Well, my third co-op is almost over and I have to say that the experience was the best one yet. I am completing my co-op at the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office in Decatur, Georgia and I have been totally taken aback by how much I have enjoyed it. Specifically, I have been working in the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit and I am hopefully coming back to work in the Child Abuse Unit.

Because I am a third-year student, during my second week, I was sworn in under the Third-Year Prosecutor Act of 1970. This allows me to perform as an attorney would under an attorney's supervision. So unlike my second year co-ops, this Act allowed me to argue in court and represent myself as an attorney in front of a judge. So far, I have directly participated in one trial and I have represented the district attorney's office in some bond hearings that were taking place. I have also helped prepare witnesses for trial and conducted investigation regarding trials that will begin after my co-op ends. It has been an awesome experience.

I must say that working as a prosecutor was something that I never even considered. I accepted this co-op because after the last academic quarter, I got married and I did not have as much time as I would have liked to establish my own co-op. So I took the job expecting to feel guilty that I wasn't representing the defense. Well, the guilt never materialized and now I am almost done with what so far, has been my best coop yet!

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!

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!

Hello everyone,

I hope this week has been good to you with the celebration of our very own Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. I spent the holiday in New York City with some Teach For America friends and it was awesome! It's amazing how much Harlem has changed... I think 20 people asked to braid my hair as soon as I got off the train - that was different. But, I saw the lovely Apollo and all the other great things Harlem has to offer like the food and eclectic people. I took the bus that is frequently called the "Chinatown bus" to get there from Boston and it was awesome! Nothing better than a $20 ride to get you to the Big Apple for a small law school getaway...

Anyway, I wanted to write this week and update you all on my coop process and how it's been going. As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, I was very torn between doing another coop at a District Attorney's office and doing a public defense coop. As I told you, I decided to apply to juvenile prosecution & defense and some civil litigation firms.

Given I am creating my own coop, I started by sending out my resume to some organizations that I researched on Westlaw. (Just as an aside, if you plan on completing a coop with a firm that NUSL has a connection with, you cannot, I repeat, you CANNOT contact them on your own!!! These are the rules!)

Given all of the places I am interested in are in Georgia and not on the list, I threw my name in the hat for the Georgia Department of Education and other small firms that do defense work. None of those panned out for various reasons, however, I did call up my first coop employer (a Georgia state judge) and she was very instrumental in helping me figure out a strategy. NUSL does have relationships with several Georgia employers that conduct general defense work. The judge told me that completing a defense coop would be great for my future hopes of attaining a clerkship and that having experience on both sides of criminal matters would ultimately make me more marketable. Nothing like a great network of experienced lawyers and judges to remind you of the bigger picture.

So, tomorrow morning, I am participating in our formal coop process (for the first time) and trying my hand at public interest criminal defense work. Wish me luck! Hopefully in the next two weeks, I can officially tell you where I will complete my last coop.

Have a great rest of your week and weekend!!!

Hello everyone,

I hope that since my last posting, you have been doing well!

So I wanted to write and give you an update on my coop. I decided to go to an organization that deals with criminal defense in the context of the death penalty. I am going to the Southern Center for Human Rights to work on appeals for death penalty defendants. I know - I go from one extreme to the other, don't I? I am very excited to be going to this organization. I know it's weird to use the word exciting in the realm of the death penalty, but to me, it's going to be exciting.

I became interested in death penalty work after working on my Advanced Legal Research project this quarter. Essentially, I am working on a project that looks at how insular minorities, (and in my case, I am looking at women and gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender ("GBLT") people) intersect with the death penalty. I have found some incredible research that suggests that prosecutors use sexuality in an arguably discriminatory manner when seeking the death penalty for gay defendants, and that female defendants are often not sentenced to the death penalty because of the fact that death penalty statutes purposely limit the realm of the death penalty to crimes that men are more likely to commit. I am still in the thick of my research, but it's fascinating.

So, I am co-oped everyone and ridiculously excited about the fact!

Hello everyone,

I hope that you all had a great week!

