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...
Light linking and posting this week. At the moment I'm extraordinarily bummed out about juvenile justice, and not just because Apache County, Arizona is prosecuting an 8-year-old for premeditated murder. This week I'm feeling like a collaborator, not in the pop psychology team-building sense, but in the Vichy French sense. My advocacy has done little to avoid some rotten outcomes for my kid clients.
Consequently, I'm grasping at any positive news I can find. Like this, from DOJ:
Justice Department Study Dispels Myths About Girls' Delinquency
Which leads to DOJ Girls' Delinquency webpage, featuring a stock photo of a j.d. whom many, many of my 16 and 17 year old clients would be totally into:
The Center for Children and Youth Justice seems to be doing a couple of good things as well.
Erskine also had a feel-good moment on the job. I will again some time.
There will be droughts and days inundated
unveilings free from saturation
departures raised with no masquerading.
There will be teachers that die by their own hand
pundits that push headlong for atonement
friends and followers devoted to living.
There will be watchers that plot from in confines
and those committed to society's circles
unwary cogs with no cadence or virtue.
There will be right, there will be wrong.
Jay Farrar, "Medicine Hat"
Right at least to wait 'til the end of Suicide Prevention Week; wrong to leave the wife to cut down the body. Black humored genius, tormented bastard, rest in peace.
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 client of mine killed himself this past Thursday night. I found out today.
For anyone else out there, here is a link to Hopeline.
There's a rabbit warren in the bushes next to juvenile detention. Tonight one of the younger bunnies was there for debriefing after I'd stepped out from talking with two clients. Both are about to go away for a long time, a likely ten months for the one, more than two years for the other. The resident wildlife outside seem to have a sense of when I can use a bit of animal uplift.
From the Orange County Register:
Prominent O.C. lawyer found dead - Gary Proctor, who handled dozens of high-profile cases, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at his San Jose home
Defense attorney Gary Proctor..., 63, allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the backyard of his San Jose home on Sunday. Proctor, who with his partner Dennis McNerney had a contract to represent juvenile offenders in Orange County, moved to San Jose in recent years to manage a similar contact in Santa Clara County.
His friends said that Proctor had been in chronic pain for years with a bad back, and was depressed over recent criticism he was receiving in the San Jose Mercury News over his management of the juvenile defenders' contract in San Jose...
Proctor was also known as a legal mentor to many young lawyers, and a sharing partner to others. "He was a hero to me," said Santa Ana attorney Ken Reed. "He taught me everything I know. When I was still in law school trying my first case, he was sitting right beside me giving me advice."
Senior Deputy Public Defender Denise Gragg said Proctor was a captivating speaker who had an incredible courtroom presence. She recalled the time when she was about to try her first case, and Proctor brought her into his office -- with her two young children – to teach her how to pick a jury...
I linked to the Mercury-News series only last month. Today's sad news via the ABA Journal. Rest in peace.
(see also the Lawyers with Depression website)
It started with Blawg Review. It spread to Where's Travis McGee? (where? Afghanistan! Read Brad Parker's dispatches) Now, somehow, it's reached me: the meme of the moment, the Top Ten Best Blawgs project.
It's hardly fair, being limited to a list of only ten, and having to avoid blogs already named (which unreasonably excludes the wisdom of Minor Wisdom and the blonde-ness of Blonde Justice) and non-law blogs (you'll miss the coyote's siren song of Creek Running North, the firebell in the night at Orcinus, the curious absence of monkey or disaster in Monkey Disaster).
So, facing the limitations of the playing field as any good public defender should, here's a list - not the list - of Top Ten Legal Blogs:
* Angry Pregnant Lawyer - co-starring Not So Angry Husband, Angry Boy, and Angry Little Baby. Law makes guest appearances.
* CrimLaw - of course. Defended then, prosecutes now, doesn't miss a thing.
* Grits for Breakfast - "Welcome to Texas justice: You might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride." This blog gets results, reforming Texas courts, jails and prisons.
