end of part I

Yesterday was my last day in the judiciary. On Tuesday I start work as a summer associate.

I think I can safely recommend that law students jump at any opportunity they get to work in the judiciary. I don't think it matters if you do federal or state, appellate work or trial court work. Learning how the judiciary really works, at any level, is tremendously helpful.

My work was in the state appellate court, so I learned how appellate opinions are drafted and the interplay between the trial court, the appellate court, and the high court. Seeing the process that generates the opinions in our casebooks was fascinating.

I spent all of my time working on criminal cases, which will be a nice contrast to the civil work I'll spend the rest of the summer with. I now have even more admiration for the work that public defenders do and the work that criminal prosecutors do. I'm not sure it's something I could do full time. I found criminal law could be very emotionally draining at times. I spent one day examining a group of cases for a specific procedural issue that I was researching.  The cases were about 80% child molestation cases and they included graphic and horrific descriptions of what the poor kids suffered. I had nightmares about it that night, the crimes bringing out the raging mama tiger in me. I think I'd find it very difficult to work on case law like that all the time.