Things were booming around NUSL this week.

It started with our annual No Talent Show. This is an annual event put on by the Cooperative Income Sharing Program, NUSL's student run program that raises money for students completing public interest coops. The event showcases some faculty parodies (done by students), some reflections on our law school experience, and some of the many talents NUSL students have (one student played the piano and it was amazing; another team of students performed an awesome dance routine - it made me want to get up and dance).

The No Talent Show is a must for NUSL students. Unfortunately, this was my first year attending due to circumstances out of my control, but I am so glad I had the chance to go - it was so much fun.

AND, my week ended by being voted as the fall/spring student speaker for our graduation in May. I am very happy to be representing my class at graduation and very thankful that my fellow students chose me to honor them and our experience in this manner.

So, unlike last week, I am in much better spirits and very much looking forward to May.

Take care everyone!

Aisha

Hello everyone,

Sorry I've been MIA for the past week and a half...but lots to share with you today!

My coop began last Friday at the Southern Center for Human Rights. Please go here if you want to know more: www.schr.org

Essentially, the Center focuses on death penalty appeals and civil litigation regarding prison conditions. The people I have met so far are absolutely amazing and I wanted to share with you something we did Monday night after work. So, the Center's employees are by and large Northerners yet very eager to learn more about the South. Last month, they started a study group and on Monday night, I attended a meeting about a riot / massacre that happened in the city of Atlanta in 1906 and had a huge role in shaping the Atlanta I know and love today.

We read Rage in the Gate City by Rebecca Burns. Since I just began my coop, I read an excerpt of the book. Embarassingly, it was my first time learning about this terrible event in Atlanta's history. We had a wonderful discussion about the historical race challenges that Atlanta has had and the implications on our work at the Center. It was absolutely amazing! Everyone was so thoughtful and considerate and I walked away feeling that this coop was a right choice for me.

So, that's that. I will write later about my first visit to Alabama's death row which happened today....

Hello everyone,

I hope this blog posting finds everyone out there doing well!

I wanted to share my experience about death row last week, but work at the Southern Center is incredibly busy and I haven't had time, so today's the day.

Last week, I went to one of Alabama's three death rows. I went to the one located in Atmore, Alabama. Though death row is located here, there are also prisoners in Atmore who have not been convicted of capital crimes. The trip there and back is equivalent to half of the drive to Boston from Atlanta (600 miles!). Yes, it was a long day!

I wanted to share some of my reflections with you about the entire experience. Some of this is based on the fact that my father worked at federal prisons his entire life and subsequently, I lived on prison reservations for a good chunk of my childhood. (A prison reservation is simply lower cost housing for prison employees.) So, I've seen quite a few prisons in my lifetime.

The first thing I noted was the physical condition of the prison. Half of the road leading up to the prison was paved and the other half was a dirt road. The paved road was replete with pot holes and made New York City's potholes seem mild. There was a tower right in front of the prison and there was no intercom system. So, we had to yell up to the guard and inform him we were visiting one of our clients. It was very strange. Once we got inside, I noticed the whole place just looked like it needed a good pressure washing. It just seemed very dirty, but perhaps that perception was colored by our purpose for the visit.

The entire trip was incredibly sad! One of the problems with the death penalty is that some people who are sentenced to it get emotionally and mentally tired of the appellate processes. As a result, they ask their support network (if they're lucky to have one) to help them end their lives sooner. I was unfortunately privvy to this sentiment and it made me feel an even greater sense of urgency to what the Southern Center stands for.

So, sorry that this blog is somewhat muddled, but my thoughts are all over the place after being able to put real faces and places to the death penalty. One thing is clear though, I am opposed to the death penalty and I am learning more and more about why I am not a fan. I will hopefully be sharing these reasons with you increasingly over the next few months of this coop.

Take care!

