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anjmissy

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by anjmissy » Wed Apr 17, 2013 2:45 pm

I just registered for 2L classes and I'm wondering if I should participate in write-on..I want to do public defense and I hear moot court is more important. Is it a bad idea to not aim for a journal?

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Apr 17, 2013 3:24 pm

anjmissy wrote:I just registered for 2L classes and I'm wondering if I should participate in write-on..I want to do public defense and I hear moot court is more important. Is it a bad idea to not aim for a journal?
This was discussed back on page 4 of this thread, and the consensus seemed to be that law review is unnecessary unless you want to do appellate work whereas doing a clinic is critically important.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by RaleighStClair » Wed Apr 17, 2013 11:16 pm

Hey all,

I'm a 1L at a T2 with a summer externship lined up at the local prosecutors office, which is also my hometown (Medium sized city).

They assigned me to the juvenile unit, and I'm curious if anyone has had any experience (good or bad) in this area of the law.

Would you say it's an advantage ultimately to have juvenile experience (if I continue working in this unit throughout LS) or is it better to get more experience in the other units? Or does it not really matter? Needless to say, my ultimate goal is to be employable upon graduation.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Apr 19, 2013 2:34 pm

I am just finishing up a clinic in the juvenile division at a large prosecutor's office. I don't know how it is in your state, but in mine the juvenile trials are all bench trials. The positives of juvenile in my office is that I got to do a ton of trials, even some felony trial work. The bad thing is that it's not jury trial experience. I think my interviewers were all impressed that I was going to trial so much, but they were more interested in the jury trials that I had done during a previous clinic. Seems like jury trial experience is the holy grail.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by gdane » Fri Apr 19, 2013 6:07 pm

anjmissy wrote:I just registered for 2L classes and I'm wondering if I should participate in write-on..I want to do public defense and I hear moot court is more important. Is it a bad idea to not aim for a journal?
Try to do both, but for the love of God please do moot court. I regret not doing moot court. I was asked about it by the USAO people and by the SAO people. None seemed to care about journal. I plan on trying out for it this fall as a 3L just because it seems to be that important.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Borhas » Fri Apr 19, 2013 10:39 pm

gdane wrote:
anjmissy wrote:I just registered for 2L classes and I'm wondering if I should participate in write-on..I want to do public defense and I hear moot court is more important. Is it a bad idea to not aim for a journal?
Try to do both, but for the love of God please do moot court. I regret not doing moot court. I was asked about it by the USAO people and by the SAO people. None seemed to care about journal. I plan on trying out for it this fall as a 3L just because it seems to be that important.
In order of importance:

Work Experience > Clinic >>> Speaking Spanish or another language your client population may speak > Trial Team > Moot Court > PI Volunteering w/ your client population > Grades > Journal

It might be different for federal offices, but those jobs are practically impossible to get anyway
Last edited by Borhas on Sun Jan 28, 2018 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by RaleighStClair » Sat Apr 20, 2013 3:02 am

Anonymous User wrote:I am just finishing up a clinic in the juvenile division at a large prosecutor's office. I don't know how it is in your state, but in mine the juvenile trials are all bench trials. The positives of juvenile in my office is that I got to do a ton of trials, even some felony trial work. The bad thing is that it's not jury trial experience. I think my interviewers were all impressed that I was going to trial so much, but they were more interested in the jury trials that I had done during a previous clinic. Seems like jury trial experience is the holy grail.
Thanks for the reply!

And yeah, it's all bench trials in juvie here too. Do you (or anyone) think it may be a good strategy to get all juvie experience and try to use that as a way to getting my first real gig after LS? Only a 1L now.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Rootbeer » Sat Apr 20, 2013 9:35 am

Anonymous User wrote:I am just finishing up a clinic in the juvenile division at a large prosecutor's office. I don't know how it is in your state, but in mine the juvenile trials are all bench trials. The positives of juvenile in my office is that I got to do a ton of trials, even some felony trial work. The bad thing is that it's not jury trial experience. I think my interviewers were all impressed that I was going to trial so much, but they were more interested in the jury trials that I had done during a previous clinic. Seems like jury trial experience is the holy grail.
Juvenile defendants don't get jury trials anywhere unless they're taken out of the juvenile system for doing really bad stuff.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:02 pm

RaleighStClair wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I am just finishing up a clinic in the juvenile division at a large prosecutor's office. I don't know how it is in your state, but in mine the juvenile trials are all bench trials. The positives of juvenile in my office is that I got to do a ton of trials, even some felony trial work. The bad thing is that it's not jury trial experience. I think my interviewers were all impressed that I was going to trial so much, but they were more interested in the jury trials that I had done during a previous clinic. Seems like jury trial experience is the holy grail.
Thanks for the reply!

