"I have never met a client that I didn't find something redeeming about"

Here's a p.d. who's a better person than me. No, not because she's a federal p.d. After what she's been through, if she can still say, "I have never met a client that I didn't find something redeeming about," she's truly amazing:

Five months ago, on a sun-soaked June morning, attorney Jane Kelly was jogging on a bike trail in Cedar Rapids when a stranger attacked her from behind. He dragged her to a creek and split her face open, leaving her semiconscious in a pool of blood, to be found 20 minutes later by passersby.

(F)ar from retreating from her often thankless, underpaid line of work, she's getting ready to return to it.

(T)he Iowa Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Drake Law School recognize someone who shows a commitment to the constitutional right to criminal defense. Kelly was this year's unanimous choice. Accepting the award, Kelly quipped that she can't remember a time when she didn't know how to make meth. And she's spent so much time in jail, she said, she should have enough time served for a couple of simple misdemeanors. "It's challenging, frustrating, infuriating and heartbreaking," she told the gathered lawyers about her work. "It's voyeuristic, but in the end it's real."

Coincidentally, out in San Diego it's alleged that another criminal defense attorney can't remember a time when he didn't know how to make meth, but I don't think he'll be getting any awards.