Hello everyone,

I hope that you had a good weekend. For those of you who celebrate the Easter holiday, I hope it went well! My weekend was filled with lots of yardwork - my body is so sore today! My husband and I are going to start a vegetable garden this spring. In order to make this work, I had to till the ground and put down fresh soil because planting vegetables in Georgia clay will not work. We're going to plant rosemary (I use it in everything), strawberries, tomatoes, and yellow squash. I am really excited, but glad to be here at coop not doing anything physically draining.

So, in remaining consistent with my blog topics (enough about gardening already), I wanted to let you all know about how hard last Friday was for me. I am totally the type of person who needs first-hand context to feel passion about my work. What I mean by this is that doing appellate work is fascinating legally, but somewhat removed from the client because at the appellate stage, you are reviewing the record for legal error and making an appeal to the appellate court to provide legal relief based on such error. I hope this is not too confusing. Anyway, last Friday, I asked one of the investigators here to share some stories with me about our clients.

While I cannot go into incredible detail about what was revealed to me, what I will say is that at least for the two clients I am working on now, their childhood lives were more horrific than I truly thought possible!!!!! Of course, I knew that there were some very difficult experiences out there, but it's different when it slaps you in the face like it did me. On a more positive note, that kind of revelation was just what I needed to incite the passion that I was looking for.

Have a good week everyone!

Hello everyone,

I hope that your week went very well! I have been extremely busy preparing to spend four days in Alabama for an evidentiary hearing. This is where we get to show the court our evidence supporting a life sentence instead of the death penalty. Lucky for me, a few very important legal issues have come up and I am being utilized to figure those issues out. It's very exciting! I love having that type of adrenaline rush.

Anyway, there are two very exciting things that have come up that I wanted to share with you:

The first thing is that Justice Breyer is going to be our main commencement speaker. Justice Breyer has been an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court since 1994 and is generally known for being on the more "liberal leaning" side of the court. Plenty of people are super excited about his attendance, including me! I have to admit, I wasn't very nervous about speaking at graduation until this announcement was posted. I am still a bit nervous, but will work through that. I still have almost two months, right.

The second thing I wanted to share with you is that the Southern Center took on a Louisiana case a few years ago and the Supreme Court finally ruled on the case, IN OUR FAVOR. Here is a little synopsis that I am posting from the American Bar Associations' Criminal Justice Section and a link to the full opinion if you are interested. Last week was a GREAT week!!!

Snyder v. Louisiana

By a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court found that prosecutor Jim Williams improperly excluded blacks from the jury that convicted Allen Snyder of killing his estranged wife's companion. Snyder is black and the jurors were white. Justice Alito, writing for the majority, said the trial judge should have blocked Williams from striking a black juror. Justices Thomas and Scalia dissented. Thomas said he would not "second-guess" the judge. In a 4-3 decision, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that race had no part in the state's decisions involving black potential jurors.

During jury selection in the trial, Williams disqualified all five blacks in the pool of prospective jurors. The Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that prosecutors may not exclude people from a jury solely because of their race. The court already had sent Snyder's case back to the Louisiana courts following a ruling in 2005 that bolstered the prohibition on race bias in jury selection.

The prosecutor's explanation for striking a prospective black juror was "suspicious," said Alito. The prospective juror's supervisor said he did not think a schedule conflict between the upcoming trial and the prospective juror's work would be a problem. In contrast, the prosecutor accepted white jurors who disclosed conflicting obligations "that appear to have been at least as serious as" the prospective black juror who was excused, Alito wrote.

Stephen Bright, Snyder's Atlanta-based lawyer, said the ruling shows there is broad agreement among the justices that courts must closely examine the reasons given for excusing potential jurors when racial motives might be present but not acknowledged. "The disturbing thing is that courts in Louisiana and elsewhere were just deferring to trial judges, no matter the reasons," Bright said. Snyder will get a new trial as a result of the ruling.

Click on the link below to access the full opinion. If you cannot click on the link, copy and paste it into your browser.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-10119.pdf

Hello everyone out there,

I hope that you had a great week last week!

My week was pretty busy - lots to report here!

