How to be a Prosecution/PD Gunner? Forum

[Tanicius]

Unbelievably helpful! Though here at SC I know 3Ls with offers for LA and Fed PD?! They lying/counting unpaid volunteer positions as "offers"? Or are they just the exceptions that prove the rule?

I would imagine if they are talking about "offers" at LA, that they mean volunteering offers. LA literally does not have the budget to actually hire anyone who hasn't yet passed the bar, AFAIK.

For federal jobs though, it's perfectly possible they've secured offers, though the only fed PD offices in California that I have heard of that actually hire (as in pay money to) graduates who haven't passed the bar is one single office, San Diego Fed PD.

@tanicius am I way off base or isn't one of you parents at a pd office in MN? If so, that would be so awesome! Built in mentor that you can feel comfortable really asking tough questions to. That would be great. If not, still major congrats on the offer. As another california lover who took an offer elsewhere, I know its gonna be a struggle, but I think any employer will be happy to have us a couple years down the line when all the boomers retire. (AND there are a TON of boomer PDs in California, almost as bad as NYC)

Thanks dude. I know I'll enjoy Minneapolis a lot. Really, the question is how I'm going to convert my SoCal-born-and-raised SO, and whether, if she hates it there, I can eventually secure something in CA again. Time will tell -- for now, I'm just pumped to get a real caseload.

[encore1101]

No, I get what you are saying. In a world with infinite time doing moot court would make sense, but practically speaking, if you do moot court you'll know a few legal issues really well and you'll have good research and writing experience. But at what cost? At the cost of maximizing your trial skills and experience. If you can't do trial team or a clinic, or intern during the semester, then maybe consider moot court. If you have access to those things, moot court is a waste of time.

Never did mock trial, but did moot court instead. Was one of the first hires from my top choice of DA's Office. Never asked why I didn't do mock trial in any round. Never had a trial bureau internship at any DA's Office or clinic.

So yeah, pretty good for a "waste of time."

[Anonymous User]

I got a 1L interview at a public defenders office. I want to be a prosecutor, on the off-hand I would get the job should I take it? I'm worried about how a prosecutors office would look at a summer internship at a PD's office.

[Borhas]

No, I get what you are saying. In a world with infinite time doing moot court would make sense, but practically speaking, if you do moot court you'll know a few legal issues really well and you'll have good research and writing experience. But at what cost? At the cost of maximizing your trial skills and experience. If you can't do trial team or a clinic, or intern during the semester, then maybe consider moot court. If you have access to those things, moot court is a waste of time.

Never did mock trial, but did moot court instead. Was one of the first hires from my top choice of DA's Office. Never asked why I didn't do mock trial in any round. Never had a trial bureau internship at any DA's Office or clinic.

So yeah, pretty good for a "waste of time."

I dont understand what you dont get about it being a waste of time

Let me repeat: It's a waste of your fucking time, in general, and it was a waste of your fucking time, in particular.

[Borhas]

I got a 1L interview at a public defenders office. I want to be a prosecutor, on the off-hand I would get the job should I take it? I'm worried about how a prosecutors office would look at a summer internship at a PD's office.

no you shouldn't take it, it's easy enough to get an internship at some rando DA office

[encore1101]

No, I get what you are saying. In a world with infinite time doing moot court would make sense, but practically speaking, if you do moot court you'll know a few legal issues really well and you'll have good research and writing experience. But at what cost? At the cost of maximizing your trial skills and experience. If you can't do trial team or a clinic, or intern during the semester, then maybe consider moot court. If you have access to those things, moot court is a waste of time.

Never did mock trial, but did moot court instead. Was one of the first hires from my top choice of DA's Office. Never asked why I didn't do mock trial in any round. Never had a trial bureau internship at any DA's Office or clinic.

So yeah, pretty good for a "waste of time."

I dont understand what you dont get about it being a waste of time

Let me repeat: It's a waste of your fucking time, in general, and it was a waste of your fucking time, in particular.

I don't understand what you don't get about I only did moot court, never did trial work, but still got my dream office.

Pretty fucking good for a "waste of time."

Let me repeat: I got my dream office, despite only doing Moot Court, beating out people who did Mock Trial. I guess I must be that shit-hot amazing.

[deadpanic]

No, I get what you are saying. In a world with infinite time doing moot court would make sense, but practically speaking, if you do moot court you'll know a few legal issues really well and you'll have good research and writing experience. But at what cost? At the cost of maximizing your trial skills and experience. If you can't do trial team or a clinic, or intern during the semester, then maybe consider moot court. If you have access to those things, moot court is a waste of time.

Never did mock trial, but did moot court instead. Was one of the first hires from my top choice of DA's Office. Never asked why I didn't do mock trial in any round. Never had a trial bureau internship at any DA's Office or clinic.

So yeah, pretty good for a "waste of time."

