Katrina's Aftermath

Scripting News is following the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and it looks like New Orleans may not have seen the worst of it yet. One of the links there is to the New Orleans Times-Picayune weblog where you can find frightening stories such as this:

Those trapped in the city faced an increasingly lawless environment, as law enforcement agencies found themselves overwhelmed with widespread looting. Looters swarmed the Wal-mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, often bypassing the food and drink section to steal wide-screen TVs, jewelry, bicycles and computers. Watching the sordid display and shaking his head in disgust, one firefighter said of the scene: “It’s a f---- hurricane, what are you do with a basketball goal?”

Police regained control at about 3 p.m., after clearing the store with armed patrol. One shotgun-toting Third District detective described the looting as “ferocious.”

“And it’s going to get worse as the days progress,” he said.

In Uptown, one the few areas that remained dry, a bearded man patrolled Oak Street near the boarded-up Maple Leaf Bar, a sawed-off shotgun slung over his shoulder. The owners of a hardware store sat in folding chairs, pistols at the ready.

Uptown resident Keith Williams started his own security patrol, driving around in his Ford pickup with his newly purchased handgun. Earlier in the day, Williams said he had seen the body of a gunshot victim near the corner of Leonidas and Hickory streets.

“What I want to know is why we don’t have paratroopers with machine guns on every street,” Williams said.

Like-minded Art Depodesta sat on the edge of a picnic table outside Cooter Brown’s Bar, a chrome shotgun at his side loaded with red shells.

“They broke into the Shell station across the street,” he said. “I walked over with my 12-gauge and shot a couple into the air.”

The looters scattered, but soon after, another man appeared outside the bar in a pickup truck armed with a pistol and threatened Depodesta.

“I told him, ‘Listen, I was in the Army and I will blow your ass off,’” Depodesta said. “We’ve got enough trouble with the flood.” The man sped away.

“You know what sucks,” Depodesta said. “The whole U.S. is looking at this city right now, and this is what they see.”

In the Bywater, a supply store sported spray-painted signs reading “You Loot, I Shoot” and “You Bein Watched.” A man seated nearby with a rifle in his lap suggested it was no idle threat. At the Bywater studio of Dr. Bob, the artist known for handpainted “Be Nice or Leave” signs, a less fanciful sentiment was painted on the wall: “Looters Will Be Shot. Dr. Bob.”

...

The scene called to mind a refugee camp in a Third World nation. Liquor flowed freely and tempers flared amid complaints about the pace of the relief effort, which seemed to overwhelm the agencies involved and the city’s inability to contain flood waters.

Yikes. Vigilantes with guns against looters? Sounds like a pretty volatile situation, to say the least. I'm not sure about the Third World refugee camp analogy though; do Third World refugee camps have free-flowing liquor?

And, of course, there's always that little thing about oil—damaged production facilities in the Gulf mean the price is going up. Good thing Yubbledew is cutting his vacation short. I bet everyone suffering from Katrina will feel much better knowing the record-setting vacationer is in charge—especially since he's the guy that helped make sure the area would not be prepared for a disaster like this. Yeah.

Posted 06:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | life generally

Day One 3L

Um, did school really start? Apparently so, even though I didn't have to be anywhere until 5 p.m. yesterday. This is going to be an odd semester; it looks like my earliest class is going to start at 3:50 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6 p.m. Mondays, with no class Wednesdays or Fridays. That leaves lots of time for the clinic and the mock trial competition. I sort of swore I would never do another such competition but it turns out I need one credit to fill out the schedule and I figure it will be good practice of the skills I'll be using in the clinic and later in “the real job.” Anybody want to be my partner?

So anyway, it looks like classes will be Public Interest Lawyering (PIL); Race, Racism, and the Law (RRL); Clinic; Mock Trial; and Journal. I had PIL last night and our instructor introduced herself this way: “I am absolutely, positively, a hairy-legged feminist.” Sounds good to me. Her candor on everything was refreshing, as was the feeling that in that class I'm surrounded by other people who are as disinterested in big firms and big money as I am, and probably even more interested in social justice than I am. I think it's going to be a great class.

I haven't started anything other than clinic, but bad news on that front: My client was rearrested in his stay-away zone the day after he was released. Crap. But I guess this will be a good lesson in what to do when stuff like this happens, which I know with some clients is going to be all the time.

Posted 10:04 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | 3L

Blawg Review 21 & 22

The latest edition of the carnival of law blogs, Blawg Review #21, is now up at My Shingle and it's packed with great links to some of the best content around the blawgosphere, including: Should law profs wear jeans? Carolyn Elefant says no, and while I admire her greatly, I respectfully disagree. Law is far too stuffy and the dress code at every level is exceedingly ridiculous. Law profs should wear jeans and lawyers should wear jeans and judges should wear jeans. Law should not be the province of those who dress “correctly”—it belongs to the citizens of the nation it helps govern and only a small fraction of those people can afford or want to wear monkey suits and all the rest of the extraneous trappings lawyers seem to think are so important. This is yet another reason I hope to someday practice law in the Rocky Mountain region. Sure, there are firms there that require the monkey suit, but if you head out into smaller communities you'll find that “dressing up” means nice boots or shoes, jeans, a clean button-down shirt (often western cut but not necessarily), and a sportcoat. Boots, tie, and cowboy hat optional. That's much more my style.

Yeah, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. And yeah, standards are different for women, but they are also more relaxed, I believe.

If you think about this as a pedagogical question and ask what kind of message you're sending by your dress, there are obviously arguments on both sides. However, I read the support of suits as a silly ploy for power, an attempt to “establish authority” in the classroom. Authoritarian classrooms, like authoritarian regimes, suck, and that's just one reason law school often sucks. So do your students a favor law profs and drop the silly games. Wear what you want and be a human being, not an “authority figure.”

Oh, and just to add to the mix: I had a prof last year at GW who wore some kind of leather-like pants. He never wore a sportcoat or blazer, and I'm pretty sure he wore jeans a few times. He also had some wild shirts with flames and other crazy decorations on them. He was a little goofy, but his dress code didn't make any difference to me. I'm glad he wore what he was comfortable with. Everyone should do that.

TANGENT! Anyhoo, once you've finished reading all the great stuff there, be sure and follow these submission guidelines to send your posts in for Blawg Review #22. The host will be Blawg Wisdom and the theme will be “back-to-school.” But while the focus will be on that theme, #22 will obviously include posts on a wide range of topics. So find a good post or two—either your own or something you read from somewhere else—and send it in. And thanks for playing!

Posted 10:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | meta-blogging

MPRE?

Now that I'm finished with my rant: If you also still must take the MPRE, note that the next test date is November 4th, registration deadline is Sept. 27th, and the cost is $55.

Now can someone tell me how I'm supposed to study for this thing? Isn't there some BarBri prep deal?

And what's with this MBE, MEE, and MPT business? Are there other tests I still need to worry about besides the bar exam, or am I correct in assuming that these tests will just be folded into the regular bar exam if your state requires them?

Thank you in advance for helping to reduce my cluelessness.

