E-Mail and I'm a winner

I won a case. Sure it was only a social security hearing, and sure I didn't even get to ask a single question, but it was my argument that the ALJ read and I'm the one who prepared my client for the ALJ's questions. It was an awesome feeling. When I got back to the office a different client yelled at me on the phone for 15 minutes. It was not an awesome feeling.

I almost never check the email associated with this website. Mostly because no one has ever emailed me, until now. Turns out in November my blog was ranked the 106th top blog in the field of criminal law by attorney.org While I certainly don't think my blog should be ranked anywhere near that high, especially considering I'm only an honorary criminal law blogger, I'm honored nonetheless. Not that attorney.org actually provided a link to my site, or any of the other 151 sites the mentioned. I was happy to see that the #1 spot went to Gideon.

In October I was offered a free copy of a book about law school in exchange for reviewing it on my blog. If that offer is still available you'll be seeing my review soon.

Lastly I was invited join the Bob Loblaw Attorney & Law student Web Ring. You should see a link to it down below now.

Poverty

In four months I've come to realize how little I actually understood what it must be like to live in poverty. I always knew that being evicted would suck, but I just thought, well they'll just have to get a new place. Somehow it never occurred to me that if one is being evicted for not paying rent, they almost surely aren't going to have enough money to put down a security deposit on a new place. I also didn't fully appreciate how awful a money judgment can be for someone. Should our clients ever get a good paying job or come into some money it doesn't really help because they owe so many people money.

I did a lot of complaining about the job market and my struggles finding a job, but it really was nothing when compared against what my clients' go through on a regular basis. For one I had food and shelter during the time I was looking for a job. I had family I could live with for free if I couldn't find a job. And any job I found, no matter how much I complain about my low public interest salary, pays far beyond what my clients could hope to make.

I got all this because of my privileged upbringing. Sure I worked hard in school and I like to think I'm pretty smart, but without my family there is no way I'd be here. No way I would have worked multiple part time jobs to put myself through school. No way I would have been able to handle raising a child while going to school. I'm not only privileged, I'm weak.

As 2010 starts I'm trying to get a better understanding of what life must be like for my clients. I've decided to see if I can go an entire month without buying anything but food and necessities (i.e. toilet paper). Should be easy, but I love to shop, have a new house to decorate and have been reading books and magazines like crazy. Now I don't think this will give me any real insight into what my clients go through (after all I'm still going to be buying fresh local food and organic products whenever possible), but it will hopefully make me think more about the things I buy and the money I spend. Maybe make me appreciate how much I have.

Let's see if I remember how to do this

The whole work/life balance thing has been kind of hard for me with the long ass commute. As that is now a thing of the past I will hopefully have more time for blogging (or more likely sleeping).


This is just awesome! I remain jealous as all hell.

I have been admitted to practice law finally. I also have business cards now. I've been handing those out to anyone and everyone who looks at me. Why yes it does say "Attorney" on there ma'am. Yes that is a reference to my position.

Moving along to the bread and butter of this blog (sadly), it's time to gripe about clients.

Dear Client,

I'm sorry if I have a little trouble caring about your case when you: 1. Don't care about custody or visitation if a DNA test proves the children you've been raising for 5 years are yours. 2. Do nothing after allegations that your child was raped.

(And to clarify, yes I was judging you during our interview.)

-Petition

Dear Client,

No I don't think you are going to get Social Security. Your "condition" doesn't meet a listing. I agree that your condition is "severe" (I'm not sure how you ever managed to keep an appointment with our office) but that isn't going to fly with the ALJ.

-Petition

Dear Client,

No I don't think you are going to get Social Security. You HAVEN'T EVEN APPLIED YET. Why are you bothering an attorney? The questions aren't exactly hard, they ask for information about you, no one other than you knows it.

-Petition

I passed

In all honestly I was about 99% sure I passed the exam. I refused to admit this though as etiquette seems to require saying that you think you passed the exam. I was also afraid to admit it to myself for fear of jinxing it. Seeing my name on the list of those who passed was the biggest relief ever. If I can do that I can do anything.

