Future Public Defender (I start next month) taking questions Forum

[Mroberts3]

at the end of the day the functional aims of your efforts are allowing child molesters and rapists to escape incapacitation for what they did.

The functional aim, and the ethical duty, of every lawyer is the same: to get the best possible results for a client, according to that client's definition of "best." BigLaw attorneys often do work that has the functional aim of making it so that giant corporations can cause personal injury, environmental damage, or economic hardship to others at as little cost to themselves as possible.

But prosecutors are the exception to this rule. Our job is to see a just outcome rather than what some client wants. That is why I find your statements so questionable. What I just cannot fathom is your vitrol at those who want to protect others who have done nothing wrong. Yes, there is overcrowding in prisons. Yes, drug laws should be reformed. But talking about those is blatantly changing the subject. Between the rape victim and the rapist I want to help the victim. You want to help the rapist. How is this a discussion?

I want to point out again that not all PDs think this way, and I would never accuse a poster like Void of the above. He/she clearly indicated that the system is the aim. If he or she was opposite me in a rape trial, I would not associate him with the defendant's crimes.

I certainly agree that work in Biglaw occasionally has moral issues like that (although mostly it is just big companies fighting each other rather than an Erin Brockovich type story).

Normally I would not have joined the potential derailment of a thread like this that has good info for aspiring PDs, but I just can't let some of this go on the off chance it influences future PDs.

[EijiMiyake]

I was particularly shocked by the comment that someone would get dinged at a PD office for helping rape victims because it was "too much like helping the prosecutors." What. The. Fuck.

I've heard that's actually a relatively new phenomenon, and this sort of attitude didn't exist in the 70s and 80s.

I mean, it's a difficult, thankless, and grueling job, so I can understand why PDs would want someone truly dedicated to the cause. I just I don't get why the cause has to be so narrowly defined.

[Mroberts3]

I get your overall point, but I think the bolded is a contentious way to make that argument and unfair to PDs - I would say that they protect everyone, by ensuring that the government is held to its burden and that the system works properly. Protecting criminals is not the purpose, just sometimes an unfortunate consequence. But then, prosecutors don't defend the victim, either - they represent the government's interests, which does not always by any means coincide with the victim's interests.

(I say this as a prosecutor.)

Fair enough, but I think that was the distinction I was trying to make depending on whether the PD says things like the OP or the things like Void. I agree that the latter is protecting everyone for the reasons you stated. I stand by my statement with respect to the OP, however, because he/she was basically saying the system is so evil that it is better to represent a rapist that put him in jail. I just don't buy that.

I don't think we are disagreeing, but I would just argue the prosecution does defend the victim (and by extension society). Defending is different from representing their interests in the way other lawyers represent their client, however. In my earlier post I was in the middle of adding a section on prosecuting DV cases even though the victim recanted, to make the point re justice not a client, but thought that was getting off on a tangent.

Anyway, I guess my overall point is I can't not respond when I see someone who drinks Kool-Aid for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I tried to be fair to those in the defense community that do not agree with the OP and hopefully that came across.

[FlanAl]

was hoping that this thread that started out as useful but then got derailed might have been necroed for something useful, disappointed. eventually I hope we can get a thread of current pd's (and probably a separate one for current prosecutors so we don't troll each other) to talk about what they did for law school summers interviews etc. and how it helped them. I'm only a 3L hunting for a job but if some of you current PD's want to start a thread like that and like sticky it to the da/pd gunner thread that would be cool.

[Void]

was hoping that this thread that started out as useful but then got derailed might have been necroed for something useful, disappointed. eventually I hope we can get a thread of current pd's (and probably a separate one for current prosecutors so we don't troll each other) to talk about what they did for law school summers interviews etc. and how it helped them. I'm only a 3L hunting for a job but if some of you current PD's want to start a thread like that and like sticky it to the da/pd gunner thread that would be cool.

I agree that a thread like that would be cool, and as a current PD I would be glad to participate. But I don't personally mind what happened to this thread. I think the OP's original idea was to open up for questions from people considering PD work, and the questions raised by the prosecutorial folks are definitely important considerations. Plenty of people become PDs for a variety of reasons and discover that it isn't what they thought it might be, and I think this thread could be valuable for helping people figure out where they're coming from. Also, it's not in the employment forum.

But like I said, I would definitely be happy to participate in an employment-focused thread too.

[FlanAl]

ah yeah I hadn't read the OP in a long time. re-read through the thread but if anyone hasn't mentioned prosecutors overcharging every time no matter what as a reason for being a PD, I will go ahead and list that now. is sending kids to rikers because they hopped a subway turnstile really doing justice and protecting the community?

