I'm still grinding away and trying to get that promotion to deputy attorney general. I at least get to make 2-3 board appearances per month now, which I do enjoy. I'm in the consumer protection division, so it's mostly admin law and so far I've just argued before the nursing board/ALJ and the real estate commission. It's good thinking-on-your-feet stuff though; obviously the script that I bring in to question witnesses on is just a rough outline and I have to adjust on the fly based on answers. I also basically have to improvise every closing statement, because I can't know what exactly my argument and recommendation will be until the hearing has actually gotten to its closing point.

There's a logjam of us competing for promotions so it could be a while, but I do think it's enjoyable work which is more than most of my (dollar-printing) private sector friends are saying. They obviously love the money but hate the rest.

zugz,
This is from midway through 1L for me. A judge really did take me sight unseen, and working for him was pretty awesome. Most probably won't take you sight unseen, but if you're not picky about which judge you're working for then I'm sure you could hook something like this up.

(I was pretty much working in Mayberry. Little town ~20 minutes from Bloomington, IN. But it was the only circuit court in the county so it got everything.)

Yeah thats pretty sick would have loved that as a 1L. Do it three times a wewk and go work somewhere for money a few days. No one cares how much work you did there, just that it says judge so and so on the resume.

Yeah, precisely.

I expected to do more work for him, but the first day I came in, he said, "So how do you want to do this? One day here, four days work from home?" And he didn't even remotely expect me to get four days worth of work done on the other days.

Hm I actually will look into that then, I had basically written off any sort of judicial internships because I can't afford to work for free and it is the one job that you can't get a summer grant for. Few days a week would be sick.

I thought that you basically don't turn down judge offers though correct? So should I just work into a cover letter that I am looking for something more part time? Bring it up in interviews?

Hmm, I'd look into this--at my school there are multiple grants for people doing judicial internships.

Yeah that's weird. I certainly got aid for doing mine, and I thought it was federal.

Got pulled over last week for allegedly turning left onto a street when there was a left turn prohibited sign. The citation points very narrowly to one statute (XXXX(a)) as constituting the offense. As it turns out, I pull up the statute, and discover that the officer wrote the incorrect one, writing that my violation pertained to XXXX(a) rather than XXXX(c), which makes a minor misdemeanor turning left when there is a sign prohibiting it. There is no evidence whatsoever supporting a violation of (a), which concerns unrelated intersection offenses. The exclusive reason the officer said he was pulling me over was because I turned left when there was a sign prohibiting it. As such, I intend on pleading not guilty. This mistake on the part of the officer's has to constitute a legit affirmative defense, yes?

omg all Bs im going to straight up barf. someone please console me with reassurances that i can somehow still finagle a public service job with 3 full years of grades, because im basically fked for OGIs unless i decimate this semester.

itll be fine. you go to a good school. and RA is a good gig

JRustle,

If you are a 1L right now, just stay focused on doing better this semester.

Agreed. Crush your exams for this semester -- you can still do well. Talk to your professors and see what went wrong. Also, to comment on LKJ's situation I also during my 1L summer was able to get a flexible schedule with a firm. I worked one day a week for him and worked 4 other days at another job. It went on my resume and no one asked at all if I was just there part time.

Yeah I'm feeling much better today after talking with some of the older public service kids and reading a bit of TLS. Still need to crush of course, but no longer in "my life is over" mode.

What do you mean by public service, exactly? What are you aspiring to do?

public defender

i should have clarified, the 2 kids i was talking to are going the prosecutor route but said that both are more of a 3 year endeavor rather than the 1 that the firm track is and really big on schoolyear internships/service hrs/extracurrics etc. still gutted about not getting on innocence project this year obv.

also slightly ashamed to admit this but my "ideal plan" coming in was to gun for firm jobs 1L and 2L summers, rack up some cash, max out loans, then switch to PD 3L year and let LRAP take care of the repayments while i sat on my stack of hundos and protected the bad guys. but they made it sound like without a ton of commitment showing on your resume towards public service stuff over your time in LS those jobs are out of the picture. so im calling this a temporary blessing in disguise.

also lol uva http://abovethelaw.com/2013/01/shoul...#disqus_thread

based on what i know, i think the most +EV law route is 2L summer bigfirm, max out loans, 1 year at biglaw (and you can even IBR this because your stub year salary is 40k) then go into govt or public interest and LRAP+IBR 10 years of payment then discharge.

You don't require high grades to be a public defender. I am a public defender. My grades are similar to what yours were in my first semester. If anything, I am more qualified just because I went to UF instead of the ****ty law schools that infest Florida.

If you want to be a public defender or prosecutor, you should be looking into internships at public defender or prosecutor offices. Anything that gets you doing motions is fine. If you can be the kind of intern that does trials and speaks in court, you are golden. Trust me. When it comes to TRIAL WORK, grades don't matter as much as experience.

Still, I think you should be focusing on your grades. At a public defender's or prosecutor's office, we don't do this job because we love public service. We do it to get trial experience and then go do something that is more financially lucrative. Grades will help out a lot in the long run.

ha totally forgot about that stub year thing but its also in my list of awesome tips that ive compiled from this thread.

yeah my current summer plan is to try and do an RA thing for cash and then unpaid PD something in one of the offices around here when I'm not doing that.

do you know any way to look up PD internships and stuff that actually pay summers in FL? our symplicity has like 1 FL office listed and its unpaid. I've got tons of ties in FL still and so I could prob find somewhere to crash in basically any big city there and live cheap but Id still have rent to cover here. Been emailing a lot of people but lots of responses saying unpaid. Would be nice if there was a more efficient way to search.

For all you folks looking for some "Trial Practice" experience, The NYSBA Young Lawyer's division is offerikng a 39 hour hands on NITA style trial practice Course at Cornell Univ. Law School in Mid/Late March. Cost for NYSBA members is $850 and for non members about 1000. Half of what a NITA course costs. I teach in both and this is a great program 5 days and frankly a lot of fun.

If you are interested in more information PM me or go to the NYSBA website.

Hope you are all doing well.

For you NY Young Lawyers, the NYSBA is offering a 2 day CLE course Thursday and Friday this week at the NY Hilton on 7th Ave. It is inexpensive and is a Bridging the Gap program which will fulfill all your NY mandatory CLE hours.
You can get info on the website.

Full disclosure: I am a team leader at the Cornell program and I am presenting at the Friday 9:30 program in NYC. I am talking about opening your own law firm with a couple of other very good solo/small office practioners.

Hope you are all well!!

Just realized I made a pretty bad omission here

I'm running a superbowl box pool for my law review. Way more work than I thought it would be trying to coordinate this.

finally got ranks back...top 8%

I go to an NYC area T2 and have a half scholarship. I want to work in NYC. Worth it to transfer to anywhere other than Columbia/NYU? Is that even doable or do I need to bring my grades up next semester? Any other transfer advice? Thanks.

I'm at Penn, we do very well in NYC. And obvs HYS if you managed to get in.

Probably not worth transferring if you have a half scholarship. If you stay top 10% you should be able to get yourself into BigLaw (maybe not Wachtell but why does that matter?) from your T2 for 2L summer. This is all that matters. Why would you pay full price to get to the same place?

accepted the job in my hometown prosecutor's office today

just need to pass the bar now!