Well, some email has rolled in, given the tenor of the next-to-last post. So, I thought I’d sit down and try to see what’s changed with me in the past year or so.
First though, I have some BIG news – I’ll be shipped out of my old division to a new one soon. That means a new judge, new clients, new types of cases (basically the old crimes cases with the addition of traffic cases), and a new trial partner(s).
Most important, my clients will be OUT OF JAIL!!! That changes everything – for example, a defense continuance no longer means several weeks of my client eating bad food, wearing an orange jumpsuit, being crowed into unsanitary, insanely loud, constantly lit, and freezing concrete and metal surroundings, while being separated from his family, simply so his attorney can get something crucial squared away.
Yea! (that deserves its own paragraph.)
In other changes, my Mental Health client load will be nearly non-existent by comparison, giving me more time to focus on that. I’ll be actually in the office (instead of in court) during regular business hours. So I’ll be taking more depos, and doing a different kind of investigatory work. I also expect my motions practice to pick up, which could be interesting since that used to be one of my strengths before I began work in my “they’re-in-jail, just-try-it” division. My workload is probably also going to drop, in the sense that I won’t be pulling 7am to 9:30pm days (as I did this past Thursday).
Outside of the court room, this means I’ll be able to be more in Miami itself (during daylight hours) and take care of some personal things that have been on the back burner during my stint in my soon-to-be-old division. (No more vacation days burned on getting my student loans in order!)
Or so rumor has it. I haven’t gotten official word as I was in trial (post below) when the news was announced.
I’ll be sad to leave my current courtroom(s) and my trial partners. Given the staffing travails we’ve undergone, what with people leaving and being sick and coming on to be trained, it’s sort of the worst time to leave, from my selfish perspective. Since we’re just now cruising at full strength I want to keep the pressure on the state (This has resulted in 4 jury trials in 2 weeks, to say nothing of the 2 cases the state nolle prossed last-minute before picking a jury, with our client dressed in a suit and sitting at our table!)
However, its also perhaps the best time to be moved, since things are working well. I told my mom fighting the state was like keeping your hands around the closed jaws of a snake – you don’t want to let go until you’re sure the next person has a firm grip.
I have *every* confidence in my trial partners – I just wish we had more time to develop even more strategies together, since we have changed how we found our division in pretty significant ways. In fact, just today, I was reviewing some old materials and came across a note written by one of my partners that said “Go on X, not Y.” I had asked him to research a last minute issue that would determine how we’d attack one particular argument the state was going to be making. We had only the most minor of opportunities to discuss it (trials are fluid things). I was busy with other trial issues, so he just handed me the note, right before the issue was ripe. And so I stood up and did my thing, fully trusting that my partner had framed the issue correctly and was going to be able to back me up on it. He had, and we won pretty convincingly. It takes awhile for me to develop that level of trust with people, and I’m going to miss having both my partners at my side.
I’ll only be across the hallway though, so I’ll be able to pitch in as required, certainly with the daily heavy lifting if someone’s sick or ill.
I’ll also be sad to leave my judges – the 3 regular judges I’ve had, plus the recurring covering judges we get from time to time. I felt I could work with all of them – although each of them has their own unique style, and none would ever mistake one for the others.
I’m wondering how different things will be with my new judge. I know that the protocols of that courtroom are different (more formal), which might even be something of a welcome change. I’m getting very colloquial in my practice – I almost addressed a judge as “Judge” the other day, instead of “Your Honor”. Seems like a small thing I know, but it’s emblematic of what I don’t always think is an appropriate relaxation on my part. I’ve heard very good things about the new judge, and already have some expectations about what kinds of things I’ll be able to do in that particular courtroom (as opposed to being in *any* courtroom with less clients, daily drama, and more time to get truly creative with my practice).
I think the funniest thing is the new judge’s demeanor on the bench, which has drawn both praise and criticism from the various and sundry defendants, witnesses, courtroom personnel, advocates and attorneys. I told my mom the good and the bad on the phone yesterday and she started laughing, “But Scoplaw, that’s YOU!” And not-quite-sadly, I had to agree. So it should be an interesting ride, given that I don’t always respond to myself well.
**
As far as what’s changed with me in the past year, I think there are a number of lines anyone can draw in their life – significant events which change the daily tenor of what we do, or even, how we do. But such lines are never nearly as clean as we subsequently pretend them to be. So with that in mind, I’m drawing a line about 9 months ago, although what happened just before and just after make it a broad fuzzy line.
About 9 months ago, I moved to FL – not knowing more than two people in the entire state south of Orlando. That whole surrounding period, from May to August, was pretty momentous: the final dissolution of what had been a very important relationship, graduating law school, leaving DC (which on some level I still love, and with which I had a good life), studying for the bar, taking that exam, taking on new and very important responsibilities in a strange place, wherein I didn’t know the local lingo and customs. All in all, it was a story about moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar, about relying on what I knew, and trying to make new things happen.