First off, I had my first post-graduate job interview for a superior court two-year clerkship. The judge said that she called me in because of the diversity of my resume (from teaching to recruiting to becoming a law student) and that while she isn't currently in need of a clerk (her clerk has a few more months to fulfill), she wanted me in her pipeline. The interview went very well and I feel very confident about my interview performance. I do need a job sooner than six months though, so we'll see what happens.

On another front entirely, we went to Alabama last week to interview people for our upcoming evidentiary hearing. Through this visit I learned quite a few things.

First, people can get very damaged from sitting on a jury where the crime is death penalty eligible. Consequently, their willingness to help you can be impaired. I never thought about jurors feeling guilty after sentencing a person to die and to witness it was very enlightening and quite sad.

Second, there seems to be a serious need for community-wide education about the death penalty - people are strongly wedded to their ideas and they are largely based on myths...now, if you read my entries a few months ago, I was definitely ignorant about the death penalty, so now that I know more, I recognize this sentiment is a bit judgmental. It's just very frustrating and difficult to balance respect for people's ideas (and people who you need to help you!) and the fact that their ideas are often very far from reality. Add that to all the evidentiary rules and you have a very thin line that you're balancing on.

Finally, the reason I love the coop system so much is that you really do get a feel for what you want to do (or at least, what you don't want to do) as an attorney. I have realized during this coop that if I decided somewhere down the road to practice anti-death penalty work, it would have to be at the trial level. The trial level can be fascinating - from selecting jurors to determining a defense theory. So, that's the revelation for the week.

The evidentiary hearing is next week, so hopefully there will be lots to share then!

Take care!

Hello everyone,

I hope this blog posting finds you doing well...this entry is so late because I have been on the road. In fact, right now, I am sitting in my car outside of Panera Bread in Tuscaloosa using their free wireless connection. I did buy some tea though so I suppose I shouldn't feel that bad.

Last week, I went to Birmingham because guess what - I will be conducting a parole hearing for a person who is currently incarcerated. I got the assignment last Tuesday and on May 7, I will be her representative to the parole board. In Alabama, defendants do not have a right to be present at their own parole hearings and the Southern Center for Human Rights will take their parole hearings with the underlying expectation that a third year law student is available and willing to take their case. In this capacity, I am responsible for putting together packets outlining my clients' honors earned in prison and her home plan (a plan to transition back into society), and presenting all this information to the parole board. I am very excited about this!!! Apparently, the Alabama Board listens to you for a few minutes, listens to the state, and makes a decision right then and there...no pressure though. I am super excited!!!

Right now, I am in Tuscaloosa, Alabama because one of our clients on death row had an evidentiary hearing yesterday and today in support of his Rule 32 Petition. Based on my limited understanding, a Rule 32 petition is the procedural mechanism where a defendant may challenge certain aspects of his trial. Another way of putting it may be that a Rule 32 petition is a state habeas corpus petition, though that's not entirely accurate. Our hearing presented some ineffective assistance of counsel claims and some mitigation evidence claims. It was very hard to hear the latter because our clients' upbringing has been painfully difficult!!!! The judge still has some oustanding evidence to review so we won't get a ruling for at least 90 days, but I am so glad I was able to get this experience. It was very informative and I learned a lot!!!

Anyway, I'm heading back to Atlanta tomorrow - I would love to hear from you all if you have any questions about the Southern Center or if you have any general law school questions. I'll talk to you later this week!

Hello everyone out there,

I hope that you all are having a great week as I am. The weather in Atlanta has been awesome and I was very excited to be able to put my coat away! The unfortunateness is that it's supposed to get colder next week. Oh well, day by day it is.

So much is going on in my world right now... I'm heading to Alabama for another evidentiary hearing next week and this one promises to be very interesting. I am doing my part around here by helping all the attorneys get ready...it's nuts, but lots of fun!

I am also getting prepared for my the parole hearing in Montgomery on May 7...that should also be very interesting! I can't wait to tell you all about it!

