You say you wan't a revolution...

Well, you know... we all (I) want to change the world (of indigent defense).

I've been trying to avoid the law stuff, but as I approach things like seat deposit dates, orientation and losing my first case (it was only a scholarship appeal, but damnit it was air tight, and I lost on a technicality: "lack of funds, but we'll review your file as funds become available".. sure you will), it's quickly becoming the only thing I can think about.

Public Defender Revolution, a blog written by two veteran, - and from the looks of it badass- PD's, Carol D and K Moran. Carol D looks like she does most, if not all, of the posting, and this is quickly becoming my favorite site next to Asylumn and Court Toons.

It's people like Carol D and PDR (PBR, on bad nights) that remind me my heart is in the right place, and if I am completely crazy, at least I'm not alone.

I was lucky enough to speak with a federal PD who was a little surprised to hear about my PD ambition, and was curious about how I came to the decision that public defense was for me before starting law school, let alone was my reason for wanting to go law school. Long story aside, it's what I need to do.

There's the old cliche: those who can't do, teach. Well, it's a cliche because it's probably true. I'd also add that those are tired of doing wind up teaching too, people that are finished "practicing" their careers - medicine, law, accounting, sports, porn - often go on to teach or write instructional memoirs about their experiences. I think it's for that reason a lot of education systems start to fail. How can an instructor inspire a kid if they don't really need to?

So, I guess I could teach. I obviously do write. I mean, I have a degree in English. I studied the subject because I really love the language - the concrete yet the abstract nature of it. The critical theory, challenging canons and "author/authority". It's awesome.

But it's lofty. It's romanticized. And talking about it all day wouldn't be my cup of tea. I'd get bored. I spent a good three years studying it already, and I don't really want to "practice" English. My favorite parts of English classes were the least teachable parts of the language. Logic, argument, persistence. Fuck form. Fuck the rules. Go with what feels right, and make a good case.

But why a public defender? Why not some other, more glamorous public interest law like Housing Rights or DV shelters?

Well, for the same reasons I don't want to teach. PD work is concrete and directed. It's forging ahead through a complex of tax payers, police officers, DAs, "expert" witnesses and judges that would just as soon shove poor, broken people out of sight and mind into a steel cage than take the steps to help get their lives together.. it really seems like exciting and righteous work, being on the front lines every day doing something that actually matters; acting as a bulwark between state imposed retribution and justice. Between freedom and a steel cage. Plus, I really like stories (clients), not cases (Law and Order episodes). And I couldn't imagine wasting the precious, apathetic and clueless tax payers dollars throwing people in jail.

I had a couple shitty things said to me this week, and coming across Carol D and her blog was just what I needed. It's optimistic but not naive (she's plenty experienced), funny but not insensitive, and best of all - revolutionary. She has a lot of passion for reforming this busted system, and I have a lot of respect for that.

Thanks Carol D. You're a hero in my book. Fight the good fight, I'll be on the lines with you in a couple years.

Two Greats, Same Day

R.I.P., fellas

Great Read

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/in-health-care-reform-new-iraq-war.html

This site is pretty solid.

back to Dog Whispering. I can't explain it, but I love this show.

Some funny things, some musical things

Has anyone else noticed how sarcastic (and ironically, more accurately titled) some classic novels would be with the help of a little piece of punctuation called the quotation mark? Here are a few examples:

"Brave" New World by Aldous Huxley

"Crime" and Punishment by Fydor Dostoevsky

As I Lay "Dying" by William Faulkner

Call of the "Wild" by Jack London

The "Adventures" of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain/Sam Clemmons

The "Inferno" by Dante Alighieri

"Paradise" Lost by John Milton

"Great" Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Yellow "Wallpaper" by Charolette Perkins-Gilman

The "Dharma" Bums by Jack Kerouac

Invisible "Man" by Ralph Ellison

The "Myth" of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

The "Sun" Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The "Awakening" by Kate Chopin

Adam Bede by "George" Eliot (this one was too easy)

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering "Genius" by Dave Eggers

and the list goes on...





I'm starting to realize more and more that I'm a fan of folk and bluegrass than I used to care to admit. Staying true to my pedant title, these songs are probably more rock-a-billy stringband than either of those, so I guess I'm technically safe, and rock they do. The harmonies are tight, the banjo is pensive and playful, the lyrics are smart. I was lucky enough to witness these guys jamming last year, and it was by far one of the best shows I've ever seen. They didn't play with any real percussion, minus a washboard, yet they keep, and kept, a steady, diesel engine-like rhythmic timbre. Great tune. The line "so while you sit and whistle 'Dixie' with your money and your power" in contrast to all the pain, destruction and hatred crooned over in this song gives me chills everytime I hear it. I'd go as far as to say this band made me apply to LSU...that along with their non-trad (more trad?) legal education, and the absurd ratio of death penalty sentences for blacks Baton Rouge sports. Anyway, great stuff.





