Life As An Associate

[TruOne]

Lol great story...especially the part about homegirl challenging your credentials.  Are you supposed to keep the certificate of good standing with you at all times?

No I just arbitrarily had it in my bag at the time.

To their (the prison staff's) benefit, in the state of New York, when you pass the bar and are admitted, you receive a "bar card" which shows that you are, in fact, a lawyer.  So what usually happens is they say "can we see your bar card?" you show it to them, and its a done deal.  I didn't have that to show.

It's like that in Georgia, you get a Bar Card AND you get to park FOR FREE in the State Bar Building's Parking Deck which just happens to be across the street from all the concert parks and sports arenas.

In the courts you are supposed to present your card upon entering the Courthouse, however like all things in Georgia, once you learn a Sherrif Deputy's face or two, nobody asks you and people just assume you are a lawyer cuz you are in a suit.

Last year during my internship for a Judge I can't count how many times somebody assumed I was an Attorney while I was walking down the halls in a suit.

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Lol great story...especially the part about homegirl challenging your credentials.  Are you supposed to keep the certificate of good standing with you at all times?

No I just arbitrarily had it in my bag at the time.

To their (the prison staff's) benefit, in the state of New York, when you pass the bar and are admitted, you receive a "bar card" which shows that you are, in fact, a lawyer.  So what usually happens is they say "can we see your bar card?" you show it to them, and its a done deal.  I didn't have that to show.

It's like that in Georgia, you get a Bar Card AND you get to park FOR FREE in the State Bar Building's Parking Deck which just happens to be across the street from all the concert parks and sports arenas.

In the courts you are supposed to present your card upon entering the Courthouse, however like all things in Georgia, once you learn a Sherrif Deputy's face or two, nobody asks you and people just assume you are a lawyer cuz you are in a suit.

Last year during my internship for a Judge I can't count how many times somebody assumed I was an Attorney while I was walking down the halls in a suit.

Right, that's pretty much how it goes in most courts.  They just assume, naturally, if you're here in a suit then you must be representing somebody.

Until you get a guard or court employee who decides that they're going to be Columbo.  In that case, if I hadn't had some type of ID then I would not have gotten in.

[TruOne]

Right, that's pretty much how it goes in most courts.  They just assume, naturally, if you're here in a suit then you must be representing somebody.

Until you get a guard or court employee who decides that they're going to be Columbo.  In that case, if I hadn't had some type of ID then I would not have gotten in.

In all fairness, if I was 40-50+ and making $30k a year, I'd have a bone to pick too if I saw some young New Jack walkin' up to me making more than 5x my salary. You lucky they ain't strip search you for contrabands.

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Right, that's pretty much how it goes in most courts.  They just assume, naturally, if you're here in a suit then you must be representing somebody.

Until you get a guard or court employee who decides that they're going to be Columbo.  In that case, if I hadn't had some type of ID then I would not have gotten in.

In all fairness, if I was 40-50+ and making $30k a year, I'd have a bone to pick too if I saw some young New Jack walkin' up to me making more than 5x my salary. You lucky they ain't strip search you for contrabands.

See, you just touched on another one of my beefs right there - why can't we be proud of our folk when we see them doing their thing?   When I was flippin burgers at the local burger joint I didn't hate when I saw my peoples come through with wads of cash and what have you.  Do you.  Get yours. 

In the infamous words of J "what you eat don't make me *&^%."

[TruOne]

Right, that's pretty much how it goes in most courts.  They just assume, naturally, if you're here in a suit then you must be representing somebody.

Until you get a guard or court employee who decides that they're going to be Columbo.  In that case, if I hadn't had some type of ID then I would not have gotten in.

In all fairness, if I was 40-50+ and making $30k a year, I'd have a bone to pick too if I saw some young New Jack walkin' up to me making more than 5x my salary. You lucky they ain't strip search you for contrabands.

See, you just touched on another one of my beefs right there - why can't we be proud of our folk when we see them doing their thing?   When I was flippin burgers at the local burger joint I didn't hate when I saw my peoples come through with wads of cash and what have you.  Do you.  Get yours. 

In the infamous words of J "what you eat don't make me poo."

Cuz that's the thing, when you were flipping burgers you KNEW that the burger joint was just a launch pad for what you had planned. (Engineer, Lawyer, Moderator for LSD.com) so for you, it was just a matter of patience.

However, fast-forward to the security guards who are past the primes of their lives. There is no "just wait and see" for them, they've got more years behind them than ahead. They ain't goin' to school, nor grad school. They just tryin' to get by until they can retire and collect they "Old Timer's Check" and watch the Price Is Right everyday.

