DC Primary

DC had a first in the nation "preference poll" on January 13th, which Howard Dean won by a mile. Unfortunately, that didn't really count for a whole lot, so tomorrow DC has its real caucus, which does count, albeit for very little (three delegates, I think). Anyway, find your polling place and please vote!

Better still, vote for Dean! Here's why you should: You gotta believe.

UPDATE: After you vote, why not sign the Million for Marriage petition? It's an easy and painless way to show that the Constitution doesn't need any "marriage protection" amendments, thanks.

UPDATE II: Vote for Dean, Punk.

Posted 12:04 PM | election 2004

Online Good and Bad

The good: Joe Trippi has started his own blog.

The bad: The Washington Post has begun requiring online readers to register. I was going to start subscribing for Sunday-only delivery, but now I'm not so sure. This stinks. I had begun to rely on the Post for a good source of "free" online news that didn't require all the stupid stuff that the NY Times or LA Times or other major papers require. Oh well; BBC and Yahoo are still "free."

Posted 07:56 AM | meta-blogging

What Better Profession?

In response to Transmogriflaw's post about brief-writing, and Legal Undeground's post about Richard Ford, Stay of Execution once again offers a tantalizing gem of insight into what it's like to practice law, and why it can sometimes, well, suck.

Sherry's whole post is certainly worth reading (and it's not long), but here's the heart of it for me: After explaining that the key to a good brief is to separate your own feelings from your client's interests, Sherry writes:

When Evan asks the rhetorical question of what's not to like in this profession, that would be my answer. We stop being principals in the world and act instead as the agents of other people. We defend their positions, not our own. We look out for their interests, zealously. We articulate their arguments, not ours, even though it is we who are coming up with those arguments. It requires something that on one hand is pretty cool -- a precise ability to parse out arguments and set aside emotion, to be extremely clear about just who you represent at any moment and just what is and is not their (and therefore your) concern right now. It is the essence of that mysterious "thinking like a lawyer" phrase that sort of happens to you sometime late in 1L year. But on the other hand it is an abdication sometimes of our own agency, our own voice. And that is something I still struggle with sometimes.

That may be the best argument I've yet heard for doing everything you possibly can to find a legal job that fits you, rather than one that just pays well or gives you prestige or credentials or whatever. Does job satisfaction directly correspond with the degree to which your client's values and interests match your own?

Beyond that, I find this description of lawyers as split selves -- one self that advocates zealously for the clients' interests, one that lives the rest of the lawyer's life -- just a little disturbing at the moment, making me wonder yet again: Is this really the life I want to live?

Perhaps I'm just scared of something -- the debt, the pressure, the stress of practice. But the context of Evan's question (the question to which Sherry was responding) raises two other possibilities. Evan wrote:

But to someone who wants to pay the money and serve the time to get the degree--what better profession is there? A world of possibilities and options are available to lawyers. Only the unimaginative are cut off by their embrace of the “calling of law.”

So maybe I don't really want to pay the money and serve the time to get the degree. Or maybe I'm just unimaginative.

Oooorrrr..... maybe I should quit thinking about things like this and do my reading, brief-writing, and mock trial preparation. Yeah, maybe.

Posted 06:47 AM | Comments (1) | law general law school