I actually did something today

Today I went over plea paperwork with clients. Asked their age and wrote that in, asked how far they had gone in school (most were college graduates) and wrote that in. Then I explained the elements of the crime. Then I explained the rights they were waiving. I often make the claim that I learn nothing in law school. Today forced me to acknowledge that I have actually learned something when I found myself explaining the waiver of rights for memory (thank you Crim Pro II) and not looking at the form. Once that was done I explained the maximum penalty and the offer (usually suspended sentence and a couple hundred dollar fine, with conditions of probation including no similar violations, no refusal of a breath or blood test, etc). Then I asked if they had any questions. One guy unfortunately took me up on my offer to answer his questions and must have been disappointed when I had no idea. Fortunately for me the interpreter working with me at the time knew the answer and told him for me. It wasn't my fault that I didn't know, his question had to do with how he got his bail money back. They definitely don't teach that in law school.

The pretrial calender was insane today. Court started at 8:30, so I was there at 8:15 and I didn't get to leave the courtroom until 1:45. I can't remember that last time I was so hungry. A granola bar and coke is no longer going to cut it as breakfast.

Next week I get my first five cases and in June my provisional license will arrive so I'll actually be able to do something with my cases.

I guess I must have a look that says "I know what's going on" because at two private attorneys asked me questions about the docket today. I can understand the clients thinking "oh look a dude in a suit, he must be a lawyer, I'll ask him what's going on" but other attorneys should know better. I really thought I was conveying a look of terror at the beginning. Most of my thoughts were "please don't ask any questions, please don't ask any questions, please don't ask any questions" originally I didn't want questions out of fear that I couldn't answer them. Towards the end of the day I didn't want questions still, but because I wanted to get the freaking show on the road and get some food. It really wasn't our clients slowing up the courtroom today, it was the god damned pro se clients who should have gone and gotten evaluated but were too freaking lazy to take the elevator 2 floors down to get a free freaking attorney. One of them didn't even learn her lesson since the judge just appointed my supervisor to advise her right then and there.

My first client was pleading and the state offered him a suspended sentence and fine, leaving no jail time to serve and $300 to pay. The judge gave him no jail time and $200 to pay. I told my supervisor is was due to the excellent job I did explaining the form to him. She mumbled some bullshit about the "judge always does that." Whatever, we all know it was all me.

My other clients were less exciting. The DUI client who told the cop he smoked crack after being pulled over wasn't that nice. The client who was bitching about having to be at work and wanting his case to go first was also an asshole. If you don't want to be late for work, try not drinking and driving, just a suggestion, otherwise shut up an wait your turn patiently like everyone else. The homeless client that was starving in the woods and stole some Ensure from WalMart was really, really nice when I helped him understand his waiver of jury trial form. He stole like $6 worth of Ensure and now WalMart is sending him a form demanding $200 in exchange for not suing. Just another reason to hate WalMart.

I continue loving this externship and can't wait to start doing shit on my own.

First impressions

Work is awesome. Being at work at 8AM sucks. Say a mistrial on my first day. Was tons of fun. The prosecutor was pissed. Day 2 was just training, boring but required. My work last year doing appeals has helped me a lot in knowing the issues and some of the state law. Mock trial as an undergrad has helped me know a lot of the rules for running a trial. Voir Dire was new to me and a little confusing. The thought of doing it myself is a little scary. Tomorrow I get to go see the courtroom I will be working in and possibly see some of the cases I will be assigned. To start I will be given 15 or so cases. The goal is that one of them will go to trial. My provisional license hasn't shown up yet so I still can't do anything. Once I do one jury trial under supervision I can do trials on my own, without my supervisor even in the building. I didn't realize I would be trusted so much.

I've learned very quickly that life as a PD is kind of hectic. Every fifteen minutes or so my training is interrupted by another attorney stopping by with a question for my supervisor. Part of that is that she is the supervisor for all the misdemeanor attorneys and there are a lot of new misdemeanor attorneys.

Learned a lot about DUI cases and driving without a license cases. Learned about plea offers and what to expect from the prosecutors. Fortunately my office has a good working relationship with most of the prosecutors. A couple of them a real douche bags, but for the most part they seem nice. One of the attorneys is even dating a prosecutor.

I usually look for any excuse to wear a suit. Suiting up is awesome. I knew that this summer the requirement that I suit up fairly often would cause wearing a suit to lose its novelty. I didn't realize that it would only take one day for it to lose its novelty. My biggest problem is that my dress shoes are cheap pieces of crap and dig into the back of my heels. I put bandaids on the back of my heals to prevent this problem (and just bought some moleskin to see if that works better) but they can slip and fall off during the course of the day.

It has only been two days but I already know that I've chosen the correct career path. Enough pressure and excitement to keep my interested, but not the insane crazy cutthroat pressure you get at firms (or so I'm told). Everyone in the office smiles a lot and has been very friendly.

I'm back

I start work tomorrow. Not doing anything tomorrow, just watching a trial. I did a practice drive to work today just to see how long the commute would be. I'm working at an office that is located North of the major metropolitan area closest to my parents house. This means in the morning all the traffic is southbound, while I am going northbound. It took me 20 minutes to get to work (20 miles) and nearly an hour to return home. I'm so glad that my normal return commute will not be that bad. Going against the flow of traffic rules. I'm mostly just excited to not be riding the bus anymore.