Posted 08:37 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack | 3L

I Have No Use for Adobe Acrobat

Rant occasioned by checking out the MPRE, which I still must take:

You know what? I'm tired of websites telling me I need Adobe Acrobat to view pdf files. It's not true. I use a Mac, which means I have the speedy and feature-rich Preview, plus if you have the Schubert|it PDF Browser Plugin, you can just view pdf files right in Safari—and w/zero wait time, unlike the laborious process of loading Acrobat on a Windows machine. So while I have Acrobat on my machine, I never ever ever use it. So hey people, stop w/the Adobe Acrobat pimping, will you? Acrobat is slow and clunky as far as I'm concerned, so I don't want to hear anything more about it. Thanks. ;-)

Posted 08:27 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | mac geek

Gizmo Project Rocks

I've had the pleasure in the last couple of weeks to talk to a number of fun, interesting, and knowledgeable people as I prepare the podcast to end all podcasts—the back-to-school podcast for Blawg Review #22, which will be hosted by Blawg Wisdom on September 5. As you may recall, I've been trying to figure out a good way to record phone interviews for podcasting purposes. I started with Slapcast, which allows you to record 5-minute bits of conversation with someone just by creating a 3-way call. Simple, easy, cool, except that 5 minutes is kind off limiting. It's a pain to get into a conversation and then be cut off at the 5 minute mark, redial, get back into it, get cut off, etc. Plus, it means lots of editing to put the bits together later. Then I Iooked into using Skype to record calls, but the only way I found to do that seemed incredibly complicated (and a bit costly in terms of software required). Then the good folks at Slapcast invited me to try a Skype recording beta that allows you to make a 3-way conference call in Skype to record your call—way cool! It's pretty darned close to one-click call-recording. The only real drawback is that Slapcast costs $5 month.

Enter GizmoProject. It's free, it allows you to call any phone in the world (or any other Gizmo user, obviously), and it has true one-click recording that works, well, pretty great. It seems to add a bit of a break to your recording every few minutes—I think it has to do w/disk speed and saving the file as you talk or something. But still, the quality is better than most recorded phone calls, you can talk as long as you want, and, like I said, one click and you're recording. And did I mention it's free? Ok, it's not totally free. The ability to call actual phone numbers requires you to buy call-out credit which is about 1.8 cents/minute. That's not much, and Skype has the same requirement, so on balance Gizmo definitely wins b/c of its ease of recording.

So if I could channel Strongbad : Everybody to the Gizmo! (Go here and download the song “Everybody to the Limit” if you don't know what I'm talking about. You'll be glad you did.)

Posted 10:49 AM | Comments (2) | voices

Congrats to D.C. area law students from the ABA

I got an email a couple off weeks ago on the heels of the national ABA convention that said the 11th Circuit of the ABA Law Student Division won a nice handful of awards at those meetings. Since that apparently includes my own school, GW, congratulations to the following:

Student Bar Association Award:
George Washington University Law School
 
Best Law School Newspaper Feature Article:
Matthew Schwartz - “Ethics Journal Loses Member Over Copyright”
Georgetown Law Weekly - Georgetown University Law Center
 
Best Law School Newspaper Editorial:
Marcus Ehrlander - “Abusing the Democratic Process”
Nota Bene - Georgetown Washington University Law School
 
Best Magazine:
Business Law Brief
American University, Washington College of Law

Oh, and while the GW SBA is doing so well, hows about we get some storage space for the EJF so we don't have to basically prepare the public interest auction out of the trunk of someone's car every year, hmm? ;-)

Posted 01:52 PM | TrackBack | 3L

Wisdom Request: Calling Couplers

There's a great new request for wisdom over at Blawg Wisdom. Please check it out—especially if you're a law student who has managed to make it through law school with a relationship/marriage intact, or if you're the spouse of a current or former law student.

Posted 11:06 AM | TrackBack | advice

Reality: Expect the Unexpected

So pickup yesterday went mostly as planned, but you know what? The real thing is never as simple as the theory and that may be nowhere more true than when you're dealing with indigent criminal defendants. I'm leery of revealing too much about yesterday for fear of compromising my client in some way, but these things I will say:

Interviewing a client in lockup is tough. You're standing there, talking through the bars, basically shouting over the roar of the 20 other guys in the cell with your client. Your client will always have bad breath—count on it. He's been in jail for possibly as much as 24 hours and he has not had a mint, or brushed his teeth, or anything else in that time. But that's nothing. What's hard is the shouting, the fact that you have to hold your papers and write standing up, and the fact that your client probably doesn't trust you any further than he can throw you—especially since at least 5 people standing nearby can probably hear everything he says. And to top it all off, your client might be belligerent, or crazy, or crying, or any number of extreme things that you just can't simulate or prepare for in a theoretical way. So you can practice client interviews all you want, but until you've done them in conditions like this, you won't know what you're talking about.

Note: I've done 15-20 interviews w/indigent criminal defendants but none has ever been this challenging because I conducted them all in a Public Defender's office, sitting down across a table or desk from the client, with the door closed so we could talk freely without fear of anyone else listening in. Very very different.

Pickup can take all day, or just a few minutes. If you're an experienced attorney and you get lucky, you could show up to the courthouse at 12:30 p.m., pick up your client's PSA (if it's ready), interview your client briefly, get your case called in the first half hour, get your client out, interview him, and you're outta there by 1:30. Unfortunately it seems that many lawyers never interview their clients prior to arraignment so they can do the whole pickup process even faster. Not us. As students (aka: puppies) we're eager and earnest and we want to do the best possible job so we're there at 10 a.m., we run our client's record, we interview the client, we call people to verify information, we check on client's drug tests, we interview our client again to discuss anything we've learned, and then we sit in court waiting waiting waiting for our case to be called. I was actually one of the lucky ones yesterday: I was there at 10 a.m. and was mostly busy until 1 p.m., but then my case was about the 5th one called so I really was out by 1:30 p.m.

Luckily, I got my client out, but for a second I thought I wouldn't. I read my litany, I passed the prosecutor my business card, I handed the clerk my praecipe (basically saying my client agrees to allow me to represent him, since I'm a student), and I asked the court to release my client on his own recognizance. Everything was going swimmingly and then the prosecutor said, “Your honor, may we approach?”

Approach!? Wha!? Hey, this wasn't in my script, dude! You're killing my buzz here! Approach!?

But whatever, we approached, and since the approach was necessary I won't go into its purpose, but the prosecutor made a motion and a little argument, I countered, my supervisor (who thankfully followed us up to the bench) added one very important point I'd forgotten, the prosecutor had little response, I argued just a little more (basically repeating what I'd said and folding in what my supervisor had added), and the judge concluded to the prosecutor: “Denied.”

Ha! I just won my first sidebar!

Ok, so I'm totally making this sound like more of a big deal than it is/was, and it truly may have gone the other way had my supervisor not been there, but it was a bit tense, very exciting, and it definitely was a relief to not lose that little skirmish. After that, the prosecutor didn't seem to want much more from me or my client—she had no further argument against his release on his own recognizance so she just asked for a stay-away, we didn't object, and my client was free to go.

Although that was great, the day ended on a less-great note because I basically didn't get much out of my client in terms of a defense. As I walked my client out of the courthouse, I tried to convince him to come back to the office with me to discuss his case and develop a defense. He wasn't interested; he was free and he had places to go, man! But first, he needed a cigarette. I walked with him for a few blocks, stopping every few steps so he could ask someone new if he could bum a smoke. Finally I stopped at a street cart and bought a pack of cigarettes for him, then I sat him down and tried to get him to talk to me about his case. He was much calmer and more patient as he smoked, but he still didn't have much to say. After a few minutes of this and two cigarettes, he said he had to get going and what was I going to say? I told him I'd see him in court in a couple of weeks (and I told him over and over how important it was that he be there!), and that was that.

A good day. A challenging day. And even though this was all very small potatoes and not everything went according to plan, it felt great to return to the office knowing my client was no longer behind bars and that I'd had a hand in helping to set him free. We'll be back in court in about two weeks and I have a lot to do between now and then for the case, but for now, I'll consider this a good start for the year.

Posted 10:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L

The Litany

I'm heading over to the courthouse to pick up my first case(s) soon. This means I called in last night to say I wanted to pick up cases and left my D.C. Bar number. Yeah, I have a Bar card now! It's a student practice card, but still—the Bar number will get me into the jail and allow me to represent clients (w/supervision), so it's still pretty cool.

