Closed Book…from theory to practice part 1

justice

School has been out a little more than a month and though I am working, I still find it hard to handle the shear amount of free time that my new found freedom has given me.

It is weird being freshly done with 1L yet not really established as a 2L. It is sort of like being 17 but turning 18 later in the Summer, still a child yet feeling the pressure of adult hood weighing on you.

Nothing speaks to this more than starting one’s first Summer legal job.

I currently work in the Major Felonies Unit of the District Attorney’s Office. From day one everything I have been working on for the last two weeks has had an immediate and real work effect. The motions I write or research are real. They are not for a grade, they need not meet the stylistic preferences of my legal writing teacher, but they do need to be on point.

The work is fantastic, interesting, and challenging.

It is great to come into an internship everyday that is one which you visualized yourself doing as a career when you came into law school.

I have to be disciplined enough to work my hardest to draft a motion that I may not agree with, because that is my job, yet principled enough to later have the conversation with the ADA’s about why I feel uneasy about the evidence, the prosecution generally, or the sentence handed down specifically.

Last week, I found myself having some of these conversations…specifically about how troubled I was at the end of the week about the sheer amount of men and women from my similar background who were on trial, awaiting trial, or pleading.

It is one thing to know anecdotally how many folks are being locked up or to study academically the issue, but it is a whole other animal to experience it everyday.

That said, the experience has convinced me all the more that I and people from my background are needed in positions as judges, defense attorneys, police officers and prosecutors.

The experience is far from over, but even if it ended tomorrow it has already done its part, by illuminating a path which I believed I should go down, but was unsure that I could handle.

It has shown me that justice is not blind, but requires constant scrutiny at all levels to ensure that it is the closest it can come to fair.

That skepticism is removed…

Stay Tuned!

2 Comments

janet hughes posted on June 19, 2011 at 10:22 am

Thoughtful enjoyed reading

Ashley posted on June 21, 2011 at 7:51 pm

Definitely enjoyed this blog post. I am glad things are turning around for the better for you. Good Luck and I am looking forward to reading your future blogs, all the way until your graduation day!!

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