It's public defender intern season. Here's a report from Alaska, from Justin of Baylor Law School:
Aside from the legal community, Alaska is a great place to intern because of the numerous opportunities for outdoor activity here... It’s not unusual to see a moose or two on your way to work, and sometimes they even come right up to the office.
From Law.com:
Loan-Forgiveness Program Becomes Law - Legal aid attorneys, state and local prosecutors and public defenders benefit
President Bush on Friday signed into law legislation expanding a student loan forgiveness program for students who become legal aid lawyers, state or local prosecutors and public defenders...
From Ask Metafilter:
How can I use my law degree and still like my life?
I came to law school because I wanted to be a public interest lawyer - I like helping people. I have one year left before I graduate... I have spent the last two years learning about indigent defense and working at the public defender's office. Even though I think the work public defenders do is very important, I think it makes me miserable.
I admire public interest lawyers who fight for good, but the truth is that I just hate fighting! That is hard to admit, and it took me a long time to own up to it, but it's just true. Fighting just depresses me...
Check out the comments and maybe add your own.
"(A)fter a week of working at the federal public defender's office," Duoly Noted reports on
The Emotional Toll of Being a Public Defender
Here with a reply is Jeremy Irons:
"You have no idea..."
From the Iowa Independent:
Law Students' Goal: Teaching Youths a New Kind of Street Smarts
Helping minority adolescents learn more effective ways to deal with law enforcement and criminal justice officials is the subject of an upcoming forum hosted by a group of African-American law students at Drake University.
"We felt a lot of minority people in general, not just youth, don't know how to interact with the police when they get confronted on the street," said Lauren Yates, 23, a second-year law student. "We want to show them how to de-escalate the situation so you don't go to jail for mouthing off to an officer..."
Reminds me of my stints as a guest lecturer for Magic Valley Alternative High School; good times, good times...
Public defender intern Kimberly gets it. From Dangerblond:
I’m taking a class this semester on Louisiana Criminal Procedure, taught by a guy who works in the Orleans Public Defender’s office... We’ve been asked to observe some criminal proceedings for the class, and I figured the best way to go about it would be to intern down there a few hours a week... Today was my first day of interviewing prisoners prior to their first appearances...
My job was to quickly determine indigent status and to fill out certificates stating that they qualified to be represented by a public defender. I also got contact numbers and personal data... After the attorney interviewed them, I went back to the office to call their contacts. Most of them already knew about the arrests, but the brother in California did not. He sounded weary. I really can’t imagine how it serves society to have this old man in jail for crack and make his poor brother deal with a bail bondsman from long distance. Society exacts its punishment on the family members for the mistake of having a drug-addled brother...
At PrawfsBlawg, ethics professor Alex Long is watching the Knoxville chief public defender's threat to pull all p.d.'s off of all misdemeanors:
If these weren't public defenders... there wouldn't be any issue here: a lawyer can't ethically represent a client if the lawyer can't do so competently. But these obviously aren't just regular old private lawyers and we aren't just talking about one client. While I think I'm o.k. with Stephens threatening not to take any more misdemeanor cases... I'm not sure what I'll think if he actually pulls the trigger if and when his bluff(?) is called...
Paper Chaser suggests that there might not be enough defense-minded law students coming up to replace all of us decrepit middle-aged p.d.'s:
What spooks me is that not only have I been unable to find anyone else in my section that shares my inclination for criminal defense, or that the number of my fellow students who align themselves with the prosecutorial camp is quite large, but that the response to my musings has been so overwhelmingly negative, as if I am positioning myself to be some sort of criminal myself...
Bonus link goes to the lyrics for "Welcome to My World."
Good news from Gideon:
Loan forgiveness bill passes Senate!
A bit too late for me, alas, but now Dave and others like him might be able to join our ranks:
This is great news for all of those interested in becoming public defenders, who are forced to spend tens of thousands on law school in order to make very little money thereafter...
From Not for the monosyllabic:
Whew, I've been busy, busy, busy with the PD's office. I've been making appearance in the juvenile calendar lately, which is a lot of fun because I don't just have to sit there anymore. I've also been dubbed the "Friday Jail Calendar Queen" by TS because I'm always on Friday's jail calendar. I told TS I wanted a crown and he said he'd get one from Burger King and write "Friday Jail Calendar Queen" on it for me...