Anyway, now that I've called in, I head to court to learn who my client(s) will be, pick up their pre-sentence assessments (PSAs), then head to the cellblock to talk to them about how we're going to try to get them out of there. After that, I'll make calls to verify information the clients have given me (if necessary), see if the drug unit has completed testing a urine sample for my clients, try to talk to the clients' probation officer(s), if they have them, to see if the PO is going to recommend a hold for any reason. Finally, I'll run my client(s) records and, if there's time, verify that they are correct by pulling the relevant case jackets for any prior convictions.

All that is to prepare for arraignment where I'll stand beside my client in front of the judge and recite the following litany:

Good morning, your Honor, Mr. Imbroglio from D.C. Law Students in Court, here with my supervisor, Mr. Supervisor, on behalf of Mr. Client. On behalf of Mr. Client, we waive a formal reading, enter a plea of not guilty, assert Mr. Client's 5th and 6th Amendment rights to counsel in this and all other matters, and request a speedy trial.

After that the prosecutor will probably ask the judge to hold Mr. Client, in which case I'll get a “Gerstein”—a statement of probable cause to justify such a hold as required by Gerstein v. Pugh. If at all possible I'll argue that the Gerstein does not constitute probable cause and that the court should release Mr. Client on his own recognizance. If the prosecutor does not ask for a hold or does ask but loses the argument, he or she will probably then ask for conditions of release such as stay-away orders (client must stay away from anyone involved in alleged crime and from the place where the crime took place or where client was picked up), drug testing, etc. If all goes well, I'll leave the courtroom with my clients and have a chance to interview them before they head back out into the world to await trial.

That's how it's supposed to work, anyway. I guess I'll see what the reality is in a couple of hours. This is both exciting and a little frightening. I stood up for three clients during my summer internship, but that felt much more familiar and controlled than this because I had so much more time for preparation of each case before going in front of the judge and because I knew all the people involved—the attorney I worked with, the prosecutors, the judge, the deputies in the courtroom, etc.—because I'd already spent literally months working in and around that courthouse. In contrast, today I'll go to at least one place I've never been (the cellblock) and I'll be working in a courtroom and courthouse wehre I've spent all of a couple hours. Sshh! Don't tell my clients!

I'll let you know what happens.

Posted 08:38 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | 3L

DC LSIC: Orientation Notes, Day 4

I got a little busy over the weekend but here are the final few bits from my last day of orientation last Saturday for D.C. Law Students In Court:

1. Rule #1: The government always wins.
2. Rule #2: The quickest argument can trump Rule #1. (The court wants things to move fast and with the least possible hassle, so if you get there first w/your point, you're more likely to win.
3. Court-appointed attorneys are not free if you lose. In D.C., if you're found guilty in a case where you have a court-appointed attorney, you court costs will be somewhere between $50-$250 for a misdemeanor. It's more for a felony. (I still need to find out what the income cap is to qualify for court-appointed.)
4. The U.S. Attorneys speak of “allocution” when talking about sentencing arguments. E.g., “we reserve allocution,” or “we waive allocution” in a plea offer. Why don't they just say “argument”? Silly lawyers.

That's about it. Of course, we covered a lot of material that I haven't mentioned here, but these are the high points. I'll pick up my first cases on Thursday and the clinic runs from now until graduation, so expect further updates in the coming months.

One more note: We need to appear as lawyerly and professional as possible, and one way to do that is to have business cards ready to hand to clients when we meet them. If you find yourself needing business cards for any reason, check out VistaPrint, where you can get 250 cards for $5.25 (the cost of shipping).

Posted 10:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 3L

Guest Computer User

I left my computer sort of laying around the other night when we had a houseful of guests and when I opened it up the next morning I found a browser window open to the Westlaw version of U.S. v. Johnson, 123 Fed.Appx. 240, 2005 WL 589976 (C.A.7 (Ind.)). Another window was open to this recording of the oral argument in that case in which an exasperated attorney is apparently arguing a position that would contradict the U.S. Supreme Court and the 7th Circuit is having none of it. I have not investigated beyond this point to really understand what this is about except that the attorney is arguing that pretextual stops by police are really really bad. I certainly agree. When he's done, it sort of sounds like he tries to walk out and the clerk won't let him. It's all very strange.

But who was looking at this case and why? The mystery may never be solved....

Posted 11:14 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | crimlaw

You Suck and That's Sad

What “Happy Bunny” phrase are you? you suck and that's sad You are a very compassionate and sympathetic person. You use your divine sense of humor to cheer up a situation.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

[via TSC Girl]

Posted 11:07 PM | TrackBack | life generally

Complicating the Defense

In the past couple of weeks I've witnessed or participated in a small number of somewhat troubling conversations related to the question of why criminal defense lawyers do what they do, and why prosecutors do what they do.

In one such conversation, a law student was arguing that prosecutors and defenders are basically motivated by the same ideals of justice and fairness, but with different ideas of what those things mean. For prosecutors, it's fair and just to lock people up for very long periods or even kill them if they break society's rules. For defenders, it's fair and just to keep people out of jail and instead provide them with the means to resolve whatever problems they have in their lives that led them to break—or be accused of breaking—society's rules. The public defender involved in this conversation dismissed the argument categorically and vehemently, arguing instead that defenders and prosecutors have absolutely nothing in common, that they were essentially different animals w/entirely different motivations and goals. The PD's argument basically seemed to be that prosecutors are just very evil people w/no feelings.

In a second such conversation, a law student was arguing that she wanted to be a prosecutor because she wanted to help people and she thought she could do that better from inside the prosecutor's office than she could as a defender. The public defender in this conversation simply could not accept that possibility because, again, he seemed to be of the opinion that prosecutors are something very close to pure evil and incapable of redemption. From his perspective, the big sin of prosecutors is that they simply do not care at all for defendants; they don't see a person accused of a crime, they see a criminal, and that's really not a human being at all, so all they want is to put that person away and get another X in the “win” column. The defender kept repeating: “They don't care about them [the accused]! They just don't care!”

These conversations trouble me for a couple of reasons. First, it surprises and disappoints me to think that defenders have such simple and uncomplicated views of the prosecution. “They're just bad.” Really? Well, isn't that what they say about our clients? If defenders dismiss prosecutors as just evil lowlifes who don't care about other people, aren't we being just as inhumane and uncritical and ignorant as we accuse them of being? Second, I find it hard to believe that these public defenders started their careers with these opinions, which suggests that a few years of the job has turned them into ... well, how to say it? Rather bitter and twisted people? I hate to think that these are the views I will hold in a few years.

Don't get me wrong. I don't love prosecutors or think they are generally terrific people. However, I'm willing to give them a bit more benefit of the doubt. Everyone I've known who has been or is on his/her way to becoming a prosecutor is motivated by a desire to help people and to do something good for society. I generally disagree with their methods toward this goal, but that doesn't mean I think they are evil. I think they are wrong. They think I am wrong. We disagree. But it also seems that it's crucial to have good people on the side of the prosecution—people with good judgment, people who really care about the responsibilities they carry and who will work hard to make good charging decisions and to conduct their prosecutions ethically and fairly. And sure, I have seen that there are prosecutors who are none of these things—they really do act as if they have no concern for anything other than the “win” and they are willing to do all manner of unspeakable—and criminal—things to get it. But they can't all be like that ... can they?

