Ira, 3L

I got the job for next Fall as a Legal Research and Writing Teaching Assistant with the LSSC Program. I will work with two law offices, two Adjunct Professors, and around twenty six or twenty eight 1Ls to improve their legal writing skills. Very excited, I look forward to the program.

Last Thursday I went to a great program the Career Services Office held on applying for state and federal clerkships--prestigious and hugely experiential, one-year assignments to state or federal judges. Applying, it seems, is quite the process. Yet, actually getting a clerkship would be well worth the time and effort. When I co-oped a the Arizona Supreme Court last summer, I got to see first-hand much of what appellate clerks do, and what they learn and how influential they can be.

Yesterday, Monday, I went to hear Dr. Makane Moise Mbengue, a Senegalese Researcher at the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva, speak at the law school about a case recently heard by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Dr. Mbengue clerked for the International Court of Justice, along with NUSL's newest professor Sonia Rolland , and also acted as counsel for the African nation of Djibouti in its ICJ claim against France (Djibouti's former colonial ruler) for not complying with a treaty. It was a great discussion about the processes of an international body, bringing claims to that body, diplomacy, international and legal politics, and clever advocacy.

This week is a continuation of a lot of reading for classes and preparation for court. My case in the criminal advocacy clinic will be heard this Friday in District Court. Wish my client justice.

Posted by Ira at 7:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

School and life have been fairly busy for the past couple weeks, as all activities ramp up in speed in the fourth week of class. Frighteningly, that means we only have six weeks of classes left before exams. I pray the next four weeks don't go by as quickly as those now gone. But we all know the old adage about times power of flight.

And I was never much one to control its passage.

On the busy front, my two substantive classes, Federal Courts and Advanced Criminal Procedure-Investigation, are filled and filled and filled with reading. This week alone we have four classes of Fed Courts (including one make up class) and roughly 130 pages of reading. To be clear, that would be 130 pages of dense, occasionally confusing and contradictory Supreme Court cases detailing when and why federal courts can or can not hear cases.

We were assigned our clients in the Criminal Advocacy Clinic last week. As with all the work I do on co-op, I cannot discuss any details of my client or my client's case(s). I can say that I'm teamed with two 3Ls, both wonderful with great ideas about representing our client and his/her case(s). Per the court rules of Massachusetts, it will be one of my two teammates who will argue the case(s) at our trial date in District Court. 2Ls, such as yours truly, can do everything but stand up and be present for a client in front of the court. It should be noted, though, that we go heavily armed with practicing attorneys supervising our steps (and any potential missteps).

Clinics are a lot of work. Massive amounts of reading, in-depth training, and often going out on the street to talk to your clients, witnesses, agency personnel, etc. And I safely speak here for all the clinics at Northeastern (likely all law schools)--they are a lot of work. Many of the other clinics offered at Northeastern, such as the Domestic Violence Clinic, Poverty Law Clinic, Prisoner's Rights Clinic, and the Health Law Clinic, require their students to be in the office at least twenty hours a week. We in the Criminal Advocacy Clinic may operate under the same requirement, but the program heads seem to permissively fold it into our field-work.

I also have a meeting tomorrow with Professor Susan Sloane, who, among other things, heads up the Legal Research and Writing aspect of NUSL's LSSC Program. I was recommended and asked (and subsequently applied) to be a Teaching Assistant for the Research and Writing program next year. If hired, I will work with a group of Adjuncts and their 1Ls on their research and writing projects.

I'm quite excited and hope I get it. Competent and effective legal writing means a great deal in this profession, and I jump at the opportunity to improve my skills--if even through the teaching/tutoring of others. If I get the job, this may mean I have to go buy a new Bluebook (aka widely accepted authority on proper legal writing format and citation). I think I left my copy on co-op at the Dep't of Justice in DC.

Posted by Ira at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thus far this week has been fairly full and busy. Ripe with things to do and little down time.

Not totally devoid of down time, though: Last night my fiancee and I finally hooked up the Wii and played a bit of Soul Caliber II--a Mortal Kombat-like fighting game. She beat me down royally.

Besides all the ever mounting reading and assignments for classes, I finalized that I will not be doing a dual degree Masters program in Sustainable International Development at Brandeis (a dual degree program Northeastern just started offering this year). There are two chief reasons why I will not be doing the program, which means I will not be earning a Master's along with my law degree, and I will not be adding a year onto my graduation, but I will write more about it in a later blog.

I also may have expanded my role at my upcoming Summer co-op with the DC Public Defender Service. While I am assigned to the expansive Trial Division and two attorneys, DC PDS recently offered an intern or select interns a chance to split their work 50/50 between one Trial Division attorney and one Appellate Division attorney. I immediately jumped at the chance. I am very interested in appellate litigation, second to trial, but fundamentally believe that appellate experience makes for a better trial attorney (and vice-versa). As of yet I await word whether I win and get to be that intern or not.

Today, as a requirement of the Criminal Advocacy Clinic, I sat in on arraignments at a state district court in Boston. I ran into a NUSL student on co-op currently working for the Public Defender's Office, and watched several individuals be read their charges, waive their rights to a jury trial, plead guilty, not-guilty. All I witnessed this morning I'd definitely seen several times before when I worked in the court system in North Carolina, but I went to experience them in Boston. Rarely the assumer, I wanted to see the arraignment procedure of Boston (and Massachusetts generally) firsthand, see some of the players in the courthouse, and generally get a sense of the flow. How is court held? Do attorneys talk over one another? Ignore their clients or witnesses? How do particular judges run their courtrooms?

Soon, in the Clinic, we'll be assigned our cases. And, I imagine, we'll back in that district court experiencing matters from the other side of the bar.

Posted by Ira at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While perhaps titularly second, first and foremost I want to mention that the Northeastern University Law Journal, of which I am a student editor, has just published its very FIRST issue: "To Gitmo or Bust: Practical Challenges in Representing Guantanamo Detainees." NUSL has been around for quite a while, but this is the very first issue of the The Northeastern University Law Journal! Volume 1, Issue 1.

Go! Read it! Critique it! We're very excited.

The first week of classes is now over, and it was quite the week. Well, academically speaking. It all started with a snow day, a New England snow storm which canceled the first day of school.

At the eleventh hour I added a fourth class to my schedule, International and Foreign Legal Research. A research class with no required textbook, it had all the potential of being a lighter skills-intensive class to balance out my clinic and two heavily substantive law-learning courses. Naturally, international and foreign laws encompass all laws outside of the United States. So, if that last sentence were a pie chart, the overwhelming majority of the pie would be international law (e.g., treaties) and foreign law (e.g., French domestic laws). Such a large piece of pie, actually, that you may have trouble discerning the slice of American jurisprudence. I remain really stoked about the class and really enjoyed the first day. However, after taking my other classes, I knew it would be too much.

The Criminal Advocacy Clinic involves a crazy (and appropriate) amount of reading and dedication--as much if not more than two whole classes. Then there is Federal Courts. As I explained before, Fed Courts is considered to be hardest class in the law school. Even by faculty.

So, I decided to wrap my schedule up with Advanced Criminal Procedure and hope the school offers the research class in the future. I am excited that the school is approving and offering more international and comparative law related courses, and I definitely want to support their existence and learn what they have to offer. Luckily, after this I have two academic quarters left.

More to come...

Posted by Ira at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)