Hello everyone,

I hope that if you are reading this, you are gearing up for a nice and relaxing holiday vacation. I am now back home in Atlanta where there isn't any ice or any snow. I am very thankful for the short break from that. During my first two years of law school, the winters have been very easy... I think it only snowed a total of four, maybe five times. I knew that I wouldn't be so lucky my last winter. It has already snowed three times and winter just started today! The snow is beautiful though and I am happy to be "in it" for a few months. I actually went outside in the middle of the snowstorm last week and threw snowballs at my roommate - good times!

So, back to the purpose of my blog. As I may have mentioned earlier, I am a Marshall Brennan Teaching Fellow and in this capacity, I teach the Constitution to high school students in Hyde Park. Prior to law school, I taught middle school in Phoenix through the Teach For America program and I truly enjoyed the challenge and rewards of teaching. I joined the Marshall Brennan program because I felt it would be my last opportunity (in law school, that is) to have a direct impact on children. Our mission for this quarter is to prepare the students for a moot court competition. We're teaching them the 4th and 5th Amendments and it is going very well.

Last week, we taught the students how to distinguish between a criminal and a civil case by reading the case title. Ex. Commonwealth v. Smith (criminal); Smith v. Jones (civil). Though this is a very small component of what the students need to know for the competition, one of the students whispered to herself, "Wow! I learned something cool today." I felt myself get all giddy inside the way I used to when I was teaching in Phoenix.

The moot court competition is scheduled for February 13 and the students' fact pattern is going to involve a new program in Boston where parents can give consent to the police to search their children's bedrooms for weapons. It's a very controversial program, but something we think the students are going to enjoy grappling with. I will update you once we get closer to the competition.

Until then, have a safe and happy holiday!

Posted by Aisha at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, last week I wrote about my dilemma regarding whether or not my last coop should be in the realm of prosecution or defense. Luckily, I have a solution - sort of. I am applying to both! I have decided to submit applications for three areas of law: juvenile defense, juvenile prosecution, and civil litigation. Ha! Who knew that my answer would lie in whoever offers me a job first. Well, I suppose if I get offers on the same day at the same time, my dilemma reawakens, but for now, that's the strategy I'm going with.

I figure that "exploring" is the spirit behind our coop system and I should take full advantage of it and deal with any consequences later (ie. an interviewer questioning my loyalty towards prosecution or defense). If I end up working in another prosecutorial coop, at least it will be in juvenile court. The rules are different, the judges have much more discretion, and hey, we're all working for kids; the culture should be very different. On the other hand, if I end up doing defense work in juvenile court, the same differentials still apply.

I've also decided to throw my name in the hat for some other work that I think could be interesting - civil litigation. One of the great things about NUSL is our career services office. Given that there are many students who do not stay in Boston, NUSL does its best to get us connected to other sources of information that allow us to find jobs outside of the great Northeast. So, one of the job banks includes jobs that other law schools have posted. This has been a tremendous resource for my recent coop hunting extravaganza. I am applying to a bunch of firms that are looking for post graduates and hoping that one of them will like the idea of having a 3L come full time for three months.

So wish me luck folks - the journey is about to get even more exciting!

Posted by Aisha at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello out there,

I hope this blog finds you all doing well! Though I have only been back for a few weeks, I already feel that there needs to be 30 hours in every day. I am a little swamped.

Anyway, this week I wanted to share a coop/work dilemma that I am currently dealing with.

So, as you already know, I worked in the District Attorney's Office for my last coop. Given many NUSL students are interested in defense work, some of my classmates were really shocked with my decision to go there. I felt that by being in the domestic violence and sexual assault unit, I would be doing work that I was passionate about. Further, I felt that prosecuting these cases may be "easier" in the sense that much of the scrutiny around the prosecutor's function might not be present. My experience definitely mirrored that in the sense that the two primary cases I worked on were homicide cases and I did not have to deal with the challenging aspect of prosecutorial discretion.

So what is all the fuss about it? Well, from what I've learned in law school and from my friends, people are generally unhappy with the amount of discretion and power that prosecutors have in choosing which charges to bring against a defendant, establishing bail, defining plea terms, etc. Also, sometimes prosecutors bring charges for reasons that may be adverse to protecting the community or for reasons unrelated to the prosecutor's role. For example, the prosecutor in the Duke rape case got into a lot of trouble for bringing charges against four defendants when there was no evidence of their guilt. Some said he wanted the "spotlight" that the case was going to bring and for that, he acted unprofessionally. (He got into trouble for other things as well but I won't discuss that here.)

So what this seems to mean is that defendants and defense attorneys are somewhat at the mercy of the prosecutors' motives. Many argue that prosecutors abuse the system for notoriety and personal ego.

I did witness this as an interviewee for another prosecutor coop and for these reasons, I declined the coop, but I am in a dilemma. I really liked being a district attorney! I liked the fact that I was essentially responsible for gathering and presenting evidence that would establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It is not an easy feat and I like to be challenged in that way. This is not to say that defense attorneys are not challenged in their own way; rather, the prosecutorial challenge was just something that I really enjoyed.

So hoping the tension is clear, my last coop is quickly arriving and I am torn. Since I have not done a criminal defense coop, I am looking into doing that to see what types of rewards I may feel in that capacity. Ultimately though, I am grappling with the passion I felt as a prosecutor and wondering if I am only contemplating the other side for reasons that aren't truly mine. Also, I am wondering if my coop experience at the DA's office was one of the rare and best. While I don't want pigeon-hole myself into the prosecutors' role when I don't have any experience with the defense side, I also don't want to forego another prosecution coop that may help me to position myself for a post-graduate job.

Oh, the joys of being a third-year law student.

If anyone has any advice from the outside looking in, I would truly appreciate your perspective!

Posted by Aisha at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)