Posted 06:28 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack | crimlaw

DC LSIC: Orientation Notes, Day 3

1. You often get more discovery in civil cases than in criminal cases where your client could go away for a long time—or be killed.
2. Discovery is always “upon request.” If you don't ask, you don't get, and you can't whine.
3. Never underestimate the laziness of the U.S. Attorney's office—not the individuals, but as an entity.
4. Investigation is the best thing to do and can be the best part of your job. You find out about all the best restaurants that nobody knows about and you meet all kinds of great people you would never normally meet.
5. You must investigate everything. For example, Johnny St. Valentine Brown was a very very bad man who helped put thousands of people away for a very long time, but no one knew how bad he was until someone finally investigated his background.
6. When you read the rule, and you follow it, then you're good.
7. The truth may not set you free but hopefully it will set your client free, and if it not, Rule 16 will. [I can't find the D.C. rule online, but it's based on the Federal rule.]
8. Student attorneys are eager and sincere and full of energy. We come before the jaded court that has seen everything and we are like little puppies. The judge is not gonna want to shoot the puppy.
9. C-10, the misdemeanor arraignment court, does not smell great. It's in the basement, is poorly lit, and the sound quality sucks. Court proceedings are supposed to be public, but in C-10 they are conducted in such a way that it is basically impossible for the public to hear what is happening.
10. The D.C. Superior Court is a model of bureaucratic complication. There are at least half a dozen different clerk's offices scattered from basement to fourth floor throughout the building. Perhaps I will learn some rhyme or reason for it all in time.
11. The U.S. Attorney working in C-10 has a team of support staff to assist him or her. There is an entire area of the courtoom given over to the U.S. A's files and staff. It continues to surprise me that prosecutors have offices and staff in courthouses, then they go to courtrooms where everyone pretends the proceedings are “objective” or in some way neutral.

Posted 06:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L lists

DC LSIC: Orientation Notes, Day 2

Day two was not quite so packed w/pithy little bits of wisdom to share, but there were a few, including:

1. If you're never sort of tempted to breach ethical rules for your client you may be in the wrong line of work. You've got to want to win. You also have to never cross the line even when you're tempted.
2. Do not have sex w/your clients.
3. Jencks is a double-edged sword. You want to take statements and notes from adversarial (prosecution) witnesses, but not from your own.
4. In D.C., every person ever arrested for anything gets a PDID number (Police Department Identification) that that person for life. Lower numbers mean this person was first arrested longer ago. Note that PDID looks a little like P. Diddy. Is there some connection?

There was more, but I'm late for day three.

Oh, and apropos of nothing but fun: I had drinks w/a superhero last night and it was the most entertaining hour I've spent in some time! We talked about everything from summer experience to the horrors of job searching to love, lust, and its many permutations. Thanks, E. Spat! You are the rockingest!

p.s.: Thanks to everyone who left tips on the job searching. I will definitely be following up on those next week!

Posted 08:19 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L crimlaw

DC LSIC Clinic: Orientation Notes, Day 1

I started orientation for the DC Law Students In Court clinic (criminal division) yesterday. Here are some of the things I learned:

1. D.C. Superior court sees about 12,000 misdemeanor cases each year.
2. The DSLIC clinic handles about 100 of those cases.
3. U.S. Attorneys rotate in and out of the misdemeanor docket so often times the prosecutor in your case will know less about misdemeanor law than you do. It's also not uncommon to get a case dismissed for failure to prosecute.
4. “You have to have a very negative outlook when you're doing this job—and be happy about it! Assume the worst, but hope for the best.”
5. “C-10” is the arraignment court. Someone should write a book called “C-10.”
6. “Supervised release” is the new public relations move of federal courts that D.C. has adopted to make people think we don't offer parole anymore. Supervised release is parole.
7. When you first meet your client in C-10, focus on getting him/her out of jail. It is never better for your client to stay in jail. “If you want to torpedo your attorney/client relationship on the first day you meet your client in jail, try telling him 'I think it's best for you to stay in here for now.'”
8. “Get used to the fact that judges are going to yell at you. It's expected. It's required. You get extra credit for that.” Sometimes judges yell at you because they're bored and the want to entertain themselves.
9. Everything we're telling you about the law has this court culture component—what judges do, how the prosecutor works. “It's a human experience; it depends upon the people.”
10. Be nice to everyone in the bureaucracy!

Posted 08:16 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | 3L lists

Dream Job Search

Check out this job opening to become an Assistant Federal Defender for the Federal Defenders of Montana. It sounds like a dream job to me! However, if they're advertising now, they want someone before this time next year, right? And an even bigger problem: Federal defenders don't hire people fresh out of law school, do they?

Help! Does anyone have thoughts on these questions?

More generally, I have to put together a public defender job search and I really don't know where to begin. Any thoughts on methods and strategies would be greatly appreciated.

Damn. There's probably nothing that scares a third-year law student more than not having a job! But hey, I don't graduate for nine more months—why would I be nervous about having no job at this point? Well, for those not familiar w/it, let me explain the “usual” path to your first law job: First, you work in a firm during your second summer (between your second and third years of law school), you do well there, and at the end of the summer you get an offer of employment beginning the following year after you've graduated and taken the bar exam.* If I had followed this path, I'd probably have a job offer right now. I started clinic orientation yesterday and spoke w/several of my peers who are in such a position—happy, carefree, with job offers securely in hand. They're looking forward to a final year of law school w/out a care in the world. Only if they failed some classes (nearly impossible to do) would they need to worry about getting a job after they graduate. As for me? As John Stewart is fond of saying, I got nuthin.

*By the way, this is directly related to whether the third year of law school is really worthwhile or necessary. The system basically works like this: Law school gives you some basics and puts you into massive debt. The system assumes (mostly correctly) you will go to work for a firm to pay off that debt, and firms assume (correctly) that you will know next to nothing about the actual practice of the law when you finish law school so they build in a several-year apprenticeship where they make new associates do all kinds of menial and mindnumbing crap as they learn how to actually become lawyers. But since these firm job offers come before the third year even begins, that final year looks an awful lot like just a mechanism to give law schools a lot more money and put law students a lot deeper into debt. That debt helps to perpetuate the system b/c it ensures that new graduates are indebted enough to put up w/the awful workloads and power games of the firms. Cool.

Posted 06:27 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | 3L

Trouble With Podcasting?

Ok. So I have to confess to spending far too much time creating, thinking about, and listening to podcasts recently. This means I've found some great ones, but I've also gotten a glimpse of the potential pitfalls of this new medium—at least for me.

The first pitfall is that podcasts can be addictive. For example, try listening to just one episode of the Weekly Radio Address and tell me you don't want to listen to another and another and another until you've heard them all. (For some reason I found the July 16 edition especially hilarious.) Bicyclemark's Audiocommunique is the same way for me; at the end of each show I've heard something that makes me want to listen to another to find out what came before. And one show leads to another, and another, and so on until you've got so many to choose from you could listen to nothing but podcasts, 24/7. (Click the image above for a snapshot of my current subscriptions in iTunes.)

So that leads to the second pitfall: In addition to being addictive, listening to podcasts takes a lot of time and it's kind of hard to do anything that takes much thought while you're listening. So podcasts are great for people who drive a lot or spend a lot of time walking or riding public transit, but otherwise, when do you listen? Creating podcasts can also be very time consuming—fun, certainly, but time-consuming. And now, thanks to Bicyclemark, I've discovered this “soundseeing” thing, so obviously I'm going to have to do some of that, too. But where to find the time?

The third pitfall is not really a pitfall, but just a potential blight on the future of podcasting; I'm talking about the commercialization of the medium. Specifically, I got nervous reading the comments on this post asking for speculation about what venture capitalists hope to get out of their investments in podcasting. The basic idea is that the VCs are betting they're going to start making money on selling music and entertainment that somehow competes with the “MSM” (Main Stream Media). I'm not so worried about that, except that it may mean that all the free music at the Podsafe Music Network will only be free so long as only a few people want to use it; as soon as Podshow thinks it can make some real money off of the music (once we're all used to relying on it to make our podcasts fun and cool), it will start charging. And that's fine, I guess. I mean, I'm sure the artists would like to get paid and they deserve some compensation and there are always other sources of free music and maybe we should all be making our own music anyway.... So whatever. I guess there's no free lunch, even in podcasting.