Basically, as soon as I arrived, my work took over my life. However, even early on, I was able to get a lot of things done that I wanted to, and the degree to which my work has impacted my free time has only changed for the better, albeit slowly. So, yes, I still do the very Scoplawic hunting through junkstores, visiting libraries, watching movies, reading books, writing poetry, buying and cooking food, building and riding bikes, socializing with interesting people – but all these not as much, and all these somewhat more desperately snatched from the mundanities of dishes and laundry and vacuuming and getting suits and shoes and self ready for court each day. However, a good deal of “moving to a new place/starting a new profession” things are simply done by now – no more bar exam/character and fitness review to eat up my weekends, no more trying to find adequate local suppliers of avocados and bicycle parts.
What I haven’t been able to do is take on any significant new learning (I had fantasizes of resuscitating my Spanish), although I have picked up a few things here and there, as I’m wont to. I’m also not sure I’ve had enough reflective time to really come to grips with all the changes that happened in my life in that last bit in DC phase. I know I have, and that it’s mostly done. I’m not sure it’s entirely done or not. Which is part of the problem of not having enough reflective time - these things have to be tracked, not thought about once or twice.
The really significant learning/growth has come mostly from courtroom/trial experience, as well as from rapidly moving through a lot of clients.
The office down here was tremendous in as far as it gave me both training and discretion to do what I thought I could for my clients. After an August shadowing a truly exceptional felony attorney, and a crash course (self-taught) in FL crim law/procedure, I was moved into the most frenetic division in county court. At first the workload was overwhelming, as was the feeling that I just didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I was able to keep going though, largely because I knew that Law School, whatever it was, wasn’t interested in teaching and drilling the skills you need to succeed in a courtroom. Of course, Law School, especially the clinic, was invaluable in actually getting me ready for the job as well – just not always in the most obvious ways. I have to say there’s no way in hell I’d have done the job well without my clinical experience. The summer internships were crucial, but the clinic gave me a way to personally contextualize the abstractions of the law into actual client representation; it taught me about practice and set me in motion.
So, after a relatively slow start in terms of trials, I’ve been able to get my feet under me and get some stuff done. I have my favorite moments (and some never to be repeated arguments) and on the whole, I think it’s been a tremendously great experience, no matter how much I whine about FL as a cultural wasteland.
I’m *much* more comfortable in a courtroom, even in front of a (literally) red-faced and shouting judge. I feel I have some grasp of both trail strategy and technique. I’m at least becoming somewhat acquainted with the rules of evidence in a practical way. (There’s an analogy to be made between literature academics in relation to poets, and appellate lawyers/law academics in relation to trial attorneys. You tend to use the same rules/information differently, and one seldom appreciates the other’s efforts.)
All in all, in the past 9 months, I’ve been to jury trial about 16 times? plus another 4 or so dispositive motions where witnesses were called and crossed. We’ve had probably twice that number of near misses (cases we’re completely ready on), ranging from nolle prosses early on during trial day, to (more rarely) ones given in the middle of actually picking the small panel. If we considered the number of cases the state declared ready on at the day of trial, which we then discovered had fatal flaws, turned over our cards, and got the state to drop the charges, I’d guess it would be about 60 or so. I’d also have to guess we’ve had well over 10 motions to dismiss (no witnesses called) granted by the judges as well. (Oddly, I don’t remember the wins all that well. I do remember each Guilty verdict quite clearly though – there are 4 of them, 3 single counts and one split.)
The backdrop to this is about 1500 clients (just me personally, not my division) the vast vast majority of whom are offered and take credit-time-served sentences, with or without a formal finding of adjudication, at one point or another.
I’m not sure I could have done this in any other office in the country. I mean, anecdotally, I think my experience has been unusual. It’s certainly subjectively recent to me in odd ways. Someone asked me (questionnaire) what my profession was. I said “attorney” – but it felt kind of weird to say, like I was still pretending at it or something.
Anyway you slice it, it’s a tremendous amount of courtroom experience to digest – and I’m sure I haven’t done so as well as I ideally might. And that, in effect, is what’s been largely occupying my brain for the past nine months. There are a lot of things I haven’t yet done, but I think I’ve gotten a tremendous exposure to trial practice, plus a sampling of the more random scenarios and unusual hearings.
So, I’m largely the same, everything’s still there. I’m just working with a different focus at a different level of intensity. I may not have as much time to write long posts about poetics, but for now I must leave that to others, without very much regret.
Or not, depending on what happens with the new division.
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