My old roommate turned me onto this band last fall. After escaping the clutches and certain fiscal death of a slum, we just moved into a mansion of a town home with a third roommate, and everything was exciting and intoxicating (in more ways than one). Their first CD was some thing unique, like a cross between indie- chamber pop with a busk of neo- African tribal beats. It was complex but direct, intellectual (most of the dudes went to Columbia) but accessible. In other words, it was great. And if "Horchata" is what to expect from their new album, I have one hell of a year ahead of me. This song is like my groundhog day, not only because I'll listen to it over and over and over again either. More recently, this song has been very poignant for me; a quick read over the last few entries and the lyrics here will more than explain why.





The Jayhawks are among the last, precious few of a dying breed of band. They're carefree, spirited but still have a specific point they want to communicate. They have a sad but sundrenched sound. Sometimes it's melancholy, sometimes its elating. It's not something you can make in a studio, it's something that has to live and breathe in between band and their songs. It's something very special, something that can't really be communicated through any other way than hearing the sonorous and beautiful melodies that live all around rock music. The Jayhawks tapped into that inexhaustible well of sounds. Their cover of GFR's "Bad Time" is spot on, without mimicking the original too much...and again, the song strikes a poignant chord. Get out of my head, Jayhawks.

Oh, and this is a good idea.

Til next time.

Dirty Business

I've noticed this blog has been void of any humor since well, ever, and as I read through the old entries, I can't help but feel like an imitation of myself. While that was kind of the point, it's still lame, and I'll do my best to lower the bar. Or raise it. Let's just forget the bar all together for right now and move onto more hilarious things like the legal market and most law student's debt to income ratio.

It's really no secret that the legal market is oversaturated. The point is driven home on sites like this authored by current law students and recent grads who attended law schools that depend on their region for job placement, as opposed to having a national reach.

Anyone, and I really want to stress that anyone does not exclude no one, who has following or stumbling through this blog will see that the most prestigious schools, in the USNews and a few other realms that are less subjective, I've applied to are Emory, UofI.C.U., Florida and maybe WCL (which pales in lay prestige, faculty quality and publication to other D.C. schools like GULC and GW [I'd go as far to say that WCL isn't even a D.C. school since it's in Spring Valley in an affluent suburb]). The reason for this is my G.P.A. really restricts me otherwise, and my LSAT isn't in the 98th percentile or anything. I honestly don't care much for rankings and prestige, but would be remiss to flat out ignore them, and have been a firm believer that qualified, persistent and malleable (read: willing to relocate) graduates should have little trouble finding employment in the legal field doing something other than doc review or Lexis, barring the types rushing for the 'biglaw' frat.

Since I'll have to be getting used to them soon enough, let's get hypothetical.

We have three recent law school graduates that have made it through the hundreds of nameless, faceless quagmire of recent grads and a handful of practicing attorneys trying to shake off the shackles of billable hours and get the fuck out of their soulless legal boutiques. One graduated from a tier four (the lowest ranking law school), one from a tier three, and the other from a tier one (there used to be a tier 2, but now the top 100 are all tier 1, though 50-100 have arbitrarily continued to be designated at tier 2, I respect Foucault and Saussure too much to compound the crime I'm committing by folding to a slew of meaningless designators).

These three grads are all in the top 25% of their class, and are applying for two positions at a public defenders office, lets say in a large market like San Francisco or LA.

The T4 student was on moot court, worked in a Public Interest Clinic, interned with the PD in law school for two summers.

The T3 student was given a grant to work in an inner city during a summer, did clinical work and externed his third year with a Legal Aid society working on Housing cases.

The T1 student was the president of the student bar association, made law review once, interned with mid to large firms during the summer, and wrack up over 100 pro bono hours working with the student bar association.

My money is that the T4 and T3 get the public defender positions 80% of the time. I would go all or nothing on them, but factors like personality and what not remain which, regardless of how badass of an advocate you may be, could keep you from working in a certain office, and probably for the best.

This situation is just as easily inverted when you're looking at the hiring at a NLG 250 firm. School prestige becomes all or nothing, the nothing amounting up to top of the class at a T3 maybe cutting it with the right connections.

The reason I'd go with the lower ranked students is that offices like the PD and Legal Aid, I would hope anyway, don't care about the perceived prestige of a school. They don't get into the law they practice for props or recognition, they don't keep pushing through the tears and crushing heartbreak of defeat for some faint hope of a 'thank you'.