Posted 06:50 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | voices

D.C. Is Neither a State Nor A Not-State: Discuss

D.C. is not a state. Fine. Whatever. Except for two things: We have no vote in Congress and too many damned web forms do not list D.C. as a “state” where a person can live!

First, the serious issue: If you live in D.C., you don't have any real representation in Congress. This may not be well known outside of D.C., judging by the questions I've heard when people see that theD.C. license plate reads “taxation without representation.” Some say this is how it's supposed to be—people in the Capital City is not a in a state but in “neutral” territory where no one has a vote. Others say, fine, don't make us pay taxes then, if we have no say in how they're spent. But mostly I hear people saying: “Bullshit. If this is a democracy we should have real voting representation in Congress.” That's what the voices in my head say, too.

The less serious but more practically maddening issue with D.C. not being a state is that it means that sometimes you can't tell people where you live. This happens when you reach a drop-down menu on a web form asking you to choose the state where you live and D.C. is simply not on the list. This is only a serious deal when you're trying to give someone your shipping address for something you've purchased. Of course, this never happens at Amazon or whatever, but it's happened a couple of times to me recently w/other vendors, and just now w/a survey from Skype. I suspect there's some boilerplate drop-down list code floating around somewhere that lists all the 50 U.S. states but not the District or Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories.

It's true what they say around here: D.C. always gets the shaft.

Posted 11:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | general politics

Voices #14: Lawyers, Liars & Lovers of Life

The latest edition of Ambivalent Voices offers: More kudos to the Legal Underground Podcast (from which I've borrowed many tips and techniques for use in this podcast), when lawyers are neither lawyers nor attorneys, the Politics Minit w/Yubbledew™, upcoming interviews on Ambivalent Voices, and two new and different podcasts for you to check out.

This one's just me again (sorry), but many new voices should be added to the mix in the next few weeks.

UPDATE: Don't miss the Lawyer/Attorney “comic strip” courtesy of the Strip Generator. [via This Dark Qualm]

Posted 10:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | voices

Questioning 3L

You may have missed it, but last week the American Bar Association held its annual meeting in Chicago. Who knew? My Shingle noticed, but only to say that the conference didn't offer much for most lawyers. Maybe that's why most of us knew little about it.

But on the heels of that conference the AP ran a story asking: Is the third year of law school really necessary?

At many top law schools, the third year is famously relaxed, a halcyon interlude between rigorous introductory courses and the long hours that await graduates at law firm jobs. There is research and volunteer work, but also a lot of bar-hopping and little studying: 15 hours per week, according to one survey at 11 law schools, compared to 33 hours for first-year students.

But if it's an extended vacation, it's pricey: $30,000 or more at top private schools. And at many law schools, grads can't count on the six-figure salaries awaiting many at the most prestigious programs, so an extra year of debt is a big burden.

The two stories (the ABA Conference and the story about 3L) are linked because apparently the ABA recently updated its accreditation guidelines for law schools “to require more total minutes of instruction, but offering schools more flexibility in how that's structured.” Everyone seems to agree that the third year of law school is currently not very valuable for most students, but they disagree on whether that means it should be made more rigorous or disposed of altogether. As Evan Schaeffer noted, Professor Ann Althouse is firmly in the “make it more rigorous” camp:

It is amazing that one can hold oneself out as a lawyer after a mere three years of education.

Hm. Really? Because lawyers are like, um, brain surgeons or something? The good professor is certainly onto something in terms of most newly-minted lawyers being woefully unprepared to actually practice law, but that's certainly not for lack of time spent in law school! In a comment to the professor's post, “Kevin S.” sums up what I would say are the real issues here:

There is a lot of challenging material in the law. And one could spend a lifetime learning about it. But is one better suited to *practice* law after the third year as compared to the second? How much better (an important question, as one would certainly be more learned with 6 years than 3)? Is the marginal benefit to the public and the student worth an extra $30,000 (or quite a bit more considering opportunity costs)?

I would say the answer to those questions is “no,” “very little,” and “no.” Judging from this essay from Evan Schaeffer—a practicing attorney who's been there—I'm not the only one. There are clearly lots of people who are very invested in making the law seem more complex and difficult than it really is, and these are often the same people who tend to infantilize the public and speak in patronizing tones about how we must protect people from poorly trained lawyers and that the best way to do that is to regulate legal education—hence, the ABA's ridiculous accreditation requirements. For a small taste of just how ridiculous those requirements are, Dennis Kennedy writes:

Interestingly, I had a discussion with a non-lawyer the other day about the nature of legal education and found it difficult to explain the current state of legal education. Especially difficult to explain (probably because I don't understand it myself) is the accreditation process for new law schools, with its heavy emphasis on number of volumes in a school's law library. My friend kept shaking her head in disbelief.

Kennedy goes on to speculate about “whether law school has become impossibly over-academized.” Good question. Perhaps something of an answer can be found in the fact that too many law professors have close to zero experience actually practicing law. That being the case, it's no wonder we get constantly tested on “issue-spotting” and graduate w/out knowing how to file a motion in court. Our good professors are only teaching us what they know and, damn!, can they ever spot those issues!

But the ABA's accreditation requirements are a special peeve of mine because they are probably the single biggest impediment to getting rid of the third year, and of course, law schools will fight tooth and nail to make sure the ABA continues to require the third year because it means so much extra cash for law schools. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle there that's good for no one but the law schools, as far as I can see. The accreditation requirements' emphasis on number of books in the library or number of computer labs or whatever also tends to drive up costs for students who will then go out into the “real” world and often have to deal with older or nonexistent technology and sharply curtailed access to legal materials—a situation for which law school has not prepared them at all. Again, all of this is good for ... whom?

I'll be starting my 3rd year of law school in a couple of weeks and perhaps I will find that it's very valuable. Perhaps not. L-Cubed says he'd rather have his $40k back and I bet I will, too. What is certain is that the insanely high cost of a legal education does not serve the public good. Also certain is the fact that the current system of legal education assumes that newly-minted JD's will learn most of what they need to know for their daily work on the job, which means we pay absolutely astonishing amounts of money to get a credential so that we can then go on to a job where we can learn how to use our credential. Does this really make sense? Is this really the best way to ensure our country's legal system is fair and accessible to all citizens?

Candide, where are you?

Posted 09:40 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack | 3L

BlawgCoop Welcomes Mother In Law!

Welcome to Mother In Law, the most recent addition to the BlawgCoop, the co-op for law-related blogs. LawMom has moved to BlawgCoop from her old home on a for-profit blog service where she was feeling the pinch of a monthly fee. She'll be starting law school this fall, and like many other law students, she was concerned that in addition to taking time away from studying, that monthly fee meant her blogging was also taking money away from her wallet. Her solution? Move to BlawgCoop and blog for about as close as you can get to free!

LawMom joins Half-Cocked, Divine Angst, Bad Glacier, Legal Fictions, and Blawg Wisdom at the 'Coop, and if you'd like a Movable Type or Wordpress blog w/very little cost or hassle, you're always welcome to join them.

Posted 02:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | meta-blogging

OPML: Outlining the Law

You may recall that I've been interested in the new OPML Editor and what it can do for lawyers—I wrote first about it here, then again here. Here's a small example of what I mean when I say that OPML could be a great thing for lawyers:

The other day on my experimental OPML blog I posted the U.S. Constitution in OPML. If you click that link it will show you the plain-text code of the outline, but CasdraBlog has a nice screenshot of what it actually looks like in the OPML Editor. I put the text of the Constitution into OPML format months ago via NoteTaker, the outliner I use daily for a zillion things, including taking notes in law school. I got the original text file from the ACS, then just added outline breaks in the appropriate places to make it an outline in NoteTaker.

