Yesterday was a pretty good day. I did two things: work on a brief and play/hang out with my closest friend. Not only is friend-time good to have from time to time, but I love the work I was doing. I was working on my last brief for the Wyoming AG's office. The brief goes to the Wyoming Supreme Court, and I will almost certainly argue it in a few months. All my cases were/are criminal ones: I worked in the criminal division.
Which brings me to my summer job. I didn't blog about it much this summer because there's not much in terms of daily happenings that I can really discuss. I can, though, speak about my general subjective experiences working there.
At the risk of sounding like this post should be on MySpace, my summer job rocked!
I got there, and the lawyers are all really nice. I'm pretty quiet, especially in a new situation, so I really wanted to buckle down and work. Basically, the people there treated me like I was a brand new lawyer. In other words, it was clear I didn't know much, but I felt like I was pretty much part of the family. The first day, I got my first appellate case. I loved it.
Over the course of the summer, I worked on what is now my third full appellate brief, several post-conviction cases, and the odd research issue here and there. One of the best things about the experience was all the writing. I learned more than I thought I could over such a short period of time. I think I'm making progress toward exorcising some of the more egregious legal writing problems, such as passive voice, nominalization, and repetition. I also think my organization skills improved a great deal. I've got a long way to go to perfection, which I'm on schedule to achieve about 20 minutes after my death, but I think my summer experience gave me a huge leap forward.
Anyway, if anyone has an opportunity for that internship, I highly recommend it. I wrote three briefs, and will probably have three arguments in the Wyoming Supreme Court. You just can't beat that.