In other news, I bought a house. I have a house, a pension and a career. Wife and kids still missing. Current prognosis for wife, not good.

Getting used to actually lawyering. Working for 8 hours straight is not as difficult anymore as I've become accustomed to it. I have one area of law down to the point where I can answer most questions that a client might have in a typical case. In other areas I know a lot less. Being better in one area is improving my confidence though. It just takes time to learn and time is not something that legal aid lawyers have an abundance of. At least I don't have to work on Saturday's or meet billable hour requirements. Firm life just sounds awful.

I'm a horrible person

Date with the internet girl went pretty well. For various reasons I don't see a lot of long term potential with her, but we'll be able to have some fun for awhile. After dating law school girls for the past 3 years I forgot what normal people are like. In some ways this is nice as non law people are much nicer. In other ways it kind of sucks as non law people can be very stupid and care about inane things. I had some people I didn't like in law school and a couple people who's intelligence I genuinely questioned, but for the most part everyone was very smart, even if we disagreed on things. In the real world not everyone is smart enough to get over the 85 percentile on the LSAT. I forgot that.

I also forgot what a privileged life I've led. Despite having dirt poor clients at both my internships and now at my job, I somehow managed to miss that. I think in all my whining and complaining about my public interest salary I somehow remained oblivious to the fact that not everyone can afford gas to drive to work, or groceries to eat for an entire week, or to pay off all their bills every month. Yeah my salary sucks when compared to my friends working at firms, but compared to those working hourly jobs, my salary is awesome. And beyond that I have health insurance so getting sick doesn't financially ruin me. And if I don't make my loan payments it's not like they are going to turn off the power to my house, repo my car, or evict me from my house.

Now for why I'm a horrible person. Part of the reason why I don't think there is much of a future is that her financial situation made her one legal problem away from becoming a client. (And after drinks with dinner, her driving was one cop away from becoming a PD's client.) I defend myself by saying that 1. This wasn't a deal breaker, this was more a part of the totality of the circumstances and 2. I deal with these problems enough on a day to day basis with my clients, I don't need my relationships to have them as well.

Awesome news, kind of

My job is a fellowship that is only funded for a year. At the end of the year I will no longer have a job unless the office likes me and can secure funding to hire me. Well that was the case until things changed. An attorney has chosen to leave the office and his position has been offered to me. This is awesome because it comes with a substantial pay increase (as in over $10k a year), removing "fellow" from my title, and a better office. This is bad because the job is in the state I vowed to leave three years ago, requires a minimum of a two year commitment (which I know they can't enforce, but I'm not such a jackass that I'd screw over a non-profit), would require me to take another bar exam and spend at least another two years away from my friends and family.

I was pretty sure I'd get an offer after a year, or 6 months, but did not expect it in less than a month. My brain hurts from thinking about it all day and probably the rest of the week.

This post totally gives me identity away to my employer but I only have said good things about them so far, so I'm not that concerned and I don't think they are looking for me anyway.

In other happy news I have another date with internet girl this weekend.

I'm an idiot with women, the saga continues

Went on a date last night with a girl I met online. During the date I went to send a friend a text letting him know that I thought the date was going well. Instead of sending that text to my friend I sent it to my date. She showed me. I'm pretty sure I turned red. Other stellar performances on my part during the date include spilling half my beer on the table and nearly crying after tasting the hot sauce (which of course was preceded by bragging about how I can handle really hot food).
We also went to the gay bar and watched the talent show. Shockingly the date went really well and we will go out again.

At work on Friday my boss informed me that I had an hour to prepare for an intake meeting that I would be doing. I forgot to ask some important questions, failed to introduce myself at first and had no idea what to say after about 15 minutes. I'll get there, at least I realize what mistakes I've made. I have 3 hearings scheduled for next week. So far I'm liking it almost as much as PD work. If I could cross exam cops I think it would be equal.