* Public Defender Stuff - the aggregator of my people.
* Sentencing Law and Policy - my "serious" choice, from Professor Douglas Berman at Ohio State. Essential and influential.
* The Bardd Before the Bar - indigent defense, indignant cats (turn down your speakers!).
* The Imbroglio - Big Sky vistas stretch out in front of this starting-out lawyer.
* The Menagerie - small-size practice, medium-size dogs.
* The Thirteen Juror - with the most recent post titled "How to Be a Successful Homeless People," a rage against injustice just behind a civil Floridian smile.
* Woman of the Law - "I'm a fast-talkin' hell-raisin' son of a bitch, and I'm a sinner and I know how to fight." Not my words, hers.
* Woman Wearing Black - shot a lawyer in Reno just to watch him die.
That's eleven! I'm arbitrary like that. Sad to leave out a few too many other worthy blogs (these among them), but still, here's a pretty good list to get you started.
Update 10/5: after I put this post and myself to bed, I tossed and turned agonizing, how could I leave out The Invent Blog? Or Simple Justice? Or The Underdog Blog? Or, or, or... as I fell into a listless slumber. Small wonder that memes are considered viral: catch one and it'll make you sick!
Update 10/6: this morning while watching Conference on KBYU, I was seized with a compulsion, yea, even as unto a most powerful magnet, to return to this post and bring you the good news of Law of Criminal Defense by John Wesley Hall, Jr., Scoplaw, Do Not Pass Geaux, Fight 'Em 'til We Can't, my blogfather Public Defender Dude, and so many more - check out my blogroll.
From the TNT:
Work burnout - Feed the spirit or get used to the taste of ashes
Your job is a drag, your co-workers are baboons and your favorite movie is “Office Space.”
Ever considered that you might be the one with the problem?
In its way, this is good news - from Legal Sanity:
organizational disrespect in the law
(B)urnout within a business or organization really reflects more on the employer than the employee...
(R)espect is critical to inducing or avoiding burnout because it fuels employee engagement in the workplace. Respect gives people the conviction that what they’re doing is important and meaningful. Conversely, when employees experience disrespect directly or vicariously through coworkers, they conclude that the company doesn’t care about its workers and demoralization follows...
Maybe you're like me, and you've worked in both kinds of organization. Some days when you're feeling like you want to bail on the whole public defender experience, maybe it isn't you, or your clients, or even your caseload - maybe it's your office culture.
I also enjoyed these posts from Legal Sanity, on lawyer burnout, and on "meaning + money".
The latter has persuaded me that this Concurring Opinions post -
Assume that our law school graduate has two options. She can work at Skadden Arps and earn $140,000 a year. Or she can work at Legal Aid and earn $40,000 a year. Which should she take? What if... she took the Skadden job, and donated most of her salary to Legal Aid?
With her $140,000 Skadden salary, she could donate $80,000 to Legal Aid, sufficient to allow them to hire two new attorneys, and thus defend twice as many indigent criminal defendants... That's twice the net gain in overall defense for the indigent, if our law student doesn't choose Legal Aid herself...
- is less Law & Economics, more very subtle joke. (check out the comments for answers to Professor Wegner's question, "So why don't more law students take this route?" Or the blogs of any public defenders or p.d. - inclined law students.)
Here are Throckmorton's latest adventures in public defense, with a sad - but - true epiphany about the Sixth Amendment:
while the constitution guarantees a right to counsel, nowhere does the law guarantee that a criminal defendant gets to have unlimited access to his/her attorney and have his/her hand held throughout the process...
if i'm truly going to do this work, i'd better build up a thicker skin. what i fear in that process, though, is crossing the line from thick-skinned to calloused... it's going to be a real struggle to compartmentalize how available i'll be able to be versus how emotionally involved i can become.
Stick with it, Emily. Most of us in the ranks are still trying to figure this out too.