Now compare the above OPML file to this version, created by NoteTaker for web use. See how the online version mimics the functionality of the OPML version? Click a plus sign to expand a section, a minus sign to collapse it. With a few clicks, you can view the entire document collapsed into a few lines, then you can expand whatever section you're interested in down to the smallest level of detail. I find this a great way to cope with a large amount of information. The collapsed view allows you to see the big picture, and then it makes it easy to get to just those things you care about in a large document.

This provides a good, albeit small, example of how well the law and outlines work together. Almost all legal writing—from memos, to briefs, to motions, to appeals, to judicial opinions, to statutes—is in outline form already, but until now we haven't really had any other option but to represent those outlines in a flat, always fully-expanded linear, way. OPML gives us a way to make those documents much more functional and efficient to use. Imagine just a single set of statutes translated into OPML: The next time you have to refer to Chapter 8, section 3(A)(ii)(c) would be a lot easier if you could collapse everything around it to focus only on that section, don't you think? Then, at a glance, you could easily see the code sections before and after the one you're looking at and scan around much easier than you currently can w/most digital versions of statutes. This would give the online versions of code the same functionality as the book versions except that OPML outlines have the added advantage of actually being indented like outlines are supposed to be. Novel idea, huh? Now, imagine a Lexis or Westlaw-type research service that was just a bunch of interlinked outlines. Think of looking at a long journal article, or an AmJur entry, or even a long opinion, and being able to collapse the whole thing with a few clicks down to just its section headings. That way you could see at a glance if it's likely that the document contains the information you're seeking. If a section looks promising, expand it to its subheads and see if any of those look good, and so on until you've found what you're looking for.

Wouldn't this be great? Or am I just outline-crazy?

Posted 02:31 PM | TrackBack | opml

Notes on BSG: “The Farm”

What, you don't watch Battlestar Gallactica? What's wrong with you? But that's ok; I watched, and here's what you missed:

Geez, Starbuck, are you hot for every guy who looks like Apollo?

Yay! EJO (Captain Adama) is back! But why is he being so stupid about wanting to be enemies w/the president? Come on, man, don't follow Tie's lead! Just because he screwed everything up doesn't mean you have to be stupid, too.

No. You can't kill Starbuck. EJO just got well and now you've shot Starbuck!? Quit screwing w/us, Mr. Moore!

Can you love a machine? I love my computer. Does that mean the Cylons are just machines?

Does Starbuck even have the Arrow of Apollo? That's why she was going back to Caprica in the first place, right? I haven't seen that damn thing in a while. I guess she's too busy getting jiggy w/Cylons like Anders, the Pyramid player who led her into the ambush that got her shot! Listen Starbuck, you're the reason I watch this stupid show. Quit screwing around and get back to the damned battlestar so we can have more witty repartee between you and Apollo and EJO and Tie!

OMG! Starbuck's being treated by Cylons!? Yikes! And they're doing sick fertility experiments to try to reproduce themselves!?

We learn about another one of the 12 Cylon people types (the doctor), so we now know 5, L says. But then Boomer/Sharon saves Starbuck, so does that mean the Cylons can actually be good?

And why is EJO crying over Boomer? Is he cracking, or what?

Ok. so now Starbuck's got the Arrow of Apollo. Anders gave it to her—he saved it special for her. How did he know to do that? Does that mean he is or isn't a Cylon? And why don't they just load everyone onto the heavy raider and jump back to the fleet?

Speaking of which, what is Starbuck going to do when she gets back to the fleet and finds that in order to give the president the arrow she has to join a mutiny against Adama? Big conflict coming down the pike, people! But at least Starbuck is alive and finally getting the heck off Caprica. I'm so tired of the Caprica plotline!

But we can't just get the fleet back together happily and safely, can we? No, of course not. That would just be too conventional or whatever, right? So now 1/3 of the fleet has headed off to Kobol and Starbuck is going to have to go searching for the president against Adama's orders and the only thing good about that is that then, finally, Starbuck and Apollo will be together as part of the “religious” rebellion and we can finally get the Starbuck/Apollo relationship/repartee we've been missing. Plus, I'm sure we'll get some good Adama/Starbuck give and take along the way, and maybe a few jabs with Tie, so really, there's a lot to look forward to here.

So there you go; that's it for this week. If you want to follow the action in more detail, be sure to check out the BSG podcast w/producer Ron Moore. Good stuff. I'm also told the TWOP forums are a great place for all the gos, but I really wouldn't (cough) know.

Posted 11:16 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack | tv land

Can Courts Trust Forensic Science?

Not surprisingly, the answer is: Yes and No. To hear a discussion of the current state of forensic science, check out today's edition of Science Friday. It doesn't look like that show is online as of this writing, but you can subscribe to the podcast and get it automatically once they put it online.

Posted 03:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | crimlaw

Kacey Chappelear Rocks!

Speaking of the interns I worked with over the summer, I also wanted to say thank you to all of them for helping to make the summer great. “Our” office has an excellent internship program, complete with the mock trial exercises I mentioned in the last post, as well as an office softball team and some great parties over the course of the summer. This, as well as the nature of the job, attracts some truly dynamic, entertaining, accomplished, and outgoing people. This summer the office boasted interns from GW (obviously, but I wasn't the only one), Georgetown, American, UVA, and Vermont Law. We also had one outstanding intern from OSU—the inimitable Kacey Chappelear, intern, softball queen, runner, field hockey player, and public interest law leader extraordinaire. Kacey was a joy to work with—smart, witty, and always dressed to the nines, she regularly put the rest of us to shame. She can also play a mean game of beer pong (so long as she's not being Sullied at the time), and is guaranteed to be the life of the party so long as she has plenty of Liquid Gold™. (Oh, and her brother is also a mysterious movie-star who says that “Life is just a bunch of people, living, waiting until they die.” So true.) Thanks for a great summer, KC, and best of luck in Ohio! In other words: Wahoowa!

(Disclaimer: I enjoyed working w/all the interns in our office, but KC was the only one who wanted her name on the blog. Special shout-outs also go to my fellow fervent Harry Potter friend (OMG!) and to JG, the only other 2L in the bunch and the intern with whom I had the pleasure of working closely on a big bad case for about half the summer. Finally, thanks to the Scoplaw, who was truly a pleasure to work with—I only wish we'd had more time to plot our legal revolution!)

Posted 11:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 2L summer

Notes On Closing Arguments

As part of the summer job experience all of the interns in our office participated in a series of mock trial exercises over the summer—all of the interns except me, that is. I'm a slacker; what can I say? But the real deal is that I did it last year and since they were using all the same materials and fact pattern it just seemed a little silly to do it all again. At any rate, the mock trial culminated in the closing arguments which the interns gave in an actual courtroom before a jury comprised of the attorneys in the office. Everyone did a stellar job and I learned a lot by watching them. After each one, the jury critiqued the performance and gave each closer some helpful advice. The following are a few of the tips that were repeated frequently and that I wanted to remember for my own future closing argument preparation.

