I'm wrapping up my final two weeks at the Justice Department. I spent the week prior in Mississippi at a juvenile training facility (aka a juvenile "jail"). As I wrote in an earlier blog, the Justice Department sent me to help inspect the facility and determine its compliance or noncompliance with a federal court order and federal law. It was a great experience, and, at times, exhausting. I spent nearly two full days interviewing children in the facility, and much of the rest of the time going through documentation and following around the court-appointed experts who evaluated how far the state has come in improving certain areas (e.g., suicide prevention, mental health, protection from harm).
While I got wickedly sick on the tail end of this trip (and am still under the weather), one of the benefits was getting out of the office and at the same time still seeing what it is the Special Litigation Section attorneys really do. As I did much of the same work as the attorneys, I got real legal experience. More than that, really, I got good investigative experience as well. For example, my supervising attorney and the facility's lawyer (one of Mississippi's Assistant Attorney Generals) was at a meeting between the therapeutic counselors and the court-appointed mental health expert. The meeting's agenda was a discussion of what progress the facility had made in providing therapy, and what the counselors felt still needed to be done. Early on in the meeting one counselor leaned over and whispered to my supervising attorney, asking whether the attorneys needed to be present for the meeting. It was apparent that the counselor felt total honesty could not be had with the Assistant Attorney General, who represents the interests of the facility, present. So, in a tactical move, knowing she would also not be privy to what is said, my supervising attorney agreed to exit the meeting so the Asst. AG had no formal reason to be in the meeting when asked to leave.
A smart tactical move on my attorney's part. It was in the Justice Department's interest, so she believed, that the mental health expert have unfettered access to the counselors' opinions.
Quite apart from my trip to Ole Miss, I will soon be back in Boston. I made a brief hop and a skip there for four days prior to heading to the deep South, having convinced the U.S. government to fly me out of Boston instead of DC. It was a blissful four days, however short-lived. Thankfully, I'll return in a little less than two weeks. I cannot wait.