My parking spot at Juvy is out at the edge of the lot where the landscaping meets the wetlands. Usually I'll see finches, juncos and bluejays there, and hear a frog or two. After this morning's court session I went out to the pick-up, rolled down the window, and sat behind the wheel for a while, shuffling paper and watching birds. After a few minutes I turned on the ignition, and a small raccoon jumped out of the arborvitae not five feet away.
He ambled a few feet further with that half-crouching walk that reminds me of my crabby old cat, but he was a young thing and brash. I half expected him to flash me the West Side gang sign. Instead, he stood up, looked me in the eyes and sniffed a moment, then sauntered into the cattails.
This afternoon, it was a rabbit that spooked and ran as I was passing the corner of the courthouse. I'd just had a client go away for two years, who'd PV'ed and come up short 22 months into a 24 month probation. I was glad for a wild animal companion, even if it was just a glimpse of a fluffy bunny butt and four lucky rabbit's feet heading away from me fast.
From the unfailingly humane legal blog Minor Wisdom, which got it from Legal Sanity, which got it from Idealawg:
"A lawyer's recipe for depression"
Why, of all professions, does the legal profession have the highest rate of depression...?
I'd been meaning to pass this along earlier, but I'd been feeling a little, you know, down...
Two from Raymond Ward at Minor Wisdom:
"Law students and depression", which will lead you to "Stress, Depression, Substance Abuse and Suicide" (the essay, not the actual ailments); and
"Lawyers and depression: An explanation?".
And via the blog of the New Jersey Lawyers Assistance Program you'll find "The devastation of depression: - Lawyers are at greater risk--It's an impairment to take seriously," from the ABA Division for Bar Services.
Now go take on the day!
You know what's fantastic about putting up your own criminal defense blog? Do it long enough, and someone you admire as much as Ray Ward sends you e-mail! And not just e-mail, he sends you material and links!
From the proprietor of Minor Wisdom:
Skelly, I think this story is on your beat.
Ambrogi's headline is "Low pay, big cases, happy lawyer."
He links to a story on the NY Times that begins:
"THERE are many kinds of lawyers. Some defend the vilified, like mobsters and disgraced congressmen. In return, the lawyers can win money and fame.
But others defend the forgotten — tenants, busboys, people at the wrong end of a police truncheon — and are themselves forgotten..."
The article is about Ray Brescia, director of the community development project at the Urban Justice Center in Manhattan:
It is rewarding work, he says, for a "behind-the-scenes guy."
(In return, let me send you back to Minor Wisdom to read this post: "Depression and the Connecticut bar." Mr. Ward owns this topic among the blawgs, and his frequent posts on it are a source of personal help to me. Thank you, counselor.)
Ray Ward of "Minor Wisdom" does us all a service by keeping us aware of depression amongst the profession, and of ways we can ease it.
Yow! It's as if the ABA Journal called me up and asked me for my picks! Methamphetamine, clinical depression among lawyers, Twin Falls, Idaho... it's a veritable Skelly hit parade!
Flying Under the Radar
- These Little-Noticed Legal Developments Could Be Making News This Year
To make our list, we first determined the most underrated, underreported and unappreciated issues affecting lawyers. And then we thought about how these topics are likely to play out in the future.
Among them:
METH: PUBLIC DRUG ENEMY NO. 1
If you live in a small town and run into problems with the law, methamphetamine may be the first cause that authorities suspect. Some rural justice system officials estimate that the drug is a factor in up to 80 percent of their caseloads...
Drug courts also seem to help, mainly by reducing the number of repeat offenders. These courts focus on intensive programs to help defendants quit meth rather than do jail time.
In Twin Falls, Idaho, the county has operated such a program for three years. Prosecutor Grant P. Loebs says that about 50 percent to 60 percent of those who complete the program are staying clean. Still, he sees usage of the drug in about 90 percent of the county’s presentencing reports....
DEPRESSION TAKES A TOLL
It may not quite be the disease that dares not speak its name, but in the legal profession it comes pretty close.
Where depression is concerned, there is clearly a tendency for individual lawyers, and the profession as a whole, to let it languish in the shadows rather than acknowledge its prevalence and confront the terrible toll it takes.
