"Experienced lawyers lead the way"

From Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, an interview with Jean Berman, executive director of the International Senior Lawyers Project:

We've done a number of projects involving assisting criminal defense lawyers for the poor. In Eastern Europe we sent lawyers to Bulgaria, Lithuania, Mongolia and Ukraine to help set up the first public defender offices there. We also work with an organization called International Bridges to Justice ("IBJ"), which trains defense lawyers in China. We sent a career public defender from Minnesota to work with IBJ for three months in the fall of 2008 to help train lawyers working in the juvenile justice system...

I'm rapidly approaching senior status myself. Fortunately, I'm very immature for my age.

MN: "this job is stressful because, if you care, you can't help but be emotional"

Good "Minnesota Profile" of a p.d. in The Cities, from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Michael Holland: The defense never rests - With the courts in financial crisis, public defender Michael Holland barely has time to take a breath between cases

"There's got to be a breaking point," Holland says. "The amount of poor people is growing, especially in an economy like this. My clients get the best out of me, but will I have to shortchange them and do a half-job on all my cases instead of a full job on less cases? Something's got to give..."

Bonus link goes to Mirror of Justice, The Human Dignity of the Accused and the Vocation of the Public Defender

CA: another good pd gone too soon

From the Sacramento Bee:

Obituary: Public defender fought for life on death row, at home

Jay Colangelo, a top California public defender who fought for death row inmates while battling for his own life against a rare type of cancer, died Saturday at age 55...

"He read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' in eighth grade and never looked back..."

TX: big heart broken in Wichita Falls

A number of tributes to long-time Wichita County public defender John Curry, who died last week aged 47:

From the Times Record News - City mourning loss of Curry

From KFDK (with video) - John Curry Obituary and Memorial Service Planned for Former Public Defender

(those who know me personally will know how this big man's death touches me personally)

Coming soon: one stop shopping

Check this out: Sancho at Tales of a Public Defender Investigator is setting up a public defender wiki. Still in beta, but what a cool concept. Thanks, subcommandante.

MN: " 'How can you defend those people?' We are 'those people.' "

From In The Fray:

A day in the life of a public defender - Advocating for the indigent in rural Minnesota

Judge Richard Posner... once wrote, “[a] bare-bones system for the defense of indigent criminal defendants may be optimal.” How pleased he would have been watching me practice on that day...

MX: "they can come for me at my office at any time"

Light a candle for the colleagues in Ciudad Juarez. From the Washington Post:

Defense Attorneys In Lawless Juarez Besieged on All Sides - 'This Is Nothing Like Before. I Don't Even Take Narco Cases. Not Anymore.'

The Mexican criminal defense attorney Salvador Urbina... no longer sleeps in the city where he practices law. It is far too dangerous. He now spends his nights across the border in a bland suburb of El Paso and commutes to the deadliest city in Mexico each morning. After he began receiving death threats, Urbina got his family out...

Hit points

Like me, the dark public defender of the Sith has been down. But then he got some good news:

I've been promoted to a level 3 attorney. Someone asked me what this means and I explained that a level 3 attorney has +1 damage against a level 2 attorney in direct battle, and has immunity from a level 1 attorney...

New blog: Incorrigible Dicta

Via Mostly Plants, welcome Incorrigible Dicta, with "Platitudes and Diatribes from the Best Defense Money Can’t Buy."

It's a new blog to me at least. With three posts in its first month, it's calling out for more members of the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services’ Public Defender Division to become contributors. Any volunteers?

NV: MD or PD, "you help people that need help"

From the Nevada Appeal:

From medicine to law, new State Public Defender is just trying to help

For 17 years, Diane Crow has worked for the State Public Defender's Office in Carson City handling everything from trespassing to capital murder cases. On Thursday, Gov. Jim Gibbons appointed Crow to a four year term as head of the office...

"I've always seen this as a service oriented profession," she said. "It's just like medicine. You help people that need help."

"Circumstances have conspired," but in a good way

Ms. Injustice Anywhere, I'm glad that you're back to blogging.

(and thanks for the birthday greeting, too)

Weekend worriors

Public defender Amb Imb wishes he didn't have to go into the office on weekends, while public defender Ken lays out one danger associated with the practice: going to the restroom and locking yourself out of your office, which happens to contain your wallet, car keys, cell phone, brief case, and badge (parental advisory: Ken says f*ck more than once).

