writing a cover letter to a DA's office? Forum

[Anonymous User]

The OP asked what to say in a cover letter to a DA. I spent years in DA and PD offices at the state level. I have two pieces of advice to offer:

1) Criminal litigation is not the same as civil litigation. For one thing, in criminal law, you do a lot more actual jury work than you will ever do as a civil litigator. For another, criminal rules, especially jury instructions, are very cut-and-dried compared with the civil equivalents. So time doing crim law does give you jury experience but I wouldn't do it for too long unless you want to make it your (poorly paid) career. You just don't do enough lawyering in crim law. It's mostly straight advocacy.

2) You might get bit by the crim law bug and decide to make it your career. Crim law is an absolute blast. I mean it. It's fun and the high level of responsibility new lawyers quickly assume is head spinning. But see #1 above regarding the poor pay.

So I think I'd be pretty upfront in the cover letter to the DA. Do NOT talk about Maimi CSI or being the Hammer of God. Instead, it's perfectly understandable and legitimate to say that you are looking for an opportunity to get courtroom experience with solid supervision. DAs have used this as a recruiting argument for years; they know where you are coming from.

A crim justice major won't matter either way. A clerkship probably won't matter either way. Your school's rank didn't USED to matter either way but ITE, who can say? Your class rank ditto. Your transcript probably will matter if you can show that you took more than the bare minimum of Crim Law and Crim Pro.

Good luck and I hope you get the job!

Can you specify a little about how the civil division differs? I am interested but am not sure I have the right idea about what it is. Thanks!