Grand Master Attorney, Civil Advocacy, Order of the Third Degree, Mr. John Conover Esq. requested that boilermate Randy Barr organize a bowling outing for the interns and staff. Last night, Randy succeeded in his assignment, bringing together attorneys John Conover, Claire Curry, Tim Freilich, and our very own Crystal Shin to bowl with legal aid interns from LAJC and CVLAS (plus a few others).
Randy deserves credit for organizing a high quality evening: pizza, beer, bowling and friends (ahem, "networking") is a treat that we rarely get to enjoy.
Crystal had great form, unfortunately I only grabbed this photo of her patiently awaiting a strike.
Fellow bunker soldier Cari was also pretty awesome. Can she pick up the spare?
Si, se puede!
Eventually, John challenged the interns to a Staff v. Interns bowl-o-rama. John hand picked the intern team -- two boilerfolk (Randy and Madison) and two bunker soldiers (Priscilla and Neal). I'm still working on getting the videos of the event to load, but here's an image to sum it all up. Note: Interns are on the right, Randy's amazing score is on the bottom right. The score totals are on the bottom, bottom right.
Better luck next time staff! Er, I mean, it was a pleasure bowling with you guys! Please give us jobs in the future.
やった (read: Yatta), roughly translated is "I/we did it!"
We've definitely got the "やった！" vibe going on here.
We finished a brief for an upcoming hearing. The brief was a major undertaking, and was composed through the major contributions of basically everyone at JustChildren. We hope for a favorable outcome of course, but it's good to just have it done. I can't speak for anyone else on the team, but I know that I am really excited about getting together a genuine document that will be filed with a court after hours and hours of work. We're kind of beaming with a sense of accomplishment. :)
However, at the same time I was introduced to some of the court documents that end up getting filed against our clients. While we regularly file 25+ page, thoroughly researched briefs, our clients sometimes appear to be up against one or two page, double-spaced gigantic-margin memos, complete with spelling and grammatical errors. ... and sometimes our clients lose. It is frustrating to know that our clients can be defeated with such minimal effort. I hope for a different outcome this time, but I am worried.
This process has also presented an opportunity to reflect on our profession: in the academic setting, 25+ pages of well-argued, thoroughly researched work would hopefully get a better grade than 150 sort-of words jumbled together, sans-citation, sans-spell check. But it's not about grades anymore, but about outcome. And, in a moment of uncomfortable candor: I don't know how to adjust my expectations to a system that doesn't necessarily reward an excellent product.
Thoughts in the comments.
Just because I can't leave a post on a downer, here's some blurbs from Australian morning television.
First, apparently they didn't have the foresight to realize that if you need a translator for your joke, its doomed to fail. (#awkwardalert)
Second, they have a lot of fun on that show, talking about home invaders. (#itjustgetsbetterasitkeepsongoing)
Maybe we can use that money to buy people some happiness. Priscilla, our resident law-intern-by-day-CPA-by-night, is currently calculating how much happiness $50k can buy. According to Princeton, we are $25k short of the $75k needed for deep, personal satisfaction.
LAJC Boiler Room has our sports coverage, which you won't want to miss. Turns out Mr. Murashige can hang with the Sharklord. In racquetball at least.
Dirty South has some pretty cool coverage of the actual work that legal aid interns do. Well, at least, the work that we would do with a third-year practice license.
And Bunker Room has... motivational videos. We actually do work, we promise.
Keep your eyes out for a user by the name "BoilerMaster-BunkerBuster" who may or may not be the LAJC Executive Director aka "the big boss man." Moderately well-known fact: Big boss man traces some of his roots to AppalReD, the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund. AppalReD is a very cool organization -- I got to work there for a week this past spring. I highly recommend the Alternative Spring Break Trip to their Prestonsburg, KY office if you get a chance. (If you're not UVa Law, try setting up an ASB trip of your own to help out -- lots of other schools went there as well).
We're looking for blogs from all the other LAJC and CVLAS offices. Anybody know where they are?
Also, Boiler Room is looking for the login information for the old boiler room site. Does anybody out there know who worked as an intern in LAJC last summer?
In other news, NY Post has some informative headlines for today's news. "Weiner Pulls Out," "Weiner Wraps it Up" etc. Also, there's a page where you can vote on the best Weiner headlines. If you feel like being a thirteen-year old boy, I suggest heading over there.
Our assignments are getting longer, and more substantial. But, you just need to remember this: you can do it.
Don't believe me? Listen to this kid (who could end up being a dictator later in life -- he has the delivery down).
You should commit that to memory. If memorizing songs is easier for you, then the folks who do AutoTune the News have come to your aid. (I expect a rousing rendition tomorrow).
Good luck to Boiler Room's Ms. Nebraska and friends as they run through a grueling mud course dressed as Supreme Court Justices. Legal Aid interns: now getting down and dirty with the law 6 days a week.
CVLAS Richmond, CVLAS Petersburg and LAJC Boilerroom all have new blogs. You can get at them from our sidebar. But don't bother spending too much time on them -- you might miss something interesting at the Lonely Island.
and http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/jun/08/tdmain01-juvenile-justice-policy-disputed-ar-1092679/
and http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/va-juvenile-justice-board-votes-to-protect-gay-youth-from-discrimination-over-ags-objection/2011/06/08/AGVRhDMH_story.html
Sorry for the lack of posts in recent days. The diligent soldiers of the bunker have been working diligently for justice and everything. Meanwhile, boilerpeeps were nowhere to be found this morning.
Anyhow, there are lots of guys in the bunker room. And one married woman. This leads to a lot of pent up aggression.
Yesterday it manifested as a day-long footsy game between Neal "my 'shoes' are size 13" Modi and Priscilla "Your feet are beyond the median line, and if you touch me one more time, I swear..." Ochu-Arthus.
How will it manifest today?
In other news, we're supposed to get a new intern. We just want friends. And possibly a balance for the excessive testosterone contained in the room.