I didn't go in this weekend, but do I have a doctor's note. I'm probably the oldest person around who still gets ear infections; antibiotics are proceeding nicely.

ID: "start winning your case at the preliminary hearing"

Back in the home state, they're hanging on to one of those "quaint" checks in the system of checks and balances (one that Idaho has and Washington State doesn't, by the way), from Idaho Criminal Defense Blog:

Preliminary Hearings Safe In Idaho

I just returned from a meeting of the Idaho Criminal Rules Committee during which we considered a question posed by a Magistrate Judge: Why do we waste valuable court time with preliminary hearings? Couldn't we just eliminate them and reduce the court's work? Sure - and maybe we should just get rid of those nagging, time consuming jury trials!

Support criminal defense in Cambodia

This looks like a good cause, from GlobalGiving.com:

End indefinite detention for 80 regular Cambodians

If you were suspected of a crime, would you be treated fairly? In Cambodia... the likely answer is no. This project gives 80 long-term detainees a trained defense lawyer and their day in court...

Check out the Cambodia archive (with great photos) of International Bridges to Justice's blog.

On having been poor

Insight and empathy drawn from personal experience and pain, from Woman of the Law:

Purging

It's taken me almost five years, but I am finally parting with my fat clothes... I still have the anxiety, that if I throw them out I have no safety blanket, I'll have nothing to wear, no way to get new clothing, and I'm just throwing money away. I cling to these things because I can't take those things for granted. I'm always afraid of being poor again...

Don't skip the comments.

Bonus link goes to John Scalzi on being poor.

We accept Blondie, one of us!

Great news from Blonde Justice:

Two weeks from now, I will once again have my dream job. Public defender.

Welcome back, Blonde One.

AK: Matthew 25 too costly these days

Hey, one of my old roommates made the news - the Anchorage Daily News:

Kodiak faith-based shelter shuts down - LIVING ROOM: Falloff in donations dooms refuge for the needy

A Kodiak shelter that has served those in hard times for nearly a decade is closing... The closing is troubling to Allan Thielen, a supervising attorney with the Alaska Public Defenders Agency in Kodiak. He says the amount of crime the facility has prevented in the past nine years by taking substance abusers off the streets cannot be measured...

Say what you will about faith-based operations, they're pretty good about extending hospitality to our clients.

More here from Alaska Public Radio.

TN: “had you wanted God to send you a boss, He would have sent you Ross”

From Tennessean.com:

Metro's public defender dead after accident

The Davidson County public defender who created a “progressive” legal representation system, mentored scores of attorneys and was a dedicated family man died Saturday. Ross Alderman, 56, was hit by a car in Williamson County while riding a motorcycle, an activity he enjoyed for years...

Described by his colleagues as a hard worker who cared about fairness, truth and ethics, Mr. Alderman was the driving force behind establishing several new services in the public defender’s office, including programs that help clients with mental health and substance abuse problems...

Via Grand Divisions.

Update: Nashville public defender killed in motorcycle crash - Ross Alderman modernized office

Update: Nashville Public Defender dies in crash - Remembering Ross Alderman: Nashville's public defender was a champion for those in need of one

WA: the wrong sort of love from the bench

From Eye on Olympia:

When a "Law and Order" script collides with "The Office"...

The state Commission on Judicial Conduct today decided to censure - or officially call on the carpet for an in-person reprimand - former Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Collen Hartl. Hartl violated the code of judicial conduct, both sides agreed, when she had a sexual encounter with a public defender who appeared frequently in her court...

"Maybe we're all masochists"

Many of us have felt like this, from Eat, Drink & Be Married:

Right now, I'm dealing with an extremely difficult client... But the issue isn't just this one client. It's much more about what this client represents. There's a culture of abuse that most public defenders come to accept. Maybe we're all masochists. Anyway, we get used to having judges, prosecutors, witnesses, and our clients treat us poorly. I don't mean to generalize so broadly, but we make martyrs of ourselves on a fairly regular basis in the name of protecting our clients...

(P)eople who go to law school to change the world are misguided.

Prone to masochism and martyrdom? Check. Went to law school to change the world? Check. Misguided? Check. But hey, I'm still here in the job. Hang in here, colleague. And read some blogs by other p.d.'s, they'll help fight this feeling.