any public defenders here?

[jagmqt]

Originally Posted by Ataturk

Appeals are almost never just about the law; they're about the application of the law to the facts established at trial. Too often on appeal you get a fucked up record, where the facts offered and accepted were like the proverbial square peg because the guys in the trial court didn't know what they were doing. Anybody who does a lot of appellate work will tell you that an ounce of good lawyering in the trial court is worth a pound on appeal, at least.

Originally Posted by airportlobby

Yes, maybe so. Having only really worked in appellate practice, I'm only really knowledgeable about the frustrations of that practice (which tend to be the ineffectuality of my arguments in the face of deference to trial findings and cynicism about how judges' politics may determine a case). I imagine if I was in front of juries, I'd have more contempt for them! In fact, my one jury experience, sitting as a member of a venire, did not lend me a lot of confidence in their abilities....
If anything, this should demonstrate to the OP that he's going to need to get some first-hand insight...there are 3 of us discussing the same type of work with three different opinions. Someone said it earlier, go volunteer and see what happens.

I guess I've been fortunate, I've never had a really bad record for the arguments I've had to respond to on appeal. I anticipate a couple of cases I'm hadling now to go up on appeal, but they're concerning matters of first impression, so the arguments will need very few facts...

jag

 

[TGPlastic]

Read this long ************* only if you really want to know about PD work. Otherwise TLDR.

I was a state PD for about four years before I went to a small firm. I still do some PD panel work. That means the PD Office hires me to rep clients where they are conflicted out. This doesn't pay my usual full rate, but I find this to be a good way to keep my hand in the big game and occasionally get a mention in the paper.

My full-fare private practice clients pay for defense on DUI/DWI, other driving offenses, drug possession, the occasional misdemeanor assault, and for the occasional juvenile case when junior decides to smash a bunch of mailboxes or whatever. Usually there's a joint in the ashtray or maybe somebody got a black eye. No blood, no dead body. Because the paying client typically has a job, a family who loves him, and little if any criminal record, he isn't likely headed to jail. We're fighting to keep his record clean and to keep him of off probation. This is easy work.

Representing poor people, as in doing public defender work, is a different matter. First off, poor people do crazy ******* ****. In the urban areas where I work it's all about street drugs, guns, violence, gangs, robbing, stealing, running from the cops, burning, ******, kid-touching, etc. These clients get arrested and usually sit in jail until trial time because they are already on probation or because they have ****** criminal records. So I have to visit them in jail, a place that smells like **** and death combined. A good many of my PD clients have no respect for me, lie to me, try to get me to lie for them, and generally fight with me every step of the way. They try to get me to believe stupid things. They don't know how to help themselves. They don't know good advice when they hear it. Not a week goes by that I don't scream at one of these guys and say something like "Shut up and listen to me you stupid *************." Then I go to court and fight like hell for them in spite of who they are and what they do or did.

Get the idea? Public Def work is where criminal defense gets interesting. When my client gets arrested running from the cops holding 20 little bags of dope, a cheap 9mm with the serial number filed off, couple of thousand bucks in his pocket, and he's already backing up 10 years on a felony probation THERE ARE NO PLEA BARGAINS. There is going to be a trial. A ******* jury trial, no less. I'm going to swing my arms around, bang the table, and cross examine some cops. Wrong guy. Not his drugs. Not his gun. That's not the way the police general orders say to do it, is it? So you could not have seen what you say you saw, right? I'm going to find some doubtful *********** state's version of events and I am going to explode those doubts until they are reasonable doubts. And that's only if I lose my preliminary motions with the judge. That's where we do the law arguments, before the jury comes in.

At one level I do this job because I believe the government's use of its power to incarcerate its citizens must always be examined with the closest scrutiny. It is necessary that the constitutional limits on government power must sometimes render seemingly correct arrests legally invalid. I believe that strict adherence to the law is the very essence of freedom from tyranny. I like to fight. I like to tell stories. I am generally skeptical about most things. I am fascinated by people with psychiatric disorders and the things they do. I like to curse. I'd rather not be writing legal memos or complex motions. I like the rush associated with winning from the defense side. I basically have to do this work because there aren't many of us in this world who will zealously defend a guy who probably did screw a nine year old boy ********** or whatever.

HERE'S WHY YOU DON'T WANT TO BE A PD: STATE BUDGETS ARE ALL FUCKED UP. PAY IS LOW TO START, THEN YOU GET FURLOUGHS OR CUTS WHEN THE STATE SEES RED INK. Case loads can be huge. When you walk into court one morning with 18 cases it'll feel like you are playing bingo. Most people will never understand why you do what you do. Some people will hate you for doing what you do.

One more thing. A recent opening for an entry level attorney at my old PD Office had 200 plus applicants. I understand that many of the apps got their licenses last year but still had no employment. I also understand that the apps were from a number of name brand law schools. That's a big flood of qualified apps for a job that pays about $60k a year. This is a terrible time to be a new lawyer and probably the wrong time to borrow money to go to law school unless your dad owns a firm and you have a guaranteed job. I'd advise most people against law school at this time and for the foreseeable future. Either get a job or go to grad school for something academic where they'll give you a stipend and a TA gig.