I think Uncle Otis &'em behind the Security Glass at the Courthouses deserve our sympathy rather than our ire.

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Right, that's pretty much how it goes in most courts.  They just assume, naturally, if you're here in a suit then you must be representing somebody.

Until you get a guard or court employee who decides that they're going to be Columbo.  In that case, if I hadn't had some type of ID then I would not have gotten in.

In all fairness, if I was 40-50+ and making $30k a year, I'd have a bone to pick too if I saw some young New Jack walkin' up to me making more than 5x my salary. You lucky they ain't strip search you for contrabands.

See, you just touched on another one of my beefs right there - why can't we be proud of our folk when we see them doing their thing?   When I was flippin burgers at the local burger joint I didn't hate when I saw my peoples come through with wads of cash and what have you.  Do you.  Get yours. 

In the infamous words of J "what you eat don't make me poo."

Cuz that's the thing, when you were flipping burgers you KNEW that the burger joint was just a launch pad for what you had planned. (Engineer, Lawyer, Moderator for LSD.com) so for you, it was just a matter of patience.

However, fast-forward to the security guards who are past the primes of their lives. There is no "just wait and see" for them, they've got more years behind them than ahead. They ain't goin' to school, nor grad school. They just tryin' to get by until they can retire and collect they "Old Timer's Check" and watch the Price Is Right everyday.

I think Uncle Otis &'em behind the Security Glass at the Courthouses deserve our sympathy rather than our ire.

OK you make a good argument on that one. I hear what you're saying but to give them our sympathy might be going down a slippery slope of sorts.  Kind of like saying that there's no hope for them to be any better, which is not always the case with most folks.  Sure they may be 40 years old working in corrections, but that doesn't mean that can't transfer those skills to the police force, or to the feds, or wherever they're trying to get to. 

The true issue is do they actually WANT to get somewhere else, and for folks who don't even want any better for themselves then I have no sympathy for ya.  Those were the cats who were too f#@ckin cool to go to school, now they're sittin on the sidelines of life watching you and I live it.  That is a shame, but you gets no sympathy from me if that's the life you chose for yourself.  Now if you actually WANT better for yourself and are running into life's roadblocks well then that's a different story.

Easy for us to say, I know, seeing as how we have our whole lives ahead of us, but I don't think that fact diminishes the veracity of the proposition.

[TruOne]

OK you make a good argument on that one. I hear what you're saying but to give them our sympathy might be going down a slippery slope of sorts.  Kind of like saying that there's no hope for them to be any better, which is not always the case with most folks.  Sure they may be 40 years old working in corrections, but that doesn't mean that can't transfer those skills to the police force, or to the feds, or wherever they're trying to get to. 

The true issue is do they actually WANT to get somewhere else, and for folks who don't even want any better for themselves then I have no sympathy for ya.  Those were the cats who were too f#@ckin cool to go to school, now they're sittin on the sidelines of life watching you and I live it.  That is a shame, but you gets no sympathy from me if that's the life you chose for yourself.  Now if you actually WANT better for yourself and are running into life's roadblocks well then that's a different story.

Easy for us to say, I know, seeing as how we have our whole lives ahead of us, but I don't think that fact diminishes the veracity of the proposition.

All valid points.

I think the sad part is that many of them never had the opportunity to do more than be just a security guard. They probbaly went to raggedy schools with no type of support system to lead them towards college or a higher education. Let's not foget that poverty is cyclical, so they probably never grew up around anybody who had a degree or two, so for them being a Security guard or any other time of basic job was a natural progression for them.


c'est le vie, everybody has their role to play in life.

[A.]

c'est le vie, everybody has their role to play in life.

Indeed.  There is rarely an excuse for bitterness, and thus rarely a reason to engender my sympathy.  I know plenty of janitors, cafeteria workers, etc. who make the best of their situation and do their job happily.  Thus, absent more context, I have little sympathy for those who don't.

[intent06]

Now THAT story is just priceless!!!!  Classic even.  So Sands, tell me how exactly does pro bono work? Are you assigned? Do  you get to choose? How difficult is it balancing pro bono with your regular workload?

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Now THAT story is just priceless!!!!  Classic even.  So Sands, tell me how exactly does pro bono work? Are you assigned? Do  you get to choose? How difficult is it balancing pro bono with your regular workload?

At this stage (first year associate) I am assigned to just about everything I do.  If I'm slow then I can choose to go out and seek other work directly (including pro bono), but it still has to at least be run by my assigning partner so they know what cases I'm working on.

It's not too difficult to balance pro bono with billable work since you bill it just like you would anything else.  You just have make sure that you are still getting in the billable stuff too.