July 25, 2005

Angry summer p.d. intern tells all

At least one public defender intern is having a terribly awful no-good mixed-up horrible work experience this summer:

(deleted by Skelly)

I don't see this intern working as a p.d. after graduation.

Update 07/27/05:

After a flurry of hits yesterday from the State of Alaska, the above links and the underlying blog have been disabled, along apparently with the poster's fledgling p.d. career. By doing a Technorati search for "public defenders" and posting one of the interesting things I found there, I seem to have outed someone to her colleagues and co-workers, and I've got to take responsibility for getting her dooced.

At the same time, there's a certain amount of inevitable discovery at work here. She is, or was, a law student doing a summer internship with the Alaska Public Defender Agency. She blogged her disappointment in her job and surroundings early on. She posted explicitly on her blog, things that would be better said in a letter, in a phonecall, in e-mail, in a restricted-access LiveJournal blog. It turns out that she blogged in an exaggerated way about someone I know online, who's a good Alaska defense lawyer. Her blogging, in a way certain to be revealed in a small state and bar, was not her only lapse in judgment. Before feeling too mad at me or sorry for her, just ask if this is the kind of judgment you'd want in your lawyer or your co-counsel.

Contrast this more positive Alaska p.d. summer internship.

Update
# 2: I deleted the blog entries I quoted - I've done enough damage. And STRM, I'm really glad your supervisor liked your blog! And relieved! Suffice to say, we all need to be careful out there with the job blogging. Whether it's a client, a judge, or a current or future boss, you never know who might be reading (a lesson I've had to learn the hard way myself).

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