 

[airportlobby]

Great post, TGP. A couple more thoughts for the OP from journal articles. Both of these are good articles. http://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/iss...7No5_Smith.pdf You should be able to access this one from your university library: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1341633 (ARTICLE: BEYOND JUSTIFICATIONS: SEEKING MOTIVATIONS TO SUSTAIN PUBLIC DEFENDERS. by Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.)

 

[magogian12345]

But don't you think that by the time the OP has graduated the job market will have improved?

 

[crazyquik]

Originally Posted by magogian12345

But don't you think that by the time the OP has graduated the job market will have improved?
This is a gamble that you can't really make. Didn't a lot of people think it was a the best time in their lifetime to buy a house in 2006? That's what people were telling me. Paying to go to law school is similar to buying a house, it's a mortgage on your brain. And some people think that the law school, um, situation is a classic bubble waiting to bust. A downstream result of the mortgage bubble. I won't add anymore to this thread other than go to the absolute best law school you can get into and don't count on "if I get good grades" at any law school. You'd much rather be the kid from Louisiana with some indecipherable transcript from a pass-fail school (Harvard, Yale, Stanford) with 8 Ps and 2 Hs than be the 6th percentile guy at Tulane. As airportlobby perfectly explained above, this is not the time to sell yourself short. The only PD I personally know no longer does trials, just appeals work and post-conviction remedies.

 

[odoreater]

I'm not a public defender, but I work as a pool attorney for the public defender's office (they pool cases to me when there are co-defendants so it would be a conflict of interest for the public defender to represent both defendants). I work closely with a lot of public defenders. I think to do that job and to be happy about it, you have to be a true believer. Someone that truly believes that it is more about the system working properly, the state being held to its burden, the police being held to their constitutional requirements, etc.

There are going to be some clients who are pissed at you, but I don't think that's the general rule (and I don't think you're immune from that in the private sector, far from it in fact). Most people who have committed a crime know that they've committed a crime and will not really hold it against their attorney if he can't get them off. The most important thing is to show them that you care about their case, and you are providing them with your best professional services and abilities.

All in all, I don't think it's a bad gig as long as you truly believe in the work that you are doing, enough so that you'll put up with the ****.

By the way, as somebody above mentioned, doing pool work for the public defender's office is the best of both worlds. You get paid some money on the cases (though a lot less than you would normally charge), and you get some very interesting cases (and the occasional mention in the paper as noted above) without having to deal with that **** all day every day.

 

[magogian12345]

Originally Posted by crazyquik

I won't add anymore to this thread other than go to the absolute best law school you can get into and don't count on "if I get good grades" at any law school.


I don't necessarily agree with this. If the OP can get into a top 14, then yes, he should go there over Tulane. If, however, its between a top 25 school and Tulane, and Tulane offers him a good scholarship and the other school doesn't, then I'd say he should go to Tulane.

Heck, even if he can get into a top 14 (but not top 5) but Tulane offers him a full ride (and the other school doesn't offer much/any), then he should go to Tulane. That said, if he gets into Harvard/Yale/Stanford/Columbia/NYU/Chicago, then he should go to one of them no matter what a school like Tulane offers.

In general, an applicant should strive for the best law school possible, but in some situations it definitely makes sense to choose a lower ranked school.


OP, not to pry too much. (and you don't need to answer if you aren't comfortable). But, do your grades and LSAT put you in range of a T14 or T5 school?

 

[rjakapeanut]

Originally Posted by magogian12345

OP, not to pry too much. (and you don't need to answer if you aren't comfortable). But, do your grades and LSAT put you in range of a T14 or T5 school?

t5 is definitely pushing it. t14 is attainable, and going by the statistics i've found online (concerning the median gpa/lsat for the schools) i could see myself getting accepted to a cornell, texas, or duke type of school. if i really beast the LSAT.....it wouldn't be a total waste of money to apply to chicago. and i think that i will beast the LSAT, because i've really been destroying everything but the logic games -- which i haven't learned anything about yet or even tried.

needless to say i'm going to continue to grind out really hard in college while studying for the lsat. i'll send out...probably 25 applications all over the damned place, and see if i get lucky.

if i do get accepted to a t14 school but tulane offers me a full ride, i'd be hard pressed to pass on tulane unless i really loved the t14 school. if a place like duke or texas accepts me though....hard to turn those areas down.

 

[globetrotter]

good post TGP

 

[KObalto]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

good post TGP

+100. It appears you do panel work for my office.

 

[courty]

If you want to jump straight into trials, depositions, and motion practice, you can always hang out your own shingle straight away. You may start out slow but plenty of PI attorneys need help on a contract or case by case basis.

If your staying in Louisiana, LSU will be much cheaper than Tulane. If you have any interest in maritime law (that may help with the next ten years of oil spill litigation), Tulane is the only place in the country to go.

 

[Svenn]

Originally Posted by rjakapeanut

rather than vie for t14 excellence and a $160k biglaw salary, i dream of becoming a public defender.

Not sure anyone's mentioned it yet, but at least in the part of the country I'm in, public defenders get paid on a contractual basis rather than full-time employees like prosecutors. The public defenders I know actually make $100k plus a year by combining their contracts, often with very easy chickenshit work: "uhhh, we've reached a plea agreement with the state..." is about all they have to say 90% of the time. If we're talking about defending felonies, then it could certainly be a more noble profession...