By not going into the guy's history of violence, you are doing your client a disservice imo. I think you have to at least get into it generally, so you can attack his credibility in the courtroom if it gets to that point. At least ask where and when it happened, and what was the outcome of the case.

Would that really be admissible? It doesn't sound like it speaks to his credibility.

I can't be sure, but I would think that felony convictions would be admissible everywhere. They are certainly admissible where I am.

XxGodJrxX is probably right but only to the extent that it lets the defendant know "hey I have this and may try to use it". It keeps him honest, but Deadmoneywalking is correct as well, it probably isn't coming in, though if you argue that defendant regularly puts his own interests before those of others and the law, a sleepheaded jurist may agree and let it in.

Besides it let's defense counsel know that you may use it and it certainly would hurt him if it came out in a question even if the question is knocked out by an objection, under the right circumstances.

Some pretrial discovery is part of the posturing you do to get a settlement. I also wouldn't dwell on it unless the defendant became an A**hole about it but usually I try to ask just enough to be sure there isn't anything of use there.

I am not sure if this is a good place to put this notice, but the marketplace seems to be wrong for a number of reasons SOOOO...
Our firm, an AV Rated, Avvo 10.0, firm is going to be looking for summer intern(s). We usually start accepting inquiries in January. However, I am going to let you guys apply early (like now) by PMing me here.

We will likely conduct interviews in late December or early January. There is no salary for rising 2Ls but we provide a "stipend". A rising 3L gets a salary. I am not looking for college students right now (we may look to add 1-2 in spring).

We are located on Long Island (in NY) and we concentrate in litigation, mostly Blue and White collar criminal, civil rights, Immigration, Education and Employment Discrimination law cases. Speaking a second language is a plus. Your own Car is a MUST. A laptop or an IPad helps (but G-d help you if you get caught playing on line during working hours)

You may take off part of June or July to play in the WSOP but only if you where a patch with the firm name on it

You may have to teach others in the firm how to play Omaha...

Ok enough fooling around. I am serious. We are well known and have a Northeastern if not National following. Our work is vital and interns do NOT sit around in a library all day, you go to jail and interview, you come to court and where allowed, sit with counsel at the table. You draft documents and memoranda, and have a lot of face time with the attorneys (there are 5) and with clients.

Money isn't our object (though we are actually a profit making businesses ...usually), Justice is. So be serious about wanting to do what we do and be willing to slave a summer away doing it. You will walk away ready to handle a case in clinic or maybe even in real life.

As for unemployed law grads in the area, you can also send a note and I will tell you where to send a resume, which I will circulate for you, but we are not looking right now for a full time lawyer.

Send me a letter (NOT A RESUME) to my 2+2 mailbox and I will then send you another way to reach me (real e-mail phone address etc.) I will be expecting to respond after Election day, so please be patient.

In Texas, it's 10 years, and this was from 1992. The question served it's purpose though because he has a number of arrests since then but he said that's the only one. He also told me he never drinks and he is clearly an alcoholic. There are a bunch of other holes in the story. He says he was one place, other guy says he was in another. Guy says he's lent his car out like "maybe 3 or 4 times ever", but then for some reason he had to borrow the car for the depo. blah blah blah, they look awful, and our lady is like reverend whoever who is president of the rotary club etc. By the way, props to the defense lawyer on that case. Nicest guy ever, pleasant, didn't try one bit to grind my old lady into the ground.

Also again, he's not even the negligent driver in this car wreck case, just the owner of the car he let his friend drive. There's plenty of insurance and I'm not really even sure what advantage keeping in the lawsuit serves.

In NY and in Federal court, as I recall, you cannot use evidence of prior arrests, only convictions. Further if you do use the underlying acts, in place of the conviction, and he denies, you cannot prove it extrinsically. Finally if you ask if he were arrested and seem to read from a rap sheet, while you may convince a jury he is scum, you may also face mistrial. I never assume California or Texas works the same as NY but I would assume here there are similarities.

The only permissible way to question about criminal history in Florida is like this:

- Have you ever been convicted of a felony? How many times?

- Have you ever been convicted of a crime of dishonestly? How many times?

If they get the number wrong, then out come the convictions for the whole world to see. Anything more than that, and there is a ****-show.

that's the Wisconsin rule too

The first time I went to court to watch my brother cross-examine a witness (84 year old woman) he made her cry. I had mixed emotions, proud but embarrassed and sympathetic. I don't think he did anything unethical, it's part of the business to put pressure on witnesses/plaintiffs.

If the guy did something illegal or against the rules, it's your turn to crush him. Don't cry about it or expect leniency because of your age.

Seems like the depo is a better place for this than the courtroom, if there is such a thing. Don't really know though, never had a trial.

Made my second appearance yesterday. First time in court with this client, though as the PD repped her at the detention hearing/arraignment. It was scheduled for a trial, but the prosecutor asked for a continuance until after a co-defendant's non-juvenile trial. This was great, as I actually got to go on the record and not oppose a motion that I was going to make if she didn't.

Was very much not ready for trial. My supervising attorney was sick the majority of the last week so I was just kind of flying blind, which led to last minute attempts to negotiate with the prosecutor (that didn't even happen). I thought it had a high likelihood of resulting in me looking unprepared and unprofessional, and potentially screwing a 12 year old girl, so I'm glad it shook out this way.

