Interview: For the interview portion of the career paper, I contacted three different attorneys that I know. As I am not quite familiar with any of the three, I sent them formal email requests to interview over the phone or by email. The first of my three prospective interviewees is Garret Murai, the husband of my Girl Scout Troop leader and an experienced construction attorney at Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP. The second attorney I chose to contact was my friend’s older sister, Hannah Yang, an attorney at the national law firm Polsinelli. Ms.Yang, who passed her bar exam in 2016, just began working at the firm in November 2016 in the Science and Technology Area. She ultimately declined to participate, but I thanked her for her time anyway. …show more content…
As a lawyer, I do a lot of reading and writing. I do go to court, but it’s a very small portion of the time I spend working. Most of the time I spend at the office is reading and writing. Reading is generally researching cases, like what the law says, or what the court has said about similar cases in the past. Otherwise, I am looking through documents to find documents that could either benefit or hurt our case. It’s important for a litigator to know not only what’s good for your case, but also what evidence the other side might try to use against your evidence. Then I try to find a way to either explain and negate the impact of that evidence. In terms of writing, I often write motions with the court. Often times, in the course of litigation, disputes will arise before trial happens, and you file a motion to the court to resolve it. This weekend I’m working on a summary judgement motion which asks the court to render a decision in my client’s favor without having to go to trial. Litigation and trial is extremely expensive, so one way to try to avoid those costs is to file a motion for summary judgement. We go, okay, here’s the facts of the case, here’s the evidence, here’s the law, and this is why we think we’re right and we don’t need to go to trial for the court to make that determination. So that’s one type of motion I’m working on right …show more content…
At our law firm, we have an hourly rate, and we charge by the tenth of an hour. Every six minutes of our time, we charge for. Because that’s the way many lawyers bill, we have to keep track of every minute of our day what we do. From 10:00 to 10:05 I wrote an email. From 10:05 to 10:30, I wrote a letter. That’s what shows up on the client's bill, so you need to be specific about what you do, so the client knows exactly what he’s paying for. At the same time, having to keep track of every minute of your time is very time consuming. Having the chance to interview real lawyers really benefitted me and impacted my view of law. Though my interview with Ms. Wang was brief, her response to my final question led me to briefly reconsider whether I truly wanted to go into law. However, this only ended up reaffirming my former interest. This is because after considering the various aspects of her job that she shared with me, I realized that I was truly interested in law itself, including all of the writing, reading, and research that comes with
The subject of law always fascinated me. Unlike medicine, the practicalities of the subject do not dampen my passion for the subject but rather fuel it. Law is engaging because it requires constant adapting and analyzing. With every case comes a unique set of issues. The challenge of having to work within the bounds of the law while also planning a compelling and forceful case for a client is thrilling. Every word holds tremendous power in law. Practicing law requires eloquence. Anecdotal stories are the hallmark of the best lawyers. There exists no third person perspective in law. I admire how good lawyers can form a message that appeals to people’s emotions and reason. I relish the opportunity to study every minute detail of law and become a practicing lawyer because of all the ways it would challenge me.
Recently, I participated in a campus tour that was led by Ms. Keli Huang. The visit provided me with a better understanding of what Cardozo Law School has to offer. Cardozo Law undeniably has an outstanding reputation among legal institutions, along with brilliant professors who are truly invested in their student’s studies. However, the inviting community is what really sets it apart from other law schools. Ms. Huang raved about the supportive and friendly environment among the students. The welcoming atmosphere at Cardozo Law offer the students an unparalleled legal education that cultivates energetic strong class of attorneys; it is a community I would be honored to be part of.
I am passionate on helping people and making changes in others’ lives. Like I stated before, my mother had been trapped herself in the apologetic emotion for years. The mental burden had made her down. Therefore, I decided to help my mother get rid of the self-accusation, by using the knowledge I learned in the Human Services major. To illustrate, I was telling her that it was not her fault of divorce, and she was not showing me the negative image of a marriage. Instead, I admire her braveness of ending a marriage when it was necessary, especially in the time when people were stereotyping divorced women and at the place where people were being judgmental. Now, her self-blameless has been reduced, and she told me that she was not felt as guilty
They use writing to draft letters, motions, briefs, and responses. These motions and responses are filed with the courts and their purpose is to argue and summarize the law. Letters are used to communicate information between parties and can summarize the law.
