman. I guess I should be happy that I'm not just preaching to the choir.

*I'm not going to link to them. You all have Google and can find their blog if you want to.

Marriage for same-sex couples

Marriage was opened for same-sex couples in Iowa for all of a couple hours last week.* One couple managed to get married during that short time period. From the Des Moines Register:

The office hummed with excited gay and lesbian couples. McQuillan and Fritz filled out the paperwork for a marriage license. McQuillan put his name under "groom," Fritz under "bride." ("A very masculine bride," the bearded Fritz joked.)

They paid $5 to waive the three-day period between getting a marriage license and getting married. Now all they needed was a judge willing to sign the waiver form - then marry them.

...

Iowa's would-be first couple of gay marriage walked up the courthouse stairs and found District Judge Scott Rosenberg.

...

[A] minister with the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines agreed to marry them.

...

They raced down Interstate Highway 235, sprinted into the county administration building, ran to the office, received their official marriage certificate, and posed for the cameras.

It was 10:45 a.m.

Less than an hour later, Polk County Judge Robert Hanson suspended his earlier ruling allowing same-sex marriage, pending an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. Moments later, the Polk County recorder's office stopped accepting same-sex marriage license applications.

Read the entire story here.

Marriage for same-sex couples is one of those issues I get really passionate about and it confuses people. People ask if I'm gay a lot. (I suspect the shoe shopping and interest in men's fashion has something to do with it.) When they find out that I'm not they assume that I care about marriage for same-sex couple because I have a close friend or family member who is gay. I don't really. That isn't to say I don't have gay and lesbian friends, it just means that I would care about this issue just as much if I didn't know anyone who wasn't straight.

There are only two issues that I am willing to say there is no possible way to convince me that I am wrong. I am 100% convinced that marriage should be between two loving people regardless of sex, and I am 100% convinced that the death penalty is wrong. All other issues I welcome debate and am willing to revise my positions given the right argument.

I was going to post this on PD Stuff but it seems to be down right now. Thankfully Gideon should be back tomorrow to retake the throne.

*I don't refer to it as "gay marriage" or "same-sex marriage" as those terms were beaten out of me during my work with the ACLU. Both terms imply that it is a separate type of marriage for "gay" or "same-sex" couples, whereas the term "marriage for same-sex couples" indicates that it is the same marriage as given to a man and woman just opened up to all.