1. Should you start by thanking the jury? It seems people disagree about this. The jury might be impatient for you to get to the point.
2. Trilogies are effective. For example: “Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to consider three facts as you head into the deliberation room.” Then go through each fact—one, two, three. It makes your closing more focused, and easy to follow and remember.
3. Don't talk about “cops” to the jury. They're “police” or “law enforcement officers.” Juries aren't usually big on dissing the, um, cops.
4. Don't talk about a “story” unless you're referring too the load of crap the prosecution is selling. You're not telling a story, and your client isn't telling a story; you're both telling the truth. Present your theory as fact and show the jury how the evidence proves that your theory is factual.
5. Don't ask questions or leave conclusions open. Tell the jury what every fact and piece of evidence you mention means and the conclusions they should (logically and unavoidably) draw from them.
6. Make eye contact with every jury member. The more eye contact the better (generally speaking).
7. Emphasize the prosecutor's burden to prove every element of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
8. Don't say “I think” or “I proffer.” The evidence shows. Consider never using the first-person pronoun in closing.
9. Don't speak in the future tense in the closing about evidence the jury is going to hear. They've heard it; talk about what they heard and saw.
10. In your preparation, think about the unanswered questions from the trial and answer them for the jury in your client's favor. Don't leave holes for the prosecution to drive through on rebuttal. If there's something that's unclear or uncertain, have an explanation for it in closing.
11. Don't use legal jargon like “prejudicial” or “probative.” Use common, everyday language that the jury can relate to.
12. Use the important jury instructions for your case—read and interpret them for the jury so they will know exactly how they should apply those instructions.
13. Don't end by asking for a not-guilty verdict. The evidence demands a not-guilty verdict!

This is obviously not all you need to know about making a good closing argument, but I'll bet if you follow all of the above tips your closings will be much improved.

If you've done a few closings yourself: What tips would you add to this list?

Posted 08:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 2L summer

Thank You, Your Honor

Done. My 2L summer job is over. It was over yesterday, actually, but instead of thinking too much about it we decided to take the new car for a drive and the dog for a swim so we went to Quiet Waters Dog Beach outside of Annapolis. The doggie, she does love to swim.

But, and so, I;d like to offer some sort of look back at the summer, to say some of the things that I felt unable to say as I was going through them, but I'm still not sure what to say.

I did end on something of a high note, though. As expected, one case I was working on got nol prossed. The prosecutor moved to nol pross, the judge asked if I had any objections, I said “no, your honor,” and he said, “Congratulations Mr. Imbroglio, you just won your first case.” Hooray! And it's true, in a technical sense—a nol pross is certainly not a loss since it means charges are dropped and the client is free to go. Of course, it also means that if the state gathers more evidence it can bring the charges back, but this wasn't the type of case where that was likely to happen so I'll call it a win.

In order to get to the nol pross I had to convince the prosecutor that she had no case. I thought it would be easy—my client was charged with trespassing but his name was on the lease for the property on which he supposedly trespassed. Since you can't trespass on your own property, he simply committed no crime. Sounds pretty self-explanatory and hard to argue with, doesn't it? Apparently not if you're a prosecutor. When I showed her a copy of the lease w/my client's name on it and explained the situation, she looked a little shocked and turned to the arresting officer and asked, “is that true?” Um, huh? Cops don't know the law, Ms. Prosecutor—that's really your job.* The cop didn't know, so the prosecutor asked, “Can we still get him?” Again, the cop didn't know. So I told them both.

“You can try,” I said, “but the law is pretty squarely against you here.” Then I made my mistake. “If you want to get a leaseholder off of some property the only legal means would be landlord tenant law, but not trespass.”

A lightbulb seemed to flicker on in the prosecutor's head and her mouth firmed back up into a thin smirk of satisfaction. “Fine. Then we'll evict his mother,” she said, an edge of threat in her voice. I didn't know what to make of that; did she really expect me to advise my client to plead to a crime that was not a crime because she was threatening to evict his mother!? Whatever the case, the cop was right there with her. “I'll call the landlord this afternoon to get it started,” the cop said. Great. Awesome. I had to open my big mouth.

But it's not so bad, I think. For reasons I won't go into, mom is unlikely to be evicted, but it's likely my client will have to take his name off the lease. That seemed to be fine with him. The point is that my client did not break any law but these two were determined to inflict some damage on him, anyway. I know a simple trespass charge is small stakes, but sheesh. The term “overzealous” comes to mind, if not worse.

The second case—another trespass—also involved negotiating with the prosecutor but this time for a plea. This one was trickier because my client had no real defense except for some possible technical defenses that sometimes work w/this judge and sometimes don't. My client was interested primarily in keeping his job so he either wanted no jail time or jail on weekends only. He also had suspended time hanging over his head from a prior conviction so he was worried about being violated on that, too. I was able to talk the prosecutor into half the jail time she wanted, served on weekends, and no violation on the previous time. My client can keep his job and he's thrilled. It would have been nice to go to trial on that because we had at least a 50% chance of winning and it was unlikely the judge would have given a worse sentence even if we had lost. However, the client was more comfortable w/the greater certainty of an agreed plea—his real priority was keeping his job and we made that happen so I felt ok about it.

As I discovered in my first attempt at representing a client, it's pretty exciting to prepare for a possible trial and then to negotiate with the prosecutor and finally go before the judge. Even if I didn't end up saying much in court, there's little doubt these clients got better outcomes than they would have w/out an attorney and that's what it's about. Something I realized I need to work on is keeping a sort of straight and neutral tone with the prosecutor when he/she tells me what a rotten scumbag my client is and why he really needs X-number of days in jail or whatever. It's easy to sort of get heated about the fact that the prosecutor seems to be acting unreasonably or unprofessionally, but that doesn't really help. The art of arguing w/out really sounding like you're arguing is a delicate one and something I'll need to practice.

Overall, the summer was a good one—not great, but good. I believe I set my expectations too high about how much actual practice I was going to get in court, so that was a little disappointing. As you may recall, I was really unsure whether it was a good idea to spend a second summer at the same office where I spent my 1L summer. When I decided to do it, I had several good reasons, but the top of the list was that I thought my familiarity w/the people and the office would help me get more time in court. There are many reasons that didn't happen, but now, having been through it, I will say that those who advised against this were correct. If I had it to do over again, I would not return to the same office for two summers simply because the chance to see how another office works is invaluable. While I am more familiar than ever w/how the lawyers in “my” office work and what the atmosphere and caseloads are like, I have little clue how these things go anywhere else. This leaves me facing a job search w/less information than I'd have if I'd gone somewhere else this summer. It's not a tragedy, just a lesson learned.

That said, I do feel like I got some great experience and learned a lot this summer. It would have been difficult for the experience to be as eye-opening and inspiring the second time around, but it was still a full and rewarding experience that increased my preparation for becoming a public defender. If anyone in that office reads this: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

* Ok. Cops do know some law, generally speaking. Many don't know the difference between a stop and a seizure, and that can end up being good for our clients sometimes, but cops generally have a basic familiarity w/a few points of law that are important to doing their daily jobs. I would not be surprised if many cops knew that you couldn't charge a leaseholder w/trespassing, but the prosecutor should know that, too.

Posted 10:35 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | 2L summer

Last Day of This Acquaintance

It's looking like this will be the last day of the summer job. It doesn't absolutely have to be, but it's probably best if it is since clinic orientation begins next week and it's always good to have a bit of time between things and I'm sort of between projects at work and... there are probably other reasons. It just makes sense. Plus, if all goes well, I'll go out on a high note. I'm handling a simple misdemeanor case today that shows every sign of being a slam dunk in our client's favor—the prosecutor may even just nol pros the case which would be great for our client. Of course, that will mean I don't get to practice introducing evidence and making the prosecutor look silly, but, well, we can't have everything, can we?

Besides, I have another matter today that is more likely to be a short trial—my very first! I'll share details if they seem worth sharing. One thing I've learned this summer (and I learned it last summer, too, but this summer the lessons have been even more personal and clear) is that this kind of job often requires you to do a lot of work and preparation you never use. In fact, sometimes the more work you put into a case, the more likely you won't actually have to take the case to trial. That makes sense—if you do a lot of research and write some killer pre-trial motions or gather some excellent evidence, the prosecution is more likely to fold. In that sense your work absolutely pays off—getting the best outcome for your client is the whole point. What you don't use is all that time spent in front of the mirror practicing all that awesome stuff you're going to say in court to win the judge or jury over, or to scare the prosecutor witless. It's actually better if your case goes away before you have to use that stuff, but sometimes using that stuff is fun.