[A. Nony Mouse]

was hoping that this thread that started out as useful but then got derailed might have been necroed for something useful, disappointed. eventually I hope we can get a thread of current pd's (and probably a separate one for current prosecutors so we don't troll each other) to talk about what they did for law school summers interviews etc. and how it helped them. I'm only a 3L hunting for a job but if some of you current PD's want to start a thread like that and like sticky it to the da/pd gunner thread that would be cool.

I'm not really sure how what you're asking about is different from the "How to Be a Prosecution/PD Gunner?" thread, honestly. I recognize it's kind of unwieldy, but there's nothing that limits that thread to current students - it's just as appropriate for current DAs/PDs to comment there. I'm just not sure how many current PDs/DAs hang out on TLS (as compared to students, that is) to fuel separate threads.

FWIW, though, I'm willing to say that from now on, we shouldn't get into prosecution v. defense moral/ideological debates in this thread (I know I'm one of the violators) - I agree that wasn't really the purpose of this thread, and it inspires heated discussion that gets away from how to get any of these jobs. Someone can start another thread if they really want to continue that conversation.

[FlanAl]

the gunner thread is great. but as a 1L and a 2L it took a really long time pouring over it to figure out what was what. having like yourself, borhas, void etc. in a thread something like:

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do when I was at law school

I did victim advocacy 1L summer

2L summer I had to choose between a more prestigious PD office and a local office that doesn't hire but would let me do more stuff.

Applying to jobs i really had to explain the victim advocacy but I don't think it hurt me. I also think taking the local office that gave me more court time was a better decision. I'm now at this kind of office

but with more detail and stickied to the front of the gunner thread would be really helpful I think.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes, but people have done this in the gunner thread. I mean, you seem to be asking "how have people here become PDs/DAs," and the gunner thread asks "how to become a PD/DA," which some people have answered by describing what they themselves have done, so there's significant overlap. My concern is that collecting "my path to PD/DA" stories in a separate thread will end up recreating the gunner thread, because everyone will ask there the same questions as in the gunner thread, so it creates two places people need to look for basically the same information.

Now, you could argue that the gunner thread is too unwieldy, and retiring it and creating separate PD/DA threads would work better - there's some logic to that - but there's only so far you can organize catch-all threads like that and prevent them from becoming hard to handle and requiring a bit of time/energy to use.

More to the point, though, we can't make anyone post anything in particular. If you want to start a thread asking people to contribute their specific paths to becoming a PD that's fine,* and I'm sure people would respond, but it is up to the individual posters - we as the mods can't make anyone tell their story in a thread, and we aren't going to go collecting stories. It sounds a little like you want a "taking questions" thread hosted by all the PDs/DAs here, which we can't magically create.

*despite my concerns in the first ¶ - the first ¶ is basically me saying why the mods aren't going to create something along these lines, but you're free to start your own thread.

ETA: I know there are various "20XX OCI results" threads that collect information about employment outcomes, but I think biglaw is different enough from PD/DA that I'm not sure the OCI threads are a great model for what you want. But if they are, then, again, feel free to start such a thread.

[Void]

The 3L PD applications thread is basically the equivalent of an OCI thread, in a that it's full of anonymous posters posting cryptic and short questions like "anyone hear from NH?" or "made it to second round at Brooklyn." Valuable but not really informative for general browsing.

I agree that the Prosecution/PD gunner thread is good, and works well as a resource for learning how to navigate the process.

I for one am not really willing to go into detail about my own story on these publicly accessible threads, but any of you guys can feel free to PM me and I would be happy to answer. I know for a fact that FuturePD is just as eager to respond privately, and suspect that any other poster would be too.

[FlanAl]

The 3L PD applications thread is basically the equivalent of an OCI thread, in a that it's full of anonymous posters posting cryptic and short questions like "anyone hear from NH?" or "made it to second round at Brooklyn." Valuable but not really informative for general browsing.

I agree that the Prosecution/PD gunner thread is good, and works well as a resource for learning how to navigate the process.

I for one am not really willing to go into detail about my own story on these publicly accessible threads, but any of you guys can feel free to PM me and I would be happy to answer. I know for a fact that FuturePD is just as eager to respond privately, and suspect that any other poster would be too.

The prosecution pd gunner thread has basically turned into the other 3L PD application thread in the "anyone heard from Bronx" sense. For me this is all fine but I feel for the 2L trying to decide between like Bronx and and a fly-over PD that guarantees (or at least tries) that he'll get to do a bench trial over the summer. The conventional wisdom is in the gunner thread but it takes a lot of time to scavenge through it. Oh, and I totally wasn't expecting the mods to do it, I just thought I'd propose it on this thread because it seemed to have the potential to be like this.

[TheJanitor6203]

So, back on track..
I'm an 0L with an PD internship interview coming up. Can anyone tell me what kind of questions to prepare for? I'm assuming it'll be a little different than it is for a 1L or 2L.