I received a call from Lorna and Christina. Lorna said that she got an Order of Dismissal from the Hearing Rep, but she did not understand what it says, what this is about. She swiftly read it, saying that the claimant file a hearing on 05/10/17, which is a very late request.
It’s not always case-breaking finds at one o’clock in the morning, exhilarating oral arguments or massive jury trials. Instead, days are spent crafting discovery plans, drafting and editing briefs, receiving criticism from colleagues, outlining arguments and reading filings from opposing parties all while trying to balance the multitude of other aspects of daily life. A Civil Action addressed this truth. It addressed the financial difficulties certain career paths can take and also addressed the effects a legal career can have on personal relationships. It is, of course, difficult to generalize the application of one story to the entire field, but a realistic understanding is more useful than ideas of grandeur. Knowing this reality prior to really beginning my undergraduate career allowed me to remain focused, develop the skills I needed, and maintain a realistic understanding of how to prepare for law school. Every class I completed, every group I participated in and every job I’ve held has been in furtherance of my goals to become an attorney. This lesson from A Civil Action helped provide a necessary
So when I first got there I had the idea that it was a mock trial. It was not until we start and they started going over the history of the Texas Supreme Court and how they are able to travel thought the state did I realize that the court cases were real. Which, I am glad that they were real cases because that would have been boring if they were mock. So once I got that all right in my head I started to focus on the cases the first one was at some point difficult to follow to quote my friend who’s in high school “I don’t get why everybody is so mad about so ranch there is plenty of it at Walmart at leas that’s what that one dude said”. Now, my friends, he is the class clown, so I knew it was a joke but he did ask me “for real why did he keep
I could not believe what I had just said, I said it so hastily that I thought no one had heard me, but the judge clearly heard me say “The defense moves to indict Isabella Moores of first degree murder.” Everybody in the courtroom was speechless, “This so called witness was planning to murder her mother since she ran away from home, all because her mother was constantly abusing her and I have evidence to prove it!”
My current resident assistant was unavailable to interview because he is usually a very busy and had a deadline coming up tomorrow, so instead I interviewed an RA that was working at the Willkie. His name was Vasu and he was super open with me about being an RA. He was really honest too, he said that the process of becoming an RA was and is hard and that it is a very competitive process.
After checking every photo taken during the investigation, the Deputy District Attorney, Michelle Trego asked the detectives to interview the witnesses again. “We want to make certain she pays for this crime,” Michelle said riding up in the elevator with Detective Wallace.
“How can I be good again? I just lost my wife and son in a car accident. There's nothing in life that can cheer me up. I have become an alcoholic who is now jobless.” I said. My Therapist, Dr. Newman, told me “Trust me, Mr. Smith. Only time can heal your wounds if you allow it to. Well, that's the end of the session, and I want to recall the accident that occurred so we can talk about it tomorrow.”
My court room observation focuses on observations from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on November 6, 2017. I visited the court and listened to an array of proceedings highlighted by a murder trial as well as an assault case with a jury present. While I was paying attention to the facts of the cases, I was more focused on spotting the intricacies of the court room. Key discussions in lecture included a conversation about what skills are most important for lawyers, as well as the discussion about bad lawyer jokes in which we debated the difference between truth and facts. These are some of the subtleties that I tried to identify during my court room observation, however, my observations began hours before I arrived at the court house.
A time when I was pushed out of my comfort was when I moved middle schools to Mueller. I remember I didn't want to move schools because I would miss my friends that I had known for over 6 years. One of my friend’s, her name is Alexa, was going to move to Mueller with me, but she ended up staying at our other school which was CVLCC. I had gone to that school since Kindergarten so it was very terrifying to move, but it had a great outcome. At my old school I was very shy and didn't really talk more. When I moved to Mueller I started making friends and they would always try to get me to talk more and do things that I wasn't comfortable in.
From when I was ten until I was fifteen, I wanted to become a lawyer. I’ve always had impressive public speaking skills, a persuasive personality, and a knack for debate, so it seemed like the perfect fit for me. However, upon a taking a law class my sophomore year, I realized that lawyering might not be exactly what I expected it to be. As I learned about the different laws and the complexities of the court system I was
It’s a myth that all lawyers spend time in a courtroom. Some lawyers focus on writing letters and memorandums, others research legal issues and drafting contracts, deeds, wills, corporate by-laws and legislations; and others counsel, mediate, negotiate, etc. If you would be interested in a career as a trial lawyer, you need the ability to think swiftly on your feet, speak extemporaneously and with authority in public, to be detail-oriented and to understand courtroom strategies.