7/20/2006

Deja vu

So, voir dire was really interesting, though it did little to make me more confident in our jury system.

I woke up bright and early yesterday morning (6:30!) to get to the office by 7:30 so TK could give me a ride to the state capitol. He showed up in a sweet little Mercedes two-seater, "spoils from his law firm days," he called it. Ride both there and back was very pleasant, and we talked about alma maters (he went to the same undergrad and law school as me), gossiped about professors, talked about law firms and firm life, and practicing law for the government.

Back to voir dire, apparently, each judge does his jury selection differently, and our particular judge summoned a bunch of jurors (we had 45) to the courtroom, asked them to talk about themselves for 45 seconds, and then the prosecutions and the defense must make their decision about whom to strike and whom to keep based on the little information that they received.

Apparently, this judge is known to be quick among the bar in this state, to the detriment of the selection process, I thought. Other federal judges take more time to ask jurors relevant questions and to feel them out a bit more. In fact, both the prosecution and the defense submitted questions they requested the judge to aks the prospective jurors before voir dire began. But apparently, in this judge's hurry, only one of these questions was asked.

So no one was happy. Both the defense and the prosecution complained privately about the judge afterwards. They thought that his questions were irrelevant and did not at all give them a good idea about the jurors. "Who cares about their personal interests?" TK said to me afterwards. "What we need to know is their attitude towards crime, whether they or anyone they know have ever been a crime victim, whether their friends or close relatives are law enforcement officers or victims."

But, the whole thing was done in about 2.5 hours, much faster than I thought. I was back in N-Town by the middle of the afternoon.

The best part of the day was talking to TK about his former life as a private attorney in a famous New York firm C, S, & M, and his reflections on practicing law as an associate in a big law firm versus being a prosecutor for the government. Both lives have their advantages and disadvantages, although he is definitely enjoying his life and freedom now. We talked on the way there, during lunch, and on the way back. I had a lot of chance to ask my burning questions about a life in law, and I definitely have a better idea about what to expect, and what I want for myself as a lawyer.

I was of course the envy of the interns when I got back -- how lucky was I to see something so cool!

Today, we had a brownbag lunch with a really, really funny FBI agent talk about biochemical weapons (the talk was enough to make me queasy about eating any kind of processed food for a while). He was full of interesting anecdotes and stories, unfortunately not all pleasant.

This affternoon, one of the trials that two of the attorneys from our office worked on had the closing arguments, and I heard one of the best orators I have perhaps heard in my life - attorney DR from our office was just spellbinding. He is normally such a quiet and unassumign man, a bit aloof, that I had never thought he could be such an eloquent speaker. But he was. For 45 minutes, he kept me, the jury, the judge, and everyone else in the court -- even the defendant -- breathless and spellbound. And at the end of the impassioned speech, I was ready to vote whatever way he wanted me to vote. Heck, I was a little in love with the man. Wow, did I ever want to be a litigator like him.

So - perhaps this summer was useful for this. I want to be a litigator -- a trial attorney.

After work today, at my suggestion, 6 of the interns, and one of the other attorney who was working on the same case with the orator DR, came to this neat little bar near my alma mater, and we drank to our internship, the cool weather, the end of the trial, and anything else we could think of. I walked home with MR, a new intern who just joined our office this week and who lives quite close to my house. She split her summer and worked first for a firm in N-Town for 7 weeks, and will now work in my office for another 7 weeks. So she'll be working long after the rest of us are gone.

Lucky her. :)

:D Two glasses of pinot grigio after work. First time I've drunk wine in a week!
:( not much work done today, since I was trial-spectating.

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