On the school front, I am almost done with a first draft of my graduation speech and I am starting to get a little nervous about it. It's not often that a law student gets to speak in the presence of a Supreme Court Justice. In the real world when a lawyer prepares to argue in front of the High Court, there are weeks and weeks of mock oral arguments in front of colleagues to get you ready for your presentation and any question the Justices may ask of you. I am so glad that I am not preparing to be receiving any questions, but I am starting to get nervous nevertheless.

Finally, I still do not have a job post-graduation and graduation is one month from yesterday. I'm not too worried since most law school graduates don't have jobs before graduation, but it is still a point of contention. So, keep me in your minds.

I hope this email doesn't sound too depressing because that's now how I feel - I think that this sense of feeling anxious and a tad bit overwhelmed is normal for a third-year law student who has less than four weeks left.

So with that, I hope that those of you who have been accepted into NUSL will send me your questions about coming here that way I can write about things that will truly be helpful and insightful to you.

Take care!

Hello cyberspace,

I hope that everyone who reads my blog is doing well!

There are so many things I need to update you on and I apologize that I am so late with this posting, but my computer has been on the fritz. It's finally fixed and I am extremely thankful for that. Though my hard drive wasn't affected, please let this be your reminder to BACK UP YOUR FILES! I was so anxious waiting to hear whether I'd lost everything or not...I didn't lose a thing and am feeling extremely lucky!

Okay, so the first update that I need to tell you about is our second evidentiary hearing in Birmingham, Alabama. This hearing was much shorter than the first one that I attended, but it was much more interesting. I hate that I cannot get into any detail (as I've said all quarter), but I can't.

What I will say is this: if you are an attorney working in a culture that's different from yours, the importance of understanding that culture is extremely important; it can mean the difference between winning and losing or gaining support and losing support. NUSL does a great job of imparting this principle to first year students through the Legal Skills in a Social Context program. Because we all have different experiences and biases based on our upbringing and background, working through how these characteristics may play out in your "lawyering" approach can truly mean a world of difference in terms of how effective a lawyer you'll be.

My second update is that I conducted my parole hearing last Wednesday in Montgomery, Alabama. This experience was by far my most exciting one on this coop. My clients' presentation was very straightforward and I was feeling very confident about my ability to effectively represent her until I received some unfortunate news a week before the hearing. While I cannot go into the details of this, let's just say that my client had a stellar record and she received a citation that tarnished her record.

When I walked into the hearing, I was slightly intimidated because of the layout of the room. The board sits high up (kind of like three judges would in a courtroom) and I had to walk to the podium in the middle of the room with a microphone. Before I started speaking, the board just asked me if I was aware of my clients' infraction. Instead of responding right away, I asked them if I may introduce myself before getting to the merits of her situation. They allowed me to do that and after my introduction, I told them what I knew of the situation, how we prepared to handle it, and how my client recognized the seriousness of her actions. While the board decided not to grant my client parole, they did say they would revisit the possibility of parole in six months.

This is a huge feat for a few reasons! First, the board told me that they planned on allowing my client to finish out her year and a half sentence without parole at all! From what my coop employer told me, the board tends to have their minds made up prior to hearing from a representative; the fact that my presentation changed their minds was truly a first. Secondly, the board generally will revisit a clients' parole eligibility within another year or a year and a half. The fact that they are revisiting my clients' case in six months is another first according to my coop employer. So, overall, I am extremely excited for the result and am very happy for my client!!!!

Finally, the day after my parole hearing, my supervisors and I travelled back to Alabama's death row to meet with some of our clients. We spent six hours "on the yard" visiting with them. Let me just say that I think the movie "Dead Man Walking" does a great job of providing viewers with the "feel" of a death row - it is slightly depressing because the feel of the place is just so bleak. I will also add though that I really enjoyed seeing some of the clients whose claims I'd worked on and it was nice to finally put faces with names.

On Friday, I ended my coop and now I am in the thick of applying for post-graduate jobs and getting prepared for graduation (only 9 days until the big day)! Wish the class of 2008 luck as we prepare to end our three-year law school tenure. I'll chat with you all next week.