Working at the Office of the Public Defender is incredible.
I’m learning so much about the practice of criminal law, it’s actually pretty pathetic. I mean, you’d like to imagine that after law school and the bar you know something about the reality of criminal law.
Something.
Anything at all.
Yesterday I interned at the Office of the Public Defender in district court. This was the first day of my new schedule, working my 40 hours in 4 days and taking Tuesdays off to intern at the OPD. It was frigging fantastic.
Since I’m still waiting on my bar results the most I can do is act as a law clerk, but that’s still much more than I’ve had the chance to do before now.
The more I find out about the court and its procedures (not civil, not criminal, but administrative) the more ignorant I feel. But at least it’s tempered with the knowledge that I’m in the right place to learn.
Turns out that the district court I’m working at splits up the courtrooms by district. I was assigned to one courtroom and I shadow the attorneys who work that room.
Utter chaos started the day; people all over the place, lawyers snatching conversations with clients and their families beforehand and running out of the courtroom for minutes at a time to follow up with clients afterward.
Between the two attorneys I shadowed, there were about 20 cases during the morning docket, but only 5 or so during the afternoon.
When the afternoon docket was finished, one of the attorneys asked me if I found it boring or exciting. I told him that I’m still at the point where it’s all exciting, no matter how boring it is.
This was supposed to have been easier.
When I first starting working, years before I started law school, I ran into the same problem everyone runs into when trying to find an entry-level position anywhere — how do you get work experience without already having work experience?
I was fortunate enough to get an interview with SSA back when they were still hiring anyone with a pulse. Now, nearly seven years later when I’m looking for a job in the legal profession, I was hoping that having seven years of work experience would count for something.
I will now allow you to wipe up whatever it was you were drinking that you spewed all over your keyboard after reading that.
Over a year ago, I helped a local attorney on a criminal appellate case. I did some legal research and helped draft the arguments for the client’s appeal to the MD Court of Special Appeals.
In October, I sat in the courtroom after meeting the client and listened to oral arguments on the case. I was still involved enough that I was mouthing answers to the court’s questions from my seat against the wall.
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In case anyone who reads this blog is unaware, I’m a non-traditional law student. I work full-time and attend classes in the evening. The normal timeline for evening students at my school is 4 years until graduation; I’m an impatient type, so I opted to take a full course load each summer as well. This decision — not necessarily good for my sanity — cuts down the time it will take me to graduate by 2 full semesters (roughly one year).
Now that that’s out of the way, allow me to get to the point: I participated in my schools Intellectual Property Clinic this summer. Formerly based in an incubator (it has since moved to a school campus), the clientele ranged from authors to web-based business to bio-engineers to financial auditing contractors.
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I work in IT. I’m not a programmer, so I end up doing the odd jobs that no one else has any desire to do nor any idea how to do. One item on the long list of my de facto responsibilities is troubleshooting. I help troubleshoot code that is still in development; I help the validators troubleshoot while they test the supposedly finished code; I troubleshoot security issues that come up in the field across the country when the official support personnel are out of ideas.
I would like to leverage that experience on my resume — highlighting the dynamic, problem-solving aspect of the job and downplaying the technical knowledge/experience aspect. Take two hypotheticals:
“I have experience troubleshooting software throughout all stages of its development and I support production personnel in troubleshooting end-user issues.”
“I have experience troubleshooting issues that come up across all levels of my team and our clients. I dynamically utilize my problem-solving skills by thinking outside the box to achieve business results.”
The first one is dry and more attuned for an IT job. The second makes me sound like a pretentious jerk with a thesaurus.
How do you translate what you do into resume-speak?
I met with the Dean of our Career Development Office (CDO) last week. That’s not to be confused with the Office of Career Development (OCD). She is an extremely friendly person who is more than willing to go out of her way to help students; however, there is only so much anyone can help students — particularly non-traditional students.
I laid out the facts for her and saw her face tighten; I could almost hear her mind shrieking in frustration. Full-time work; no weekends available; minimum salary requirements; IT background… it just kept getting better. At one point I responded to the look of resignation on her face by laughing and commenting how I’m all over the place.
And then something changed. She straightened her shoulders, looked me square in the eye and told me that it can work. I mentioned how I’m rearranging my work schedule this coming semester for the mediation clinic, since there will be daytime mediations. That was all she needed to work with. I was given suggestions of paths to follow, suggestions of how to approach people regarding part-time internships and names of judges who enjoy hiring evening students as clerks.
Most importantly, however, was the fact that she was now aware of my situation and that I am actively looking for experience. When she expressed her hopes that she was being helpful, I honestly replied that I hadn’t expected any options to be available to me. She answered that there are always options; but she’s not entirely correct.
There are only options if you open yourself up to the possibility that options exist and take the first step.