But what do I know? I've still only really handled one case. After I've handled dozens of cases I bet I'll agree the less I have to say in court the better.

Posted 06:26 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | 2L summer

Ambits Problems: Suggestions?

Since I reintroduced the new ambits format a few weeks ago I've discovered a couple of problems. The first is that if I try to post ambits w/out posting anything to the main blog, the variable statement doesn't handle it right and wraps the previous day's post into the ambits div. Does that make sense? If you click the image on the right you'll see a snapshot of what I'm talking about. I'm using this code but I don't exactly understand what all of it is doing so I don't know what to change to make this stop. I'd like to be able to post ambits-only on some days when I don't really have anything to say or the time to say it.

The other problem is simply that that code only appears to allow me to display about 4 days worth of posts on my main index page. If you look at that code, can you tell whether there's some variable there to change that? Normally I'd be looking for an MTEntries n=“x” tag, but there's nothing like that in this code. I think it might be replaced by the MTSQLEntries tag, but that's followed by all the stuff I don't really understand. Do any of you w/more web fu understand this? Any suggestions? Thanks!

Posted 07:06 AM | TrackBack | meta-blogging

18-Mile Run/Walk

Marathon “training” continues, such as it is. It's hard to believe I've gone from running zero miles last April to running 18 miles yesterday, but there you go. Except.... well.... I didn't really run 18 miles. I actually ran 10 and walked 8... but it wasn't my fault! I could have run the whole thing, I'm very sure of it, but I was the “designated driver” in our group which meant that if anyone had to slow down or stop or whatever, I was supposed to stay with them and make sure they made it in ok. Sure enough, at 10 miles, one of my fellow runners had a little problem and had to stop running. She was ok to walk, but running just killed her. So we walked. For 8 miles. I learned that it's not too hard to walk 16-minute miles and I know that for the Marine Corp Marathon you just have to be sure you do the first 20 miles at an average of 15-minutes/mile or better to finish (they reopen the first part of the course to traffic after that point) so if I can just run a little in the first 20 miles I should be fine.

I kid! I'm going to run the whole thing, ok? So, but anyway, it was a little disappointing to not get to run the whole thing, but the good news as that the woman I walked 8 miles with was very entertaining so the time passed quickly. The strange thing was I felt just about as sore after running 10 and walking 8 as I felt two weeks ago after running 16. What's up with that?

So hey, just as the running continues, so does the fundraising! If you'd like to help out you can donate here. Or, if you've got more time than money, how about [nevermind. This has been edited to comply with commercial restrictions]. Since all proceeds go to the Whitman-Walker Clinic it's a simple way to contribute. Thanks!

Posted 06:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | marathon

Notes Upon Reading the Express

The Express is a free newspaper here in D.C. that you can pick up on your way into a metro station and read on the train. It contains ads, one-paragraph summaries of the biggest news, more ads, lots of little factoids and “news of the weird” type stuff, still more ads, and pages and pages of ads disguised as “information” about celebrities, tv-shows, movies, music, and crap for you to buy. It's published by the Washington Post and it has a more right-leaning competitor in The Examiner.

So anyway, yesterday's paper contained this real gem on page 8 I just couldn't pass up passing on:

“It is the government's job to deal with the hungry; we, the traders, are here for business.” —Ibrahim Bay, Millet Trader, on the high prices of food in Niger as the country faces a severe famine.

Oh yeah, I love free trade. And capitalism. It's a good thing that “the chief business of the American people is business.”

The Express also tells me that Gary Cole, aka “Bill Lumberg,” is going to play a tough cop on a new TNT show called “Wanted.” Don't get me wrong; I think Mr. Cole is a fine actor and I've enjoyed his performances in many things, but, well, a tough cop? Mmyeah.

Posted 08:13 AM | TrackBack | life generally

Voices Now Available

For the thousands one of you out there who would like to listen to the previously recorded ambivalent voices podcasts, they are once again available here. You can either download each one individually, or subscribe to this feed in iPodder or iTunes or some other podcast aggregator.

You know, if I were a real podcaster I could have done a podcast about all of this, huh?

UPDATE: Ok, so I made a podcast to update listeners on the changes to the location of the feed. I also rambled on about some other things, including primarily the Law School Podcast. Listening to it after the fact I realize my comments about self-censorship and whether the Law School Podcaster is putting too much personal info online are rather hypocritical in light of the fact that so much of my own life is online here, there, and everywhere. How will any of this affect the looming job search? I guess I'll find out, won't I? I also forgot to mention in the upcoming podcasts that once we both have the time I'll also be talking to Andrew Raff about his experience studying for and taking the bar. I also would still like to do something special for one of the Blawg Reviews I'll be involved in hosting, so stay tuned!

Posted 05:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | voices

Podcasting with Skype?

Does anyone know of a good way to record Skype calls on a Mac? I've followed these instructions and I think it works fine, but it's so damn complicated! It looks like Gizmo Project allows you to record your calls w/one button—that's the level of complexity I'm looking for. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone uses Gizmo Project and a lot of people use Skype. I guess I could just ask the people I'm interviewing to download the Gizmo so we could make it work, but barring that, does anyone know something simple w/Skype?

Posted 09:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | voices

My Doorbell

Last year at the beginning of the summer I heard a song that was so catchy and infectious I just knew I would play it all summer long -- that was Float On, by Modest Mouse. This year, now that the summer is finally over, I've got another song of the summer: “My Doorbell” by the White Stripes (lyrics/iTMS). Catchy. Infectious. Great when played very loud.

So when you gonna ring it?

And since y'all gave me so many great recommendations last summer (Killers, Snow Patrol, Franz Ferdinand and more), what should I be listening to now to make Paris Hilton say “that's hot”?

Oh, and speaking of listening to things, check out the latest Legal Underground Podcast for some great bits about John Roberts, blawgging, and podcasting. But also listen to check out how polished and professional the podcast sounds—it's amazing! When I said I was going to try to record more podcasts I didn't realize the quality bar had been raised so high since the early early days when I was just playing around. Yikes. But, well, I'm thinking I'll remain an amateur and just leave the pro field to Evan.

(Note: None of those old podcasts are currently available b/c of a server issue that is supposedly being fixed. I'm going to move them all soon to eliminate this problem and then I'll post the new links. Sorry about that!)

Posted 07:16 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack | ai music voices

Locker Cleanout

I had to clean out my locker at school yesterday so that it will be available to assign to someone else in the coming weeks. It was the first time I'd been up there in months—probably since school ended in early May—so it felt a little strange to be back in the narrow and slightly dark halls of the 3rd floor. It was eerily quiet, as if I was the only one in the whole building, and I was surprised to feel something like, oh, I don't know, could it be fondness for the place? Suddenly it seemed impossible that I'd already spent so much of two years of my life in that place, and that my last year there was about to begin and would be over so soon and that I might never see the place again. As soon as I felt that I immediately checked the emotion. “You will have no reason to miss this place!” I scolded myself. But of course I will. That's the way these things work.

With that in mind, and with the semester really only a couple of weeks away (if you count the two weeks of “orientations” I'll be involved in w/clinic and journal), I'm going to try not to wish my last year away. It's easy in law school to always be thinking ahead to the next goal—finals, the summer job, graduation, passing the bar, whatever it is—and you end up not really being there fully for whatever it is you're going through at the time. I certainly did that last fall, maybe a little less so in the spring. But with only two semesters left, I think I'll slow things down a bit, try to smell the roses, so to speak. That's the plan anyway.

Maybe I should start now by enjoying what's left of summer, huh?

Posted 07:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 2L summer 3L