Necessity

My first little "project" of the summer internship has been to research whether the necessity defense could pass the "smile test" to get a misdemeanor case to the jury. I'm being vague because it just seems like a good idea, but suffice to say the necessity defense (aka "choice of evils" if you're a Model Penal Code (MPC) type) is only successful in a very narrow range of circumstances.

Aside from learning a bit more about necessity, I've also learned that the "research memos" I wrote for my legal writing class were much more works of art than real work products. Where I spent weeks or days developing those memos, when my boss asked for a memo on the necessity defense she was thinking of a project that should have taken me a couple of hours, an afternoon at most. Steep. Learning. Curve.

Meanwhile, check out Steven's 1L review over at Half-Cocked.

Posted 05:51 AM | Comments (3) | 1L summer