They do it because people need the help, and what law school you went to doesn't dictate how great of an advocate you'll be for your client. Only the attorney can do that, and in this situation the newbie lawyers have no only displayed a commitment to public interest but survived the academic rigors every law student endures. I think that's a big factor missing in the cynical words I've read of critics of getting a legal education - passion. Why did you really want to become an attorney? For a six figure pay check and a brand new Benz? No one predicted the economy to take the hard turn it dad the past few quarters, but they should have been aware that education and law are industries, and bad investments happen without the right research, which is getting harder and harder to come by without personal communication or a little leg work.

And while I can't sympathize with that mentality, I can feel bad for their dreams inverting on them into six figures of debt and a brand new anti-depressant.

All that being said, my confidence is shaken daily when I think of my future in law. Not in what I'll be doing, I have no doubt that public defense/legal aid is where I need to be, but in the value of my degree.

I wrote about a week ago about how I'm all but certain I'll be in California next fall. If I was a slave to GSP and GDP, California, despite it's busted infrastructure, appears to be the strongest economy in our country. It has a few large markets where PD/NPO/Legal Aid positions could open for the right candidate, a candidate that I have no doubt that I will be.

That still doesn't change the fact that California PD offices are grossly underfunded and therefore understaffed, there is a lot of talk of private lawyers getting sick of mid-level slave positions and opting for PD work for the benefits and (relative) freedom, and more law students than anyone would ever care to shake a stick at looking for ANY gainful employment.

So, here's to hoping. I really think for the time being, I need to shift the focus of this blog to more lighthearted things. As cathartic as it is to let all of these thoughts out, it really doesn't help, and every time I've answered "where ever is the cheapest" to people who ask about where I'll be going to law school a little part of me dies and pictures a "Dollar General College of Law" degree hanging on my wainscoting wall in the future.

Fine Art of Negotiation

I wrote Santa Clara about my scholarship. Down the road, if they say their decisions aren't nonnegotiable, I'd like to try my hand at bargaining for more money. I used to be great at it in my old job, but I was on the side in perceived power- the side being payed. Now the shoe is certainly on the other foot, but I understand the fine balance between customer and provider. It's a delicate relationship, certainly a symbiotic one. They want me for my credentials, and the big bill I'll potentially be footing. I want to go their because of it's quality, location and reputation, and a little incentive will help them more and me more than hurt, well, them.

But that's not all I wanted to write about. I haven't done the word thing in awhile. Today, I'd like to do that again.

Etymology is a funny thing. It's the sort of over-arching structure that keeps people from realizing that sweet potatoes aren't really potatoes but roots that were given to a British king, one of the Henrys I think, visiting Spain, where they were pronounced 'potatao' or something and the English prostituted the word into something of their own.. wouldn't be the last time..

Today I want to talk about assholes. The OED has the word defined as "someone or something foolish or contemptible; an uncompromising term of abuse". Uncompromising abuse. In the spirit of my newfound interest in negotiating and the possibility of undergoing one soon, uncompromising abuse doesn't sound very promising, but hey, context is relevant. And I wouldn't have even the mildest of curiosity for this word if I hadn't heard it ah, a few times directed a me. I also considered exploring "self-righteous", "smart ass", "sarcastic", "stubborn" or "short sighted" but I didn't want to relegate myself to the "s" family, and I feel like everyone can relate to asshole more than those.

Alright, so asshole. An uncompromising term of abuse for someone perceived as foolish or contemptible. Let's start with those modifiers. OED has "fool" defined in several ways, but for the sake of brevity I've only chosen a couple. First, "one deficient in judgement or sense, one who acts or behaves stupidly, a silly person, a simpleton.(In Biblical use applied to vicious or impious persons.)" and second "one who is deficient in, or destitute of reason or intellect; a weak-minded or idiotic person". Contempt, a word I'm sure I'll have to get familiar with, at least if any of my friends still think I'm like Jerry Kellerman from Raising the Bar (RIP), is "the action of contemning or despising; the holding or treating as of little account, or as vile and worthless; the mental attitude in which a thing is so considered. (At first applied to the action, in modern use almost exclusively to the mental attitude or feeling.)".

So, we have an uncompromising term of abuse for the deficient in judgement or sense, who are silly, simple and stupid (now you see why I avoided "s" before, too many good insults start with "s"), that is biblically vicious, that may be lacking in reason and intellect, and acting spiteful or ungracious towards something, or someone, they consider vile and worthless.

Huh. That's not exactly what I mean when I say asshole, and I can't imagine that's what is meant when it's, rarely, of course, directed at me. Fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm probably think differently of an asshole than the rest of the modern world, but I find it hard to imagine it's widely viewed as "stupid and contemptuous" and not just "mean".

Really, the biblical use of the word "fool" as someone of vice is the only applicable term in the modern sense of the word asshole, and only if that vice is put into action. Even then, a vicious person is a hard push, like using a nail gun instead of tape to connect a couple pieces of paper. To an infant.

