Ira, 3L

So, I skipped last week's post. Apologies, but so goes the holiday season with all its shopping, traveling, packing, wrapping, trying not to look at your checkbook, etc.

A bit of a recap is in order:

I had a wonderful, wonderful, magnanimously fantastic week BEFORE Christmas. I did little else but have an early Christmas with my loved one, eat grilled cheese and drink wine.

Work at the DOJ went straight through Christmas Eve. Afterwards, I drove my four year-old great dane and myself down to North Carolina. It was, thankfully, an uneventful drive down I-95 and several lesser-used state roads in good ol' NC. After two more Christmases with my dad and family and my mom and family, and receiving such gifts as "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria and "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman, I am sitting at home and enjoying some coffee and a slice of pecan pie.

It's nice to be back home with all of my family for the holidays, but I'm sad I'm missing all the wintry weather in Boston. I know that not all of it is pretty, but I really enjoy snow and winter weather. It's a good relief to the many sultry, humid Southern summers I've experienced. Winter weather is good for so many things.

Beyond the typical holidays, I will not be back at the DOJ per the usual schedule of things. I have a multi-day bachelor party and wedding to attend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My college roommate is getting married and all the groomsman are getting together for a several days of copious drinking, video games, and, I'm told, Medieval Times. Oh Medieval Times; I hope we get the Green Knight.

Best to everyone on their holidays and with their families and friends and loved ones, and travel safely.

Posted by Ira at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday I went on a run through downtown DC during lunch. Have to get it in somewhere. Despite the blistery cold and the sprinkling rain, it was a good run. DC is full of great landmarks and my route circuited some.

For example, not far from where I work is Ford's Theatre where Lincoln was assassinated. And then, right across the street was the house where he died. Both, I believe, are now part of the National Park Service--they are both definitely national historic sites--and keep at least a quarter of that block on 10th Street NW in nineteenth century garb. Eventually I made my way back to Pennsylvania Avenue, where I ran by the White House. Nearly every one of us has seen the casa blanca, whether in person or in picture. And, aside from housing and serving as the office for one of the most powerful positions in the world, it does look very much like a giant white mansion. I've always thought so, anyway. In the past few years, all my trips to DC that took me by the White House got me no closer than across or down the street from the fence. The police usually had road blocks up on the far side of the street and would not let pedestrians go any closer. Yesterday, however, I ran right up to the fence and watched the construction of stands--The Inaugural Stands. The construction company had even hung up a sign stating so.

It made me wonder what Bush must think as he looks out his office or bedroom window and sees them building a miniature, wooden stadium to the incoming president-elect.

Seeing these sites, and others, brought up memories of traveling and a desire to do some more. One thing I love to do, whether I'm visiting a place for the first time or just walking my dog through familiar streets, is to get a sense of the history of the place. To think about the people that walked, lived, loved, argued, procrastinated, and even died on the spots in and in the places where I'm visiting. While Boston has a sheer panoply of historical sites (both officially recognized and informally known), and I think it will take me years to become familiar with them all, I suppose a beautiful aspect of the co-op system is getting to travel and take these historical walkabouts. Or, perhaps, as Toni Morrison might say, "rememories."

A friend of mine is in Phnom Penh, Cambodia right now, and another is in Nigeria. I can only imagine what fantastic runs they have on their lunch breaks.

Posted by Ira at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am told by the attorneys with whom I work that the Bush Administration is unlike any administration before it.

No kidding.

Of course, they're speaking specifically from an employer-employee point of view. Apparently, while previous administrations have sauntered about and lazed through the final, post-election months of their tenure, Bush & Co. are attempting to completely clear their desks of everything. This has its pros and cons. A pro is that it creates a lot of work for an intern--tangible, interesting work. A particular con is that the attorneys are running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to complete all this work now on their desks. It gums up the works a bit, like a movie theatre crowd trying to exit out of one solitary door.

From the intern perspective, though, I'm getting a lot of great work. Most of it is statutory and constitutional interpretation, or very vague questions about what problems we, as the Dep't of Justice, would run into if we investigated a state agency for violating an institutionalized person's civil rights and asked for medical information. If the state agency refused to disclose on privacy grounds, and says we can't obtain a consent waiver from the person for one reason or another, can we still obtain medical records if we felt there was relevant information to civil rights violations going on? Or would we be violating the law?

I got a project similar to this recently. There is no specific case or client, just an academic question. So, unlike much of the rest of my work here in Washington, I can actually discuss it with some freedom. Some.

Another project that fills my hours is one that puts me in contact with actual people. This may sound odd, but a lot of intern work is spent researching a case or answering a legal question, without actually meeting the people. That is one reason why legal services, district attorney and public defender internships are coveted for those who actually like human-to-human contact. The particular project is a preliminary inquiry into allegations of police misconduct in a facility, that may potentially be a pattern or practice of violating the statutory and constitutional civil rights of those housed in that facility. Say, for example, the right to not have your liberty restrained via a needless and excessive use of force.

I can't really provide much more information, or really speak of anything too specific on the matter. I can say this, though, the location of the facility and the people to whom I'm talking was originally part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

In other co-op news, I took a tour of where I'll be doing my summer internship. I'm all set to work for the Public Defender Service of DC in their Trial Division, and, it turns out, their office is literally around the corner from where I'm working now. So, on Tuesday, I went over on my lunch break and they gave me a tour of their buildings and departments. Here's an interesting fact I learned, which will be particularly pertinent to my work next summer: DC has no rule on reciprocity for defense counsel discovery. That means, while the prosecutors in the District have to by law turn over copies of all the evidence and information they have which they plan to use at trial, the defense attorneys do not. Such a strategic element of surprise this creates.

More to come...

Posted by Ira at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Welcome back from Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone took full advantage of the one day a year where it's at least a little more permissible to glutton one's self a panoply of sleep-inducing food. Personally, I'm a big fan of stuffing and gravy.

I just completed my second day of my second co-op, in a small windowless office of a Department of Justice building in downtown DC. The attorneys, investigators and other support staff here at the Civil Rights Division are extraordinarily nice, helpful, and brilliant. While I spent my first day going over and over very byzantine paperwork that asked the same questions repeatedly in different places (even on the same form), and wrapping my mind around the sometimes seemingly needless labyrinth structure of the federal government, I am now settling down into two projects. The projects are great, involve mostly questions of constitutional and statutory interpretation--very cutting edge work. And, even though I cannot discuss any details of my work whatsoever due to its sensitive and privileged nature, you can find a great overview and description of what the Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section does here.

Otherwise, I am getting to know the DC public transportation system--i.e., the Metro, and, as I live in Alexandria for the next ten and a half weeks, the DASH bus system. Here's a little lesson I learned last night: if you decide to go out drinking with co-workers until 7.30pm, perhaps you should check and see if the local bus system runs on a shorter schedule and route and will not pick you up at the Pentagon Metro station (thereby causing you to not get home until 9.40pm). Lesson learned.

Best of luck to all 1Ls as they ramp into exams, all other law students who will be doing the same, all potential applicants who may be diligently and frustrating working on their applications, and to everyone else as the winter fast approaches.

For me--I cannot wait until December 18th. I'm looking forward to it and that weekend like no other time before. Stay tuned...

Posted by Ira at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)