Quick! Build more prisons!

Mister District Attorney checks in to tell us what he's been up to recently:

Sorry, it’s been way too long between posts, but I’ve just been unable to muster the writerly wherewithal to post anything. Work is still work. The bad guys still do terrible things to people, and we do our level best to lock ‘em up for as close to forever as we can.

Good to know.

Posted 02:16 PM | TrackBack | crimlaw

Laughing at BigLawyers

If you'd like a daily bit of humor from the BigLaw trenches, head over to The Disassociate, a relatively new blog whose author describes it as:

one associate's attempt to see the humor, to focus on the lighter side, to find the fun. Somewhere along the way...repaying student loans, billing hours, monitoring salaries, many of us lost the sense of enjoyment, not about the law, but within the profession. Every day is funny, we just need to stop and think about it. I'll try to do that, but feel free to help. And just to be clear, I like working at my firm - I am just trying to get the fun back. Thanks for coming by.

Posts at “The Disassociate” are generally very short (usually one sentence) and generally worth at least a chuckle. One of my favorites is entitled “Crying out of the law” and reads:

When will these damned loans be paid off? If I have to attend one more associates' meeting to discuss the photocopier, toilet paper in the bathrooms and overnight word processing coverage, I am going to slit my throat with my law degree.

See? I told you it was funny. And in view of the upcoming graduation season, check out “Pomp & Circumstance”:

All I have to do now is pass the bar, find a job that will let me repay a $100,000 loan and bill thousands of hours per year. Dare to dream.

Ah yes. The golden future that awaits so many of us.... I hope to never concern myself with billing hours, but otherwise....

Anyway, if you're ever looking for a bit of law-related laughter, The Disassociate might be a good place to start.

Posted 11:16 AM | TrackBack | law general meta-blogging

Happy Blog Birthday to Life, Law, Gender!

Denise is celebrating her 2-year blog birthday today—congratulations, Denise! As I said over there, Life, Law, Gender contibutes immeasurably to broadening the understanding of its readers and is unique (as far as I know) in at least the law school blogosphere. Denise writes helpfully and with great honesty about being transgendered and about how political and social developments are affecting the transgender and gay and lesbian communities. Those are obviously valuable contributions to the law school blog discourse, but Denise also has a vast amount of life experience in many other areas, as well, much of which she blogs about from time to time as a way of sharing some of what she's learned along the way. In short, Life, Law, Gender is a great blog and a daily read for me. If you haven't visited recently, I recommend you check it out. Oh, and wish Denise a happy blog birthday while you're there!

Posted 10:21 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | law school meta-blogging

Tootsie Pop Conspiracy

From a recent comment on this photo of Tootsie Pop wrappers:

I have a theory on why you can never know how many licks it takes. Have you ever seen the center of a tootsie pop? It's not even round, so depending upon which side you start licking on.. it will always be different. It's a conspiracy I tell you.

More proof that the mysteries of the world are not accidental.

Posted 09:54 AM | TrackBack | life generally

Baffled w/BS

Because I know you care: I just turned in what may be my last academic papers—ever. That's a good thing.

One more final (in two freaking weeks!) and this law school thing will be all over but the shouting. And the debt. Yeah.

Posted 04:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L

Best public interest law school plan ever!

The latest comment on Blonde Justice's great second thread about choosing a public interest law school concludes:

I went to the cheapest school I could get, after taking scholarships and financial aid into account. I get LRAP too. I worked hard so my grades and my internship experience would distinguish me, even if the name of my school didn't. Everytime I compare finances with my colleagues, I'm glad I did.

This is really the best plan I've ever seen for those who have some certainty they want to do a particular kind of public interest law when they graduate. Oh how I wish I had done this!

Posted 09:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 3L advice crimlaw

My lawyer can beat up your lawyer.

Have you ever heard of a motion for a fist-fight? It seems a defense attorney in Western Montana filed such a thing in a criminal case. You can read the motion and response here.

It's an interesting way to emphasize that you think the prosecutor is making a ludicrous argument, but as the dark goddess of replevin notes, the case appears to be quite serious. Apparently one of the authors of the motion has decided to move away from the town as a result of the case. It's hard to know what to make of the case from the published accounts other than that it stems from one seriously scary high school party and that this is one seriously frustrated defense attorney.

In other Montana criminal defense news, the Billings public defender who is currently serving a 30-day suspension of her law license was formally censured by the Montana Supreme Court. Of course the actions that led to the censure are confidential. We wouldn't want the public to know any more than it already does about lawyers behaving badly, now would we?

Finally, the Montana Public Defender Commission is meeting tomorrow and Friday to talk about attorney salaries (among other things). That means next week, if all goes as planned, they will be posting job openings on the state jobs website.

When I tell people I want to move to Montana I mostly get strange looks and silence. Before they can even think of a suitable question to ask I always add, “my family lives there.” This makes the explanation easy, but it's far from the only reason I want to live there (even if it is the most important reason). I sometimes get kind of annoyed with this knee-jerk “why Montana!?” response, but now I'm glad for it. If it means that fewer people will be competing for whatever jobs the State Public Defender posts next week, then people can be as “why Montana?” as they want.