I'm going to go ahead and defend the assholes. Think of the last time someone called you an asshole. It was probably after you did something people other than the accuser would think is funny - like steal your gentile stepfather's Christ nail to hammer up a mahzuza for your own fathers benefit - or were overly, borderline disrespectfully honest with someone. It's not easy to be an asshole these days. It takes some level of thought, an appropriate amount of intelligence. There are of course exceptions that prove this rule, and only assholes use a fallacy like "exception that proves a rule" as a defense from cross-examination on an anonymous blog. Someone who is stubborn, self-righteous, and unapologetic.

There's also the relatively new "shy v. asshole" confusion. It's an easy mistaken reversal to make in a culture so consumed with second-hand communication.

Next time you're going to call someone an asshole, really think about what it means. You're calling someone who may have done something requiring a lot of thought and tact stupid and unreasonable. Sure, they may have done something selfish and mean, but not stupid or unreasonable, foolish or contemptuous. That's just not fair. Call a spade a spade-

It's what an asshole would do.

Some poems

Brutal on the water today. As a result, I'd rather let other people do my talking for me.

one quick note: Dolphins racing and playing with a sluggish sailboat through a channel is life affirming. For some reason, I thought of Plato's Phaeton and Republic. The mirror, cave, forms all that jazz was definitely a weird thought for me period, especially on a working sailboat, securing a halyard, but oddly appropriate.

E.E. Cummings - 'here's to opening and upward'

here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain

and here's to silent certainly mountains;and to
a disappearing poet of always,snow
and to morning;and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and

let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)

here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon

----

Walt Whitman - 'Song of Myself', chant 46

(EDIT: after posting, I realized my format slays this in some places. Apologies.)

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and
never will be measured.

I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public
road.

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.

It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.

Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,
Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,
And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,
For after we start we never lie by again.

This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs,
and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?
And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue
beyond.

You are also asking me questions and I hear you,
I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself.

Sit a while dear son,
Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,
But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss
you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress
hence.

Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every
moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout,
and laughingly dash with your hair.
----

Goin' to California...

Maybe, and with not as much of an achin' in my heart as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.

But I'm getting more and more resolved to the west coast. I know California's infrastructure is about as broken as Afghanistan's, and that should be a red flag to someone who wants to work in civil service. The job just may not be there four years from now.

And despite that being the cut and paste answer I give to people when I talk about it, I also think that's a shitty reason not to do something. They just as well may be. I like to work in absolutes, because there are so few of them. All I know is if I want to make something work, it'll work. That attitude has got me into law school, so I'm going to keep on believing it will get me through it too.

The truth is, California seems like an interesting place to practice law. The bar exam is notoriously tricky, and the state is basically an economy all its own. Plus, it's a paradise. As much as I would love to live in a city that houses over 8 million people and work for Legal Aid, a much larger area (seven counties or something) that is occupied just shy of 8 million people seems more inviting, mobile and versatile. Plus, some counties are contracted PD work, and some aren't. I like having the option of working for the man against the man or a non=profic organization... which the U.S. Gov't obviously is... I'll be here all night.

Seton Hall sent me a fee waiver, and LSU should be any day now (Baton Rouge is a pretty happening city, and New Orleans would be an awesome place to work as a PD), so really, I have a lot of deciding to do. I should probably head wherever the debt will be the lightest, but there seems to be plenty of options to help shoulder debt and keep me out of a legal factory or off of one of those awesome legal shows like ABC's "The Deep End"... while the majority of my dialogue is sarcasm, I really don't see that sustaining my sanity and good nature while working in a big firm, kissing a partner's ass for face time and worrying about billable hours; that's would be my version of J.P. Sartre's hell. Complete submission to subtle social control.

It also seems like, barring Yale, that where I go to law school is where I'll be practicing, and where I'll be living. Right now my scholarship to SCU will save me about a years worth of tuition. Adding up two more years of tuition and living expenses in Santa Clara (which slays in rent and cost of living compared to the rest of the country), I'm still looking at least 120k. That's uncomfortable. I didn't even bother applying to UC Davis or UC Hastings because of their absurd out-of-state tuition hikes. UC Hastings is something absurd like 50k in tuition alone. And I didn't apply to UC Berkeley because they still employ John Yoo; probably would've been worth 200k debt otherwise. But job prospects in Santa Clara, San Jose, San Mateo and San Francisco are very solid with a degree from SCU, a place I've dreamed of living and working for over five years now.

And that's where I am... waiting to see what Pacific McGeorge offers me scholarship wise, and then really thinking about where I can do the most good living and working, and what's going to be the kindest on my credit score, because odds are I'll be there (in state and debt) for awhile.