I'm pretty frustrated with the limitations of being a student attorney and with my supervisor. Maybe the two are merged. The supervisor just continually does not do stuff she says she will do. Small stuff like knowing the status of the co-defendant's charges. The supervisor told me a month ago that she's find this out. Then had me email her about it two weeks ago. And then again a week ago. I learned this at court during the prosecutor's reasoning of why she wanted the continuance. She's good at the practical side of lawyering, which is what I know the least of, so I don't totally want to bash her.

But here's the deal, I don't know why I just feel weird about this, so:

I suspect she's not too hot? Perhaps subtley hint that well prepared case files are a turn on.

Diabolically brilliant! Sick, but brilliant.

She's not unattractive. If I was single, and my current ability to act as a lawyer wasn't solely under her supervision, I'd probably hook it up.

As it is, I just kind of wanted to get in 5 months of what it was practically like to be a lawyer (to some small degree). I guess if this is what it's like, it's best to know now.

Think of this as an opportunity to learn how to add value. The lower you are on the totem pole, the closer you are to the details, and the higher you are, the more you are responsible for the abstract thinking. As a paralegal, and now as an associate, it was and is my job to know the facts so that when the partner/senior associate needs them, he knows who to come to. Preparing an email or a short memo that you can share as a cheat sheet, or that summarizes correspondence in a helpful way, or that identifies the tasks that need to be completed, can go a long way toward making your superiors' jobs easier and making them look good, which will benefit you - and you will get practice digesting and communicating information in the process.

yeah whatever, this is like a big city thing. It's bushleague imo and claseless to make people cry just for the hell of it. Asking tough questions where the answers make a witness cry is one thing, but abusing them and taking advantage of them are another. I don't know the story obviously, but intentionally running an 84-year old lady's case into the ground just because she's old sucks and imo, isn't part of your job. In no way do I mean to imply your brother did something wrong because I have no idea what the story is. I've signed up a number of death cases and they are really obviously very emotional and it's my job to stay tough, and it's going to be the defense attorney's job to drag them in great detail through the events of the death of their loved one, and that's all fine. I'm purely talking about the people who ask the same question a different way 15 times to an 85 year old 4 hours into a depo because they know they will eventually get an inconsistent answer.

Unfortunately, there is some weird courtroom alpha male thing going on. The way I look at it, my clients are getting screwed by someone, so we sue someone to make it right. It's the defense attorney's job to verify the accuracy of our client's claims and react accordingly. If my client got rear ended by your client and my client has no prior history and has had surgery, your job is not to win the case in my opinion...it's to pay the claim. It's kind of like if we sue 2 defendants and we get closer to trial and it's obvious that it is only one of the defendant's fault, we nonsuit the other one as opposed to trying to nail him to the wall because we think we might be able to.

Also, with regard to people trying to take advantage of me because of my age, I'm not bitching about it. It happens pretty much everyday and it actually makes me learn a lot. He did it in an abusive and unethical way, trying to make the whole depo a circus and trying to run over me. You want to slip in some BS question b/c you think I won't catch it, fine...or try and give yourself the most 1 sided scheduling order ever, fine. But you know, don't ask me if i went to law school and what my bar card number is in the depo. *******. I'm still mad.

Diddy, I was a little confused when reading your post. When you say "student attorney", do you mean you are an intern, or a young attorney?

Neither really. I'm in a clinic as a student. I have been given a certification to practice under the direction of a licensed attorney and I get 3 hrs credit for my participation in the program. The person I'm having issues with is the teacher of the class and the attorney who supervises my work.

How viable is it to work at least part-time (maybe 25 hours per week) during bar study to try to make ends meet? How much time do most people reasonably spend on bar study per week?

i obv don't know if i passed or not but my guess is that if i fail i'll be very, very close to passing (based on my practice tests and stuff like that).

i studied for about 2 hrs per day for 1 month and 6-10 hours a day for 1-2 weeks. i'm fairly certain that you could work part-time and do just fine, especially if you're taking a non-NY/CA bar.

For the first bar I took (Delaware), I worked 40 hours/week until 4th of July weekend, and took off until the exam at the end of July. While I was working, I studied from when the kids went to bed (~9:00) until I went to sleep, which was sometimes 1 or 2 am and sometimes right after I started studying. Weekends I hung out with the family during the day, so basically the same schedule. Once I was off work, I would study about 6-8 hours a day during the week and then just at nights on the weekends. I watched lectures online/listened to them on iPod.

For the second bar (Pennsylvania), I worked 40 hours/week until the Thursday before the exam, and was on basically the same schedule as the previous May/June. On the Thursday and Friday before the exam I came into the office, shut my door and did practice exams for 6 hours. I did Themis for this exam, so everything was online.

Thanks for the info, guys; that's good to know. I worked in between undergrad and law school, and while on a full-time schedule put pretty heavy study into the LSAT for a number of months and did well on it. I won't have the savings available to be able to both pay for BarBri and live without any income for months, so I just wanted to be sure it was workable to fit a job into the schedule. AJ's schedule sounds totally fine to me...I mean, not a lot of fun, but it doesn't sound much more arduous than what I was doing when prepping for the LSAT, so I don't think it would break me or cause me to perform badly at that end of it. After all, it won't be football season, so it won't be personal torture to just keep the TV off...

Don't get why you'd pay for BarBri when you can get the books off ebay for like 10% of the price?

some people like having access to the lectures and having their essays graded, although i don't think it's worth the 4k or whatever it costs.

Would it violate ethical rules/sabotage c+f to prop bet on passing the bar? My head says yes but my heart says no.