I dont understand what you dont get about it being a waste of time

Let me repeat: It's a waste of your fucking time, in general, and it was a waste of your fucking time, in particular.

I don't understand what you don't get about I only did moot court, never did trial work, but still got my dream office.

Pretty fucking good for a "waste of time."

Let me repeat: I got my dream office, despite only doing Moot Court, beating out people who did Mock Trial. I guess I must be that shit-hot amazing.

Honestly, you are a huge outlier if that is the case. Doing moot court over practical experience is not good advice for the vast majority of DA/PD offices, period.

I don't know why there is even a conversation about moot court OR mock trial. Both are a waste of time. Internship or clinics with practical experience is what will help you.

[Anonymous User]

I got a 1L interview at a public defenders office. I want to be a prosecutor, on the off-hand I would get the job should I take it? I'm worried about how a prosecutors office would look at a summer internship at a PD's office.

no you shouldn't take it, it's easy enough to get an internship at some rando DA office

Counterpoint. At my office in my entering class, 6 or 7 of the 35+ had done some kind of defense work. Ideally you want all your time to be at a DA's office, but if its all you get its all you get....but don't tell anyone at the PDs office that you want to be a prosecutor.

[Anonymous User]

California PD offices could have their own thread. The ones that hire 3Ls tend to follow the same scheme of interviewing Fall/Winter of 3L year and hiring you for a < $20/hour & no benefits law clerk position for the following 6-12 months after graduation. Hopefully you get selected for those law clerk positions; otherwise, you volunteer at an office and hopefully secure some kind of funding so you don't starve. And at the end of your 6-12 months, hopefully a position opens up, either at that office or other places you've been interviewing, and hopefully you're in the minority of law clerk candidates at the office who actually gets hired as a real misdemeanor attorney with a caseload.

The only counties that hire 3Ls before graduation:

- Contra Costa County
- Alameda County
- Santa Clara County
- (sometimes) San Diego County

The offices that never hire pre-graduates and tend not to hire recent graduates, though they do have volunteer programs:

- LA County (in fact, all the surrounding counties as well)
- San Francisco County
- Solano County


It's a very frustrating process all around. Alameda, Santa Clara and Contra Costa tend to take most of their law clerk hires from their pool of intern/extern alums, so if you haven't interned at at least one of these offices, you're pretty much already dead in the water. Furthermore, they get back to you at different times. Alameda and CoCo interview and do callbacks in the Fall of your 3L year, and they get back to you on the hiring outcome before Santa Clara even starts looking at applications (late March).

Often times, the game is far from over once you get hired as a law clerk, and it is rage-inducingly random. Here are three big reasons why:

• 1.) I've had some friends that got hired off a law clerk position and into a full-time misdemeanor deputy position within 3 months of their clerkship, just because there were enough openings at that time. I've had other friends that got let go from their law clerk position at the end of their 6 or 12 months and had to take another law clerk position at one of the other three counties and wait another 6-12 months before they even got to do the work of a real attorney (representing people in court and managing cases, not just doing research and writing motions with a supervisor's name on the front page).
  
  2.) This has the other frustrating effect of making it more difficult to impress interviewing employers from other offices. "How many trials have you done in the year since graduation?" "Well, uh, none, cause they won't let me." "Oh, okay. How many second chairs you get to do?" "None." "... Okay, how many prelims or motions in limine you do?" "Well, none. I've done a lot of boiler plate suppression hearings and speedy trial hearings though!"
  
  3.) Finally, law clerks also suffer from their location at the very bottom of the totem pole. I have one friend who worked his ass off on a group of motions for a case over the span of several months, and right when it was time to argue the material in front of the judge, his supervising attorney came in and yanked the entire file up the ladder to a misdemeanor deputy. The justification was, "We need our misdemeanor attorneys to have this experience; you're not the priority." Never mind that it basically robbed him of 3-4 months of work and a line on his resume.

On one hand, I'm really bummed that I was not selected for a law clerk position in California, because it will make returning to California in a few years logistically difficult, what with their no-reciprocity and nation's toughest bar exam, the competitive hiring scheme for laterals, etc. But on the other hand, I'm thankful that the offer I did get, in Minnesota, will allow me to skip all the BS that is the law clerk --> "real" attorney" career track model. The few offices that hire 3Ls here in CA are so ridiculously competitive that it has often been easier for the law clerks who don't get hired here to get federal defender or even prestigious public defense teaching fellowships than it is to get the coveted misdemeanor position out here.

Did you get offered this year or last year?

[Tanicius]

Did you get offered this year or last year?

This year.