I've probably spent more time picking out my suit, shirt and tie combo than anyone should. I'm going plain white Polo Ralph Lauren shirt, with a DKNY tie and a cheap ass J. Ferrar suit from JC Penney with Stacey Adams shoes with a buckle on the side. That $110 suit has lasted me 3 years so far. I'm amazed it hasn't fallen apart. It doesn't fit exceptionally well, but its better than my Haggar suit from when I was fatter. For Thursday I will probably break out the blue suit with purple pin stripes, or my grey suit with tan pin stripes. Decided against cufflinks and a pocket square on the first day. Going to slowly build up so I don't set the bar too high in the beginning. Might even through in a tie bar as a final coups de grace.

I got an interview working for the a couple hours a week maintaining the brief bank for the state Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. I could use the 15-30 bucks a week. I got a grant for my internship and if I work the entire summer, 40 hours a week I will make $9.30 an hour. Every time I leave work early I get a pay raise.

Had some car trouble on the drive home. Middle of nowhere America at midnight my headlights stop working. Scared the piss out of me. Turned on my four way flashers and my headlights started flashing as well. Finally turned the car off and back on the the lights started working. Fortunately I was only a mile from a town with a hotel. Got to spend the night at world's finest Super 8. Took the car into the shop today to have it looked at (needed a couple other things done as well). $52 got me "We can't recreate the problem and everything looks fine. We can replace the light control stick for $340 plus labor." I declined. Time to make sure my AAA membership is up to date. Probably should put a flashlight in the car as well.

The drive took 2.5 days, including one 16 hour day when I drove 991 miles (average of 61 mph and I wasn't speeding). I don't want to even think about how much I spent on gas.

The last month of school was pretty brutal. I had a take home final in a class that I paid passing attention in at best. It wasn't taught by lawyers so some of the questions were difficult to answer. For example: "Which of the following was true of State v. Perry? (no citation given)" I don't know, which of the more than 3000 State v. Perry's returned by Lexis do you mean? I had some paper classes for the first time as well. I of course did no work on the papers during the semester. I was done with finals on Thursday and didn't finish my last paper until Thursday after finals had officially ended. Not optimistic about those grades (or any of my grades for this semester).

Things have gone really well with the latest girlfriend. I thought the whole divorced thing would be more of an issue. Hasn't really been a problem. I'm more worried about the long distance for the next 3 months. Long distance relationships suck. She comes to visit in less than a month though so that should help.

Viva Las Vegas

Any of my fellow bloggers going to this: http://www.publicdefenderretreat.com/index.html?

Rebound again

So I'm the rebound guy again, but this time the girl actually likes me and I actually like her. This to me means that it is going to end disastrously. The fact that she isn't just getting over a break up, but a divorce doesn't give me hope either. Entering into the relationship I thought it would be nice an casual and short. Thinks got really serious very quickly though. I'm cautiously optimistic about it though because she's a really nice girl.

I'm sure this is going to increase the number of visitors I get who search for "rebound guy." That is my second most common source of visitors from google, after those searching for "I hate law school."

I've been planning my class schedule for next year. I'm hoping that next semester I can do Trial Ad, a clinic of some kind, moot court and then only one legitimate class. It would be the best schedule ever. Three of my classes would be teaching me actual skills I may one day use as an attorney. Such a novel concept, law school teaching actual skills.

I finally came across the relatively knew PD blog preaching to the choir. Some quality ranting going on there. Only 2 months before I will get to do my own PD ranting again. So excited.

dating post with a little law talk

So after the last complete pile of trash that I dated I've been essentially off the market. This is a combination of choice and lack of supply. I went on a date with Internet girl and then she moved far away eight days later. It was a proof of concept thing for me. Internet dating is not as bad as I thought it would be. Unfortunately she was the only person on the website I'm using that seemed worthwhile. Surprisingly she was much better looking in person than her pictures led me to believe.

I've taken a liken to a fellow 2L since then. Friends confirm that she is in fact sane, nice and good looking. Now because she is a nice worthwhile girl I will completely and totally screw up any chances I might have with her. I really am trying to remain optimistic but if I get too optimistic I'm just setting myself up for a big let down. It is a precarious balancing test and now I'm thinking about it way too much. I'm a disaster with women.

My client from over the summer would have had oral arguments today if his real attorney hadn't waived. I was hoping he would have oral arguments so when his conviction is affirmed I could blame it on the attorney's poor oral advocacy and not my brief. Now if/when his conviction is affirmed I have to blame it on his actually being guilty or the court's utter disregard for the law.

I started caclulating how much it will cost for me to drive home this summer if gas prices stay the same. Currently looking at around $350 if I get decent gas mileage. I've purchased plane tickets for less. Plus I have to get a hotel at least once, probably twice.

And now for my exciting Friday night plans: Laundry.

Law school is boring, thus I have nothing to write about

It has been more than a month since I last wrote anything. I have very little to add that I haven't said before. I still dislike law school. Mostly now I'm just bored. I really should have followed through with my plan to try and intern with the PD office. But I so enjoy having a three day weekend that I stand by the decision.

A prosecutor came and spoke in one of my classes awhile ago. He was nice until the end when he felt the need to remind everyone that he represented the "People of the Great State of ________." It made me think of Saucy Vixon's post http://saucyvixen.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-do-what-i-do.html and Audacity's comment to her post, where she said "I also represent the people, one person at a time."

I've decided that preying on the 1Ls is no longer worth my while. I have now descended to the hell that is internet dating. One girl seems interesting, we've sent messages back and forth a little bit, we'll see if anything comes of it. I'm not holding out much hope.