Adjusting from the Private Bar to Public Defense
Posted on 11 November 2009
I was really far more concerned about being in a rural area than the change in practice from private bar to public defender work. The rural part of things is working itself out nicely, I actually like being rather isolated, in a town where there is one movie theatre and about 6 restaurants saving money is far simpler than it’s ever been before. I’m having a far less graceful adjustment to public defense work.
As a private defense lawyer, I really can’t recall a day when I had more than 2 or three criminal cases on a docket, adjusting to days where 15+ cases have “Office of the Public Defender” listed as counsel is not coming as naturally as I’d like. I think in large part it is because many of those cases pre-date me, so I’m not familiar with the cases, clients or fact patterns. Most though are are post-disposition cases where the court is simply performing housekeeping functions; assuring that people are following through on their post sentencing responsibilities (paying court costs, fines, following up with alcohol/drug/anger management evaluations etc.) Perhaps it’s just a living example of how an old dog takes a while to learn new tricks.
In general though, so far I’m loving it, as busy as the tribal court is, I don’t have the sense that I sometimes did in State District Courts that I was watching a machine quite efficiently make criminals. Rather, in tribal court I see judges who earnestly care about rehabilitation, treat defendants with respect and warmth and who, despite the volume of cases on their dockets, haven’t reverted to the disinterested efficiency I’ve often seen in State court judges (for any State Court judges I’ve been before who may read this – I’m not talking about all of you of course ….)
The biggest challenge so far is technology. The Tribe’s IT department has been chasing one virus or system attack after another since I started in October. Email for example hasn’t worked at all in about 10 days. When the computers and network are working I’m challenged by our case management system. Obviously, with a background that includes representing Internet Service Providers and owning a custom computer building company I rarely (actually have never before) run into software which I couldn’t at least figure out how to navigate after a few hours of tinkering without a manual. The software the office has at present is the single most cryptic and frankly useless thing I’ve ever seen. I am looking at switching the office to a new product which promises to do everything we could possibly need and in a package and do it so easy to navigate “a Caveman could do it” (sorry GEICO). That will help immensely because currently after 6 weeks on the job I haven’t figured out how to get the software to spit out one pleading or document, and with caseloads as they are, typing everything from scratch isn’t something I will be able to keep up with for very long. I rather wish I could just run some cat5 lines around the office, pick up a WiFi card from AT&T for internet and just network our office myself – we’d have everything working in an afternoon (but somehow I think that would stomp on far too many toes).
Anyway all the challenges are offset by the environment, people, and even scenery. The challenges will, in time all be resolved. I’m lucky, this is as close to a perfect job for me at this stage in my life and career, in this current economic downturn, I should pinch myself daily, blink and remember it’s all real and be thankful for everything, challenges included.
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