And yeah, it's all bench trials in juvie here too. Do you (or anyone) think it may be a good strategy to get all juvie experience and try to use that as a way to getting my first real gig after LS? Only a 1L now.
I know a girl who did it that way. I would recommend diversifying a little bit personally. If you do juvenile one summer and misdemeanor another summer you're more versatile.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by hopin10 » Mon Apr 22, 2013 12:47 am

Borhas wrote:
gdane wrote:
anjmissy wrote:I just registered for 2L classes and I'm wondering if I should participate in write-on..I want to do public defense and I hear moot court is more important. Is it a bad idea to not aim for a journal?
Try to do both, but for the love of God please do moot court. I regret not doing moot court. I was asked about it by the USAO people and by the SAO people. None seemed to care about journal. I plan on trying out for it this fall as a 3L just because it seems to be that important.
In order of importance:

Work Experience > Clinic >>> Speaking Spanish or another language your client population may speak > Trial Team > Moot Court > PI Volunteering w/ your client population > Grades > Journal

It might be different for federal offices, but those jobs are practically impossible to get anyway
Agree. Moot court is not the most important--or even a particularly important--thing to have on your resume for local / state PD offices. Real experience in the courtroom is much better, and mock trial is better than moot court. (Unless you're gunning for appellate work.)

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by gdane » Mon Apr 22, 2013 8:42 am

I should have chosen my words more carefully. Of course moot court isn't THE most important factor for landing a prosecution or PD job, but from what I've gathered it is important and having it on your resume seems to help more than journal. TLS gave me bad advice when they told me that moot court didn't matter and that journal was more important. In hindsight this advice was geared toward those that want firm jobs.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:36 pm

As far as the moot court talk goes, I think it definitely helps but you can do better. I'm a 3L with a job at a very large DA/SA office and I didn't have moot court, mock trial, or journal. I did, however, have several real trials on my résumé. When it comes to PD/DA jobs, always remember that real court trumps moot court. It's easy to explain why you aren't on moot court, too, when you can say, "Well, I wanted to devote my time to real a courtroom experience." No one is going to argue with that.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Apr 22, 2013 9:06 pm

Next semester, I'll be interning at a state appellate court that deals exclusively with criminal cases—how helpful will that be when I apply for internships with DA offices? I know that most DA offices value trial experience, but how do they look at appellate experience?

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by RaleighStClair » Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:00 pm

Anonymous User wrote:As far as the moot court talk goes, I think it definitely helps but you can do better. I'm a 3L with a job at a very large DA/SA office and I didn't have moot court, mock trial, or journal. I did, however, have several real trials on my résumé. When it comes to PD/DA jobs, always remember that real court trumps moot court. It's easy to explain why you aren't on moot court, too, when you can say, "Well, I wanted to devote my time to real a courtroom experience." No one is going to argue with that.
I assume that when you guys talk about "Moot Court" and "Mock Trial," you're actually talking about being on the teams that compete or competing individually against your classmates, correct?

I only ask because at my school, we have a "Moot Court Board," which is basically just the group of people that organize the intraschool competitions; they don't even require any actual participation in the events. Whenever someone who knows I want to be a prosecutor finds out I'm not on (or trying to get on) Moot Court Board, they're like "ZOMG WHY?" It just seems stupid to me. I'm totally down with participating, and I fully plan on it once I'm out of the 1L grind. But for now, I just don't see the point of essentially being on a glorified event planning committee. Am I wrong? Will it hurt me to not join this thing?

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by RaleighStClair » Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:02 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
RaleighStClair wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I am just finishing up a clinic in the juvenile division at a large prosecutor's office. I don't know how it is in your state, but in mine the juvenile trials are all bench trials. The positives of juvenile in my office is that I got to do a ton of trials, even some felony trial work. The bad thing is that it's not jury trial experience. I think my interviewers were all impressed that I was going to trial so much, but they were more interested in the jury trials that I had done during a previous clinic. Seems like jury trial experience is the holy grail.
Thanks for the reply!