I also told TS that I was planning on sticking around for the next school year and then planning on making TS give me a job. TS's eyes lit up and he said, "You wanna be a public defender?" and I said, "Yeah, I do. Specifically at this office." TS then said, all touched, "You wanna work at this office?!"...
Law student Gopherlawyer has an F. Scott - inspired epiphany on a trip to juvenile detention:
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
'Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.'"
Today was commencement at my old law school. It makes my old bones ache just to think of it: it's been twenty years since I was in that same gown with those same purple stripes. I don't remember much about that swirl of a day, which includes not remembering meeting my wife for the first time, there as the little sister of one of my graduating classmates.
However, I do remember the name of our graduation speaker, for whom my class fought with Bad - News - Bears - like tenacity: Judge Wapner. That was the year that U of I had two commencement addresses: one added-on for the status-anxious school administrators and the Boise BigLaw suits, and one for the rest of us of "The People's Court." Congratulations, Idaho law grads.
Let me be the first to embrace Jadesr 's most superior classmate:
There is a guy in my class that I have mad respect for... Anyhow, this guy has an awesome GPA and resume. He has offers from an assload of big firms for money I could only dream of making. BUT he has decided to be a public defender because he is troubled that PDs offices are populated with losers and rejects, such that poor people who have to rely on public defenders never really have a chance in criminal trials... that they would... if all defendants actually got access to good legal council...
Wait, it gets better.
So, he gets this job with the PD in a nearby county BUT, they want him to take a drug test... I would bitch a lot, and then go pee in the damn cup. But, not him, he QUITS. Now, they know that he has mad offers for like, 4 times as much $ as they are paying him, so they were all stoked to get him since he is a rock star so they freak out, and are actually considering asking the county to change the policy. I have such respect for him for taking a stand like that!
Well, I'd change a county-wide policy to get this catch, wouldn't you? Yes, we're slobbering all over ourselves in anticipation of how such a great co-worker will uplift our loser and reject selves. Just imagine how he went over in his job interview! Now, which one of us will get to share a cubicle with P.D. McDreamy?
Here's a helpful reminder from law student Grace:
Your higher ranked school won't get you a job at the State's Attorney's office or the Public Defender's office if you haven't logged the man hours working there for free. Just like us...
If you feel that you are somehow superior to me because of your law school's ranking, chances are really good that your law school will be the only thing "top tier" about you. Why be mean?
Best wishes motoring down Lawyer Street, to all the 1L's, 2L's and 3L's about to take finals.
(photo from Winchester, Idaho)
The living hell that is law school:
Busy, law school, y'know, all that. I have been busy not going to trusts and estates and getting myself another job, since the handy Public Defender's office in a great New England state decided to place me in an office almost 2 hours away from my beach house...
Our loss I guess.
From the comments:
I've been reading your blog and many other PD blogs for years (all through law school). I graduated in May 2006, took and passed the California Bar, and have now been hired as a public defender. I'll start in a few weeks.
I went to law school specifically to become a public defender. I interned in two very different California counties. I'm thrilled my dream is coming true. I'm asking for advice from the seasoned veterans of the PD trenches: What is the best / most important advice you can offer to a "baby PD" like me?
Thanks for any input.
Input, anybody?
'Til I get back to you, Anonymous, check out the p.d.s on the blogroll, and read the answers to this question in PD Stuff's Monday Musings.
(I swear I've gone home for lunch - I'm not blogging from work!)
For getting an unpaid public defender position and all, this law student is very enthusiastic:
And who should be on that voice mail? The Public Defender I interviewed with... Who by the way is the coolest human being ever. And he's asking me if I want the job. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Congratulations, and share some of that upbeat attitude with your new co-workers.
Legally Brunette on:
How I Know I've Been Spending Too Much Time With the Public Defenders
Each time I woke up, I had dreamed the same Four Things. I'm a little weirded out...
Whatever happened to visions of sugarplums dancing in my head???
Allow me:
Law student Sfrajett receives an annuciation at the Public Interest Job Fair:
I spoke with people at legal aid clinics, child services, and the public defender's office--all lovely, friendly, skeptical people who loved their work...
A little man with white hair that stood out in wispy strands around his face shook my hand. His baggy sweater hung on his shoulders... "Do you know what we do?" he asked.
I confessed that I didn't... He nodded his head, satisfied. "We do post-conviction habeas petitions for people on death row."
"Fabulous!" I breathed. I couldn't help it. It just came out...
Read on for how things go from there.
Bonus links: "Hey man, my school day's insane /
Hey man, my work's down the drain..."