Posted 10:28 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Montana crimlaw

Joggling Marathon Magic

This is amazing: Two men ran the Boston Marathon Monday while juggling the whole way—and one did it 2:58:23! (The other was less than ten minutes behind at 3:06:45.) Amazing. Check out the video of these two amazing athletes in action.

Forget the juggling; just running a 3-hour marathon is amazing. But then, they juggled, too! Oh, I hurt just thinking how far out of reach that would be for me....

Posted 09:40 AM | TrackBack | marathon

Feeling a little Lenina Huxley today...

I'm working on my last papers for law school (maybe ever), but it's kind of like all coming out wrong. Like, you know:

Simon Phoenix knows he has some competition. He's finally matched his meat. You really licked his ass.

*sigh*

Posted 01:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L

Happy Tinker Day!

From my inbox:

We invite you to observe the first annual “Tinker Day,” an annual event named in honor of Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969). In Tinker, the Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment right of students to wear black armbands as an expression of mourning the deaths caused by the Vietnam War.

This year “Tax Day” falls on Monday, April 17, 2006. On that day we ask all conscientious taxpayers to wear black armbands in recognition that our tax dollars will be used to send and equip American soldiers to a hostile Iraq and Afghanistan where they will face death, psychological suffering, physical injury and inflict the same on fellow human beings, innocent and guilty alike.

Please understand that “Tinker Day” is not a protest; it is simply a peaceful expression of mindful tax-paying and an affirmation of human interconnectedness.

Seems like a great idea.

Posted 10:15 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | general politics

Taxes? Done.

Thanks to Turbotax, my taxes were once again pretty easy this year—and a snap to do at the very last minute! It's much simpler when you make almost zero money. In fact, as you can see from the screenshot at right (click to enlarge), my income in 2005 was negative. It's a good feeling, actually—nowhere to go but up!

While Turbotax makes doing my taxes pretty simple, I'm not sure it does them right. I've used Turbotax online for 3-4 years now (always free for the federal return through the Tax Freedom Project) and I've never been audited or had any problems, but for some reason this year it says I get a huge refund from DC even though I only paid about $20 in DC taxes last year. I think it's wrong, but I can't figure out how to make that refund disappear w/out lying, so I'm just filing and we'll see what happens.

Posted 10:06 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | life generally

Happy Bunny

Two years ago I mentioned the “Thank you easter bunny, bawk bawk” M&Ms commercial that popped into my head for some reason in relation to Easter. Recently, one of the people who claims to have been one of the kids in the commercial (I'm not sure which one) wrote me and sent the link so you can now download or watch it for yourself.

From that entry two years ago it seems I was pretty bitter about world events. Perhaps I've just become resigned to the fact that when things look bad, they can always get worse, so and instead of treating you to another rant I'll just wish you all: Happy Easter!

Posted 01:10 PM | TrackBack | life generally

What is Public Interest legal work?

Every year the GW Equal Justice Foundation (EJF) gives out around 10 grants to students who are doing “public interest” legal jobs for no pay during the coming summer. And every year the GW EJF struggles to answer the question: What is public interest? The question comes up because you have to have a “public interest” legal job in order to receive a grant.

The language we've used the past two years to “define” such legal jobs reads:

The employer must be a non-profit 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) organization or a government agency. • Preference will be given to employers directly representing indigent, historically oppressed, or underrepresented people. • Employers advocating on behalf of indigent, historically oppressed, or underrepresented communities will also be considered. Indigent, historically oppressed, and underrepresented people and communities includes, but is not limited to, low income people and communities, victims of crimes, minorities, and gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons.

So the shorthand for that is if you work directly with needy clients, that almost definitely qualifies as a public interest job. If you advocate on behalf of needy people (e.g. in a more policy-oriented capacity, such as a human rights NGO), then you may qualify, but only if we have sufficient funds.

That all may sound clear enough as far as it goes, but the hard part comes when we have to look at specific legal jobs. For example, which of the following positions would you classify as a public interest job?

1. Public Defender intern.
2. Legal Aid Intern.
3. Human rights NGO internship or similar (working for an organization which may write amicus briefs for litigation, but otherwise only “serves” or “works with” clients in a very broad sense.
4. Prosecution intern.
5. Judicial Clerk.
6. Political intern (e.g. for a member of congress or local government official. These positions often are presented to the EJF tied to a specific project. For example, the student and employer both say “Student X will be researching and drafting model legislation to ensure that all children 18 and under will have full-service health care in our city.”)

I'm sure there are other options, but these are some broad categories that we have to deal with. My own initial preference has always been to fund the first three (in that order), and not the last three. However, many feel very strongly that jobs in the first four categories are clearly “public interest” legal jobs.

What do you think? Which of the above jobs is a public interest legal job and if you had to define such a job, how would you do it?

Posted 12:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | 3L