back in the saddle part 2

(bear with me you guys. i think this post is going to be long and borderline sappy, but i think it just needs to be done.)

so for the past few weeks, ok, for the past couple of months, i've been questioning what the hell i'm doing at law school and why the hell am i not going to work for a firm where i will easily earn six figures upon graduation. at a time when my classmates are finishing their interviews for next summer i'm just beginning to think it might be a good idea to start sending out letters (lucky for me the "public interest" job search falls later in the year anyway). i have a pretty good idea of what i want to do next summer - work in a public defender's office - and a vague idea of where, although that is more uncertain, but i just can't motivate myself to write the letters, send out the resumes. the thought makes me cringe and roll my eyes and generally just want to drop out and watch tv. so, since i spent most of my saturday last weekend at the library working on a pro bono project for an environmental group, i decided to spend my evening doing just what i felt like - watching tv. and again, lucky for me, i did.

one of my all-time favorite movies was on showtime: a few good men. yes, tom cruise has recently fallen out of favor, but this movie is a reminder of the glory days, when tom was doing what he does best - being a cute, charming underacheiver who ultimately kicks some ass, without any of the arrogance now present in most of his current performances. but i digress.

yes, this movie was fun to watch because of tom and the dialogue and jack nicholson not being able to handle the truth. but ultimately it reinvigorated my initial curiosity about the law and reminded me of the excitement i felt when reading mystery novels or watching trial movies. my youthful spirit returned for a moment - suddenly i was the dreamy teenager fantasizing about breaking a case of my own (although, some of you that knew me when will recall i was predominantly obsessed with profiling serial killers, but you get the point). i went to bed that night with renewed curiosity and vision and with a basic level of confidence about my chosen path.

some days went by, i had to go back to class, and i began to slip again. then, last night jeff and i went to see after innocence. this documentary chronicles the lives men wrongfully convicted and wronfully imprisoned who are finally exonerated due to DNA testing. i think the shortest amount of time one man stayed in prison was 6 1/2 years; the longest was 23 years on Death Row, in solitary confinement, with the wing guarded by one of the higher-ranking officers later connected with Abu Ghraib (you can imagine that was a fun time for that man). the stories these men told about police coercion, ineffective counsel, and judicial indifference would disturb you. the stories they told about the effect the incarceration had on their psyches and their families would bring you to tears. and the stories they told about putting their lives back together upon release would frustrate you to the point of outrage. sitting there in the theatre, feeling all those feelings, i remembered not only why i came to law school but why i chose the practice area that i have. it's because sometimes people are innocent. it's because so many times the poor are overlooked and rendered inconsequential and given inferior services. it's because they need someone to fight for them, too. i came to law school to learn how to do that, to learn how to ensure that the system works - that a conviction is based on hard facts of guilt and not just for the sake of conviction. because if someone doesn't do this, then we all begin to sacrifice the innocent for an illusion of safety.

i left the theatre knowing what i want to do, and even better, excited and filled with passion and eagerness to do it. i only wondered if i'd be good enough or if i'd just end up being one of the horror stories of terrible lawyers. i can run circles around many people in research and investigation, but public speaking is not my forte. unfortunately for me, there's not much room in the indigent defense world for a brain without a mouth. all the female lawyers i know have a certain loud, outgoing, overtly confident personality - is that what i need because in most situations that's just not me. i'm not afraid of talking when i know what i'm talking about, but i've just not nailed the confidence factor down yet; too often i'm unsure and then kick myself when someone else speaks the same insight (and when i finally do speak it all comes out wrong and people don't understand so they think i'm stupid and then someone else will say it, just with better words and i want to scream "That's what I meant! That's totally what I said!"). i feel like gut-level desire and need to do something means if you work hard enough you'll get it, but at some point there is a natural limitation to one's talent; where is mine?

i was hoping to settle some of these fears today. one of the "classes" i'm taking is with jeff's work, a non-profit organization that represents virginia's death row inmates through their appeals. today one of the attorneys had arguments before the entire 4th circuit court of appeals (this is the level just below the supreme court) - 13 judges; normally only 3 judges hear a case, and that's what happened here, but after we won, the opposing side filed for a rehearing in front of all the members because the issue was so important. again, i digress.
going into a courtroom always makes me giddy and a little nervous. i'm not thi'm not sure if i feel in place there or not, but i'm beginning to think maybe i could. as part of class last week we read up on the issues being argued and did a mock run of the argument to help the attorney prepare. i felt like the questions i asked were received with a little indifference, but lo and behold one of the very first things these 13 judges pounced on was something precisely that i asked - only not so clearly and intelligently. this made me feel good. it also gave me a little boost to realize that i could almost do what she was doing - i had only read some of the materials in the case, but sometimes i was able to formulate my own answers to the questions; sometimes i was stumped and amazed that she responded at all. but no matter whether i knew or not, i could follow what was going on and i was totally into it. granted, it is kind of a sexy legal issue - executing the mentally incompetent - and other issues are much more tedious, but i got it. you know what else, the attorney that we went to watch, she was nervous as hell before her argument began, kind of frightened and just couldn't wait to get it over with. sounds like someone i know....but she did it and she did it well.

i'm still not entirely certain whether i've got what it takes to be an outstanding courtroom lawyer. the bad news is that it's not natural to me and that i think much more clearly when writing or when something is visually in front of me; auditory learning is definitely not my thing, so this basically limits my ability to think on my feet - a crucial skill for a trial lawyer. the good news is that i know this. i can practice and work toward getting better. and hopefully with enough preparation there won't be too much on-feet thinking because i'll be able to anticipate a lot of what might be coming at me. i may fail and fall flat on my face, ok, a few times i definitely will (in fact, this already happened once - last year at oral arguments. don't remind me). but hopefully i'll learn and eventually be half-way decent. for now, though, i'm content with a renewed spirit and purpose because that's what gives me the motivation to try. i'm concerned about my work not because of my grade but because i need to learn it as well as possible to be as excellent as i can. and i'm finally going to start working on those summer job applications - not because it's what i've got to do but because it's what i want to do.

but first, i think i'll watch the apprentice...