In a very real sense, the story of lawyers and depression is the quintessential “under the radar” item...
Big arbitrary and capricious thanks to ABAJournal.com and reporters Stephanie Francis Ward and Steven Keeva.
I've received permission from DePaul University College of Law Professor Susan Bandes to link to her most recent paper, "Repression and Denial in Criminal Lawyering":
Legal scholars as well as laypeople are fascinated by the question of how criminal lawyers can defend people accused of heinous crimes. This topic is commonly addressed as part of a well-established discourse about the morality and ethics of criminal defense. A separate conversation needs to occur. Its topic is how, in an emotional sense, one defends people accused of terrible crimes, and what toll such defense takes, both professionally and personally.
This article first explores the defense mechanisms employed by criminal defense lawyers, and how these mechanisms affect lawyers both as advocates and as people whose work is comfortably integrated into their lives. Second, it suggests that the mechanisms and strategies discussed are not unique to defense attorneys, but are common in legal practice generally. Finally, it argues that the legal profession needs to overcome its aversion to acknowledging and addressing the emotional aspects of lawyering, and suggests some possible paths toward this goal.
When Professor Bandes writes:
A number of those who have written about legal ethics and professionalism have emphasized the need for critical reflection, for talking over doubts and ambiguities with colleagues, and for acknowledgement of moral choices and moral claims that conflict with our professional roles. The first step is to create opportunities to come together. Collegial support is essential for several reasons. It enables consultation on legal issues, of course, but in addition it decreases isolation, contributes to job satisfaction, and permits the building of communities in which lawyers are able to explore ambiguity, admit uncertainty and gain emotional sustenance,
she could be describing our p.d. corner of the blawg-sphere, or at least what I get out of posting and getting comments here at A & C.
If you intend to do criminal defense for the long haul, you really owe it to yourself to set some time aside and read this article.
Bandes, Susan A., "Repression and Denial in Criminal Lawyering" Buffalo Criminal Law Review, Vol. 9, No. 2, February 2006 http://ssrn.com/abstract=789764
(I posted about an earlier version of this paper here.)
A reader clicked through to me from this page: Depression, The Lawyers' Epidemic: How You Can Recognize the Signs, by Raymond P. Ward (a fine lawyer and blogger). Must've been someone who knows me.
It's a good post, with comments linking to lawyers assistance and confidential help. This little brochure on lawyers and depression was especially uncanny, like looking into a little PDF mirror.
The post was written back in March, and I'm sure I meant to link to it back then, but I guess I was so damned, well, you know... Anyway, best wishes to the rest of my brethren and sistren managing the depressing aspects of our calling.
I am in trial. It certainly is not going the way my client predicted to me that it would. A wise federal p.d. once told me, "each jury trial is really three trials: the trial you prepare to do, the trial you do, and the trial you wish you'd done."
Before the next time I am in this situation, I am going to re-read Alaskablawg's latest post about persuading clients to plead. As he puts it,
"how much is it appropriate for defense lawyers to 'lean' on their clients to plead?"
Excellent question. I have been doing a spate of trials lately. Each case has had one or more serious vulnerabilties from a defense standpoint. For instance, I would count a Miranda'ed, admissible confession as a bad thing to deal with in trial, wouldn't you? And each case has had a determined, autonomous individual at the wheel behind it, exercising his absolute right to go to trial. So we go to trial, my client and me.
I wish I knew the answer to Alaskablawg's question, and I worry that I need to re-calibrate just how much I 'lean.' His post has me thinking back to the very worst thing I've done professionally: I had a murder client, and I didn't lean hard enough. Close to trial, the state offered my client manslaughter, maximum of 15 years, and I didn't lean hard enough on my client to accept it. We went to trial instead, and my client's predictions about how the trial would unfold didn't come true. This client is doing life now.
I'm tired. Back to the latest trial in the morning. Crimlaw's thoughts on Alaskablawg's experience, and tangentially, mine, are here .