[Borhas]

I got a 1L interview at a public defenders office. I want to be a prosecutor, on the off-hand I would get the job should I take it? I'm worried about how a prosecutors office would look at a summer internship at a PD's office.

no you shouldn't take it, it's easy enough to get an internship at some rando DA office

Counterpoint. At my office in my entering class, 6 or 7 of the 35+ had done some kind of defense work. Ideally you want all your time to be at a DA's office, but if its all you get its all you get....but don't tell anyone at the PDs office that you want to be a prosecutor.

yeah, but it's still pretty early for 1L hiring, plenty of time to find a DA internship

[BlueLotus]

Borhas and others: is LR equally a waste of time for PD/DA/Legal Aid-type jerbs? Picked up my writing comp. packet and ended up not completing it.

[spleenworship]

I did journal in hopes of obtaining clerkship. At zero of my PD interviews did anyone even mention it. Not once. Nobody cared. Frankly, I wish I hadn't bothered.

[BlueLotus]

I did journal in hopes of obtaining clerkship. At zero of my PD interviews did anyone even mention it. Not once. Nobody cared. Frankly, I wish I hadn't bothered.

was it the flagship LR or a 2ndary journal?

[Anonymous User]

Borhas and others: is LR equally a waste of time for PD/DA/Legal Aid-type jerbs? Picked up my writing comp. packet and ended up not completing it.

In my class of 40 at the prosecutors office, only myself and 1 other person had done any kind of journal work. It was asked about 0 times in any of my interviews, across 5 offices when I was interviewing 2 years ago. It's literally come up once, when a supervisor needed someone to edit something for her.

[FlanAl]

the only thing journal is helpful for is to enable you to cast a wider net employment wise. you'll have a better shot at clerking/fellowships with LR. Like many others on here though, I am a no journal and have a job offer, so I wouldn't sweat it.

[Anonymous User]

Borhas and others: is LR equally a waste of time for PD/DA/Legal Aid-type jerbs? Picked up my writing comp. packet and ended up not completing it.

Excellent choice - I made the same decision. Not only has it never come up in PD interviews, but the people I know who did get on journals all want to shoot themselves by now (3L). It's a lot of work for one credit.

[Lawst]

Borhas and others: is LR equally a waste of time for PD/DA/Legal Aid-type jerbs? Picked up my writing comp. packet and ended up not completing it.

Excellent choice - I made the same decision. Not only has it never come up in PD interviews, but the people I know who did get on journals all want to shoot themselves by now (3L). It's a lot of work for one credit.

Oops - didn't mean to hit "anon" when I replied above. Anyway, yeah, only do journal if you want biglawl or to be really good at bluebooking, from what I have gathered.

[Anonymous User]

I got a 1L interview at a public defenders office. I want to be a prosecutor, on the off-hand I would get the job should I take it? I'm worried about how a prosecutors office would look at a summer internship at a PD's office.

Having defense experience won't disqualify you from an ADA job. I'd be willing to bet that most of the ADA's in my county have some sort of former private defense experience or did a PD internship or Innocence Project clinic or something in law school.

That said, it shouldn't be too hard for you to get some sort of internship in a DA's office SOMEWHERE. It's not like you'll be doing anything in court either way, so I'm sure most offices would be happy to have some slave labor to do the menial office stuff.

[adonai]

Borhas and others: is LR equally a waste of time for PD/DA/Legal Aid-type jerbs? Picked up my writing comp. packet and ended up not completing it.

Bigger waste of time than moot court/mock trial. State courts in my experience don't even care about citation/bluebooking. As long as you put something that points them to the exact source, it doesn't matter. State criminal practice is more about being fast, efficient, and to the point.

[rpcb]

Does anybody have experience interning for the New Orleans PD office? It would be great to get some insight.

[BlueLotus]

Borhas and others: is LR equally a waste of time for PD/DA/Legal Aid-type jerbs? Picked up my writing comp. packet and ended up not completing it.

Bigger waste of time than moot court/mock trial. State courts in my experience don't even care about citation/bluebooking. As long as you put something that points them to the exact source, it doesn't matter. State criminal practice is more about being fast, efficient, and to the point.

thanks for all the perspectives, folks!

hearing all the LR kiddos b*tch about their notes makes me happy i didn't sign up to be a cite-check monkey. more time to devote to volunteering for me.

[Anonymous User]

Does anybody have experience interning for the New Orleans PD office? It would be great to get some insight.

I interviewed with them back at EJW for a 2L and haven't heard anything back. Are they just slower or did offers already go out? just curious.

[Anonymous User]

Does anybody have experience interning for the New Orleans PD office? It would be great to get some insight.

I interviewed with them back at EJW for a 2L and haven't heard anything back. Are they just slower or did offers already go out? just curious.

offers have gone out for 1L interns, which is weird. you'd think they would want to take care of the 2Ls first.

[Anonymous User]

Does anybody have experience interning for the New Orleans PD office? It would be great to get some insight.

I interviewed with them back at EJW for a 2L and haven't heard anything back. Are they just slower or did offers already go out? just curious.

Yes they did. I am a 1L who got an offer to work over 1L summer