And yeah, it's all bench trials in juvie here too. Do you (or anyone) think it may be a good strategy to get all juvie experience and try to use that as a way to getting my first real gig after LS? Only a 1L now.
I know a girl who did it that way. I would recommend diversifying a little bit personally. If you do juvenile one summer and misdemeanor another summer you're more versatile.
Thanks for the advice. That sounds like a good plan.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:10 pm

For anyone that applied to neighborhood defender service - Harlem, did you notice that the fellowship is no longer posted on their website? Do you think this means they lost funding for it or are no longer accepting applications?

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by caveman2 » Wed Apr 24, 2013 6:33 pm

Hey all, I just wanted to ask a general question about the prosecution market. I'm a current 2L and wanted to know, regarding the present and the near future (2014-2015), does anyone have any insight on which states have/will probably have the most prosecution openings for new grads? I'm trying to get a gauge on where I should consider taking the bar and where I would have the best chance of getting a position at a DA's office. Any info at all, including speculation/rumor/actual insider info, would be appreciated.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:27 pm

caveman2 wrote:Hey all, I just wanted to ask a general question about the prosecution market. I'm a current 2L and wanted to know, regarding the present and the near future (2014-2015), does anyone have any insight on which states have/will probably have the most prosecution openings for new grads? I'm trying to get a gauge on where I should consider taking the bar and where I would have the best chance of getting a position at a DA's office. Any info at all, including speculation/rumor/actual insider info, would be appreciated.
Where did you work last summer and where are you working this summer? Beyond that, where are you from and where are you going to school? Those are your best bets.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:38 pm

caveman2 wrote:Hey all, I just wanted to ask a general question about the prosecution market. I'm a current 2L and wanted to know, regarding the present and the near future (2014-2015), does anyone have any insight on which states have/will probably have the most prosecution openings for new grads? I'm trying to get a gauge on where I should consider taking the bar and where I would have the best chance of getting a position at a DA's office. Any info at all, including speculation/rumor/actual insider info, would be appreciated.
Well ideally you would apply to a bunch of prosecutor's offices and try to get hired before you graduate. NYC, Miami, Chicago, and Philly are generally the cities you see talked about on this board with regards to offices that hire before graduation. If you strike out before you graduate, the next move would be to take a bar exam and apply to the offices in that state that hire after the bar. Generally speaking, the more populous states will have more openings, but may also be fairly competitive.

So the shorter answer is - if you don't care where you work, apply everywhere that hires before the bar.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by caveman2 » Wed Apr 24, 2013 8:26 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
caveman2 wrote:Hey all, I just wanted to ask a general question about the prosecution market. I'm a current 2L and wanted to know, regarding the present and the near future (2014-2015), does anyone have any insight on which states have/will probably have the most prosecution openings for new grads? I'm trying to get a gauge on where I should consider taking the bar and where I would have the best chance of getting a position at a DA's office. Any info at all, including speculation/rumor/actual insider info, would be appreciated.
Where did you work last summer and where are you working this summer? Beyond that, where are you from and where are you going to school? Those are your best bets.
I go to Michigan State, but I absolutely do NOT want to stay in Michigan. Last summer I worked in a medium sized DA's office in Pennsylvania, which is where I went to undergrad, but I would ideally like to not end up back in Pennsylvania. Originally I am from Utah and I am interning in Salt Lake this summer in the Capital Habeas Unit with the Federal Defender. I know I know, why would I do that if I wanted to be a prosecutor? Well, I didn't get offered any prosecution jobs and I am really interested in capital punishment (writing my student note on it), plus I thought it would be nice to be well-rounded and see both sides. So that's why. I'm going to try to do an internship during 3L where I can get some trial experience. Ideally, I would like to stay in Salt Lake and work there after school, but no one has responded to any of my inquiries about what the job market is like in Utah. If not Utah, Colorado would probably be my second choice, but really I would just like to go back West if at all possible. However, even though those are my preferences, in the end I will go anywhere I can get a job.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by caveman2 » Wed Apr 24, 2013 8:29 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
caveman2 wrote:Hey all, I just wanted to ask a general question about the prosecution market. I'm a current 2L and wanted to know, regarding the present and the near future (2014-2015), does anyone have any insight on which states have/will probably have the most prosecution openings for new grads? I'm trying to get a gauge on where I should consider taking the bar and where I would have the best chance of getting a position at a DA's office. Any info at all, including speculation/rumor/actual insider info, would be appreciated.
Well ideally you would apply to a bunch of prosecutor's offices and try to get hired before you graduate. NYC, Miami, Chicago, and Philly are generally the cities you see talked about on this board with regards to offices that hire before graduation. If you strike out before you graduate, the next move would be to take a bar exam and apply to the offices in that state that hire after the bar. Generally speaking, the more populous states will have more openings, but may also be fairly competitive.

So the shorter answer is - if you don't care where you work, apply everywhere that hires before the bar.
I just looked at previous discussions on pre-bar hiring. Looks like California is the only West coast state that people rumor to do any pre-bar hiring. Any insight on Arizona or Colorado in general? I hear a lot of different things about Colorado.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Apr 24, 2013 8:51 pm

caveman2 wrote: I just looked at previous discussions on pre-bar hiring. Looks like California is the only West coast state that people rumor to do any pre-bar hiring. Any insight on Arizona or Colorado in general? I hear a lot of different things about Colorado.
I'm not trying to be a smartass but Google is your friend here--most office websites have good info about their hiring practices, and here's a job I found just by searching "district attorney hiring"
http://agency.governmentjobs.com/pueblo ... bID=616097

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by caveman2 » Wed Apr 24, 2013 9:52 pm

I still would like to know about the general market, as in which states have/will have more prosecutor openings (apart from just the big cities). And I would always love to hear any insight anyone has on the market in Utah, since I've gotten no replies on that yet. I realize Utah has a pretty small population, but I figured that there must at least be a handful or more of Utah/BYU students on here.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:12 pm

I'm not sure anyone can really predict which cities are going to be hiring prosecutors in 2014-15, honestly, or at least any more than they usually. I think your best bet is to hit up all the major city DA offices, as someone suggested earlier. Anyway, I know some DAs in Colorado, and they all got hired post-bar, and they all interned for their respective DA offices during law school. These were people in the Denver metro area, so I can't say anything about the more rural DA positions.

Can you hit up Michigan State alums in SLC to find out about the market out there? Get in touch now to arrange meeting up with them when you're there this summer? Whether in firms or prosecution or whatever, just to get to start to know people out there. Or if there are alums from your undergrad in the legal field out there, you could try them too.

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Re: How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Apr 24, 2013 10:45 pm

caveman2 wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
caveman2 wrote:Hey all, I just wanted to ask a general question about the prosecution market. I'm a current 2L and wanted to know, regarding the present and the near future (2014-2015), does anyone have any insight on which states have/will probably have the most prosecution openings for new grads? I'm trying to get a gauge on where I should consider taking the bar and where I would have the best chance of getting a position at a DA's office. Any info at all, including speculation/rumor/actual insider info, would be appreciated.
Where did you work last summer and where are you working this summer? Beyond that, where are you from and where are you going to school? Those are your best bets.
I go to Michigan State, but I absolutely do NOT want to stay in Michigan. Last summer I worked in a medium sized DA's office in Pennsylvania, which is where I went to undergrad, but I would ideally like to not end up back in Pennsylvania. Originally I am from Utah and I am interning in Salt Lake this summer in the Capital Habeas Unit with the Federal Defender. I know I know, why would I do that if I wanted to be a prosecutor? Well, I didn't get offered any prosecution jobs and I am really interested in capital punishment (writing my student note on it), plus I thought it would be nice to be well-rounded and see both sides. So that's why. I'm going to try to do an internship during 3L where I can get some trial experience. Ideally, I would like to stay in Salt Lake and work there after school, but no one has responded to any of my inquiries about what the job market is like in Utah. If not Utah, Colorado would probably be my second choice, but really I would just like to go back West if at all possible. However, even though those are my preferences, in the end I will go anywhere I can get a job.
Dude...not a good idea. Were you looking for the one summer job that would make it most difficult to get a prosecution gig? Because capital habeas would definitely be a contender.

If you couldn't find an unpaid internship with a prosecutor's office this summer, you didn't look hard enough.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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