Law School Story

I began to law school nearly 30 years ago. I did it, I thought, so that I could independently raise my daughter. But once I got there I found I had to work hard at studying.

That is a skill I never perfected.

I  had ALWAYS crammed for exams and rarely if ever spent time studying. My grades were good and I saw no need.

Law school taught me a whole new concept of myself. As the true IDIOT.

I learned to read while I was doing anything else. At my daughter's concerts, I sat in the back with a book and read. At family gatherings, I sat in a bedroom and read. At parties, I read.

I was sans cell phone or iPad or computer. Remember, this was 30 years ago!

But I still never learned the art of studying. I rarely took notes and those that I did take made no sense later on.

So my grades were the usual for law school students. The ever present "C".

But I got one A.  And this is the story that I must tell.

In my third year, I was one elective short. There was nothing that I really liked in the curriculum so I asked my study partner, Josh, what he had taken. He had taken Administrative Law in a night class. If I took the class, he would let me us his notebook.

Now Josh was one of those law students who had perfected studying. He took good notes. He outlined his notes. He read the books and outlined them. He then created an outline of both those sources. He was anal.

But in Administrative Law, he had found out that the professor followed a pattern. He would cover the same amount of pages and ask for classroom briefs (where you had to tell the class about a case) on the same cases in EVERY section he taught. He would ask for volunteers to sign up for a case or two on a given night so the students always knew if they had to participate or whether they could skip the class. If it was your turn he asked the SAME questions that he asked in the last class.

Josh had taken down every brief, every question and every answer. And he had it in a notebook.

I took the class. I volunteered for a night of briefing. I even went to all the classes.

And that is where the worm turned.

Somebody wasn't there one night to give their briefs. The professor was quite shaken by this turn of events and eventually asked for someone in the class to give the briefs.

I had not (nor had anyone else in the class) read the cases. Why should we, they weren't assigned to us to brief. BUT (and I giggle as I think about it) I HAD JOSH'S NOTEBOOK!

So, for the first time in law school, I raised my hand.

The professor called upon me and I read the briefs that Josh had written. I answered each of the professor's questions (written out by Josh) with the answers that Josh provided.

I briefed the next case. Same thing.

My seatmate was dying a thousand deaths. She couldn't laugh out loud (decorum, you know) so she hid her face in her arms on the desktop. We sat so far back that the professor could barely see either of us so her shaking shoulders were not a dead give away.

After I was through, I turned to speak to her and I heard the professor ask, "Miss, what is your name?' I told him and then he said,

"That was the best briefing I have heard all quarter. I am raising your grade a full point for excellent work!"

I must have turned thirteen shades of purple. My seatmate left the room.

Yup, I got an A.

The next quarter, Josh was able to sell his notebook for a fair sum. He had lots of takers.

Complaint Department

I am not one to complain. (I said that with a straight face and I am hiding from the impending lightening bolt...)

For the last three days I have been fighting a migraine headache. Not just a migraine. The headache came and stayed. For three days I have felt like my brain had separated from my skull and was going to explode at any minute. I found I could not form words into proper sentences. I could not complete a thought. My body felt like it was being slowly and inexorably pushed into the ground that I stood on.

I could not sleep, I could not lay down. But my eyes would shut automatically to try and save my brain from the attacks of light and sound that surrounded me.

And I had to go to work. I had cases that could not be handed off to someone else.

So I stumbled to work on Monday. Hoping against all odds that nothing would go wrong and people would speak gently to me.

HA!

The landlord was putting a new roof on our building. That was not a quiet and gentle thing.

Our office building with the original asbestos tiles.

Big, burly, half-dressed males (happy to have a job and really quite nice) hammered and crow-barred gleefully on the roof over my head. My head responded in kind. I wanted to crawl under my desk.

The odor of the old shingles, the sound of the workers and their tools, the expansion in my head was driving me to new heights of complaint.

Then I went to work. Courthouses are not a great place for compassion. Lawyers and judges try to avoid that human quality. And when faced with a grumpy, mind melting, female who is, in some cases, twice their age, the idea of compassion seems to recede even further from their realm of behavior.

Now I do not blame these folk. They were trying to do their jobs and I was having some difficulty expressing myself in complete, coherent sentences. Come to think of it, I was probably acting like some of my clients on their good days. That is frightening to a District Attorney.

I finally got it all done and went back to the place of hammers and tongs.

For some reason, my daughter thought she should drive me home.

Home, prescription drugs, bed, dogs and cats curled around me.

I finally slept.

I really can't complain. My physical pain goes away in time, I have a job that I created myself, I have a great kid who looks out for me, and I have a spouse who closed all the blinds, put the dogs on the bed and stayed very quiet for a long time.

I think that is very, very good. I am blessed.

Friends

Vocal Arts at the San Luis Obispo Mission

Last night was rehearsal for the Vocal Arts Ensemble. Every Tuesday night from 7 to 9:30. We go to practice our music.

But we also go to meet our friends.

It is a bit of a raucous group. We tend to turn into the kids in choir class at high school. Talkin' when we should be listening, laughing at inside jokes, etc. You know the routine.

But VAE is special. Maybe because there is a core group that has been there for over 30 years. Maybe because we all like the music we make. Maybe because you make friends there who are very, very special.

Last night I notice a friend of mine sitting alone during the break. Her head was down and her shoulders slumped.

I went over, sat down next to her, and asked if she was ok.

I got the biggest hug. And we started talking. She had troubles and she told me a little about them. Very quickly and with that laugh that comes with sharing something negative that you don't want others to feel like your a wimp.

You know that laugh?

And so I hugged her again. And she asked me how I was. She knows how hard it has been for me since Dan died.

And she began to comfort me!

She reminded me that when things get tough you remind yourself of all that is good in the world. You keep your chin up and your eyes open.

I was in awe of her ability to reach inside herself and find that kernal of warm, fresh life and take it for a spin.

She raised her head and laughed.

We had so much to say to each other. But rehearsal started again.

I will go back next week and continue the conversation.

It is the music and the music of friendship that makes VAE special.

Thank you, my friend.

Cases and Wierdness

I really wish I could talk about some of the cases that I handle.

My clients range from the affluent to the homeless. From the very intelligent to the severely developmentally disabled. From the beautiful to the disfigured.

They are all there. Looking to me for a little help.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I really can help. Not just with a lower sentence but with putting them on a new path. A path that does not include the criminal justice system. A path where I will never see them again.

But that is getting harder and harder to do. The more legislation that occurs to keep society "safe" means fewer and fewer community programs. Fewer and fewer rehab centers. Fewer and fewer centers that will deal with mental health issues or developmental problems.

I am increasingly frustrated that this additional legislation is based on fear. Pure, simple fear. With no basis in fact. I stood up when the latest restrictions on sex offenders was enacted. I wrote a piece for the local paper on the costly and damaging effects the legislation would have.

The piece was cut to ribbons and made no sense.

I had tried to say that there is a HUGE difference between a sex offender and a child molester. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. They should not be treated the same. But they are.

Lifetime registration for all. No matter what the behaviour and no matter when it occurred.

This is not the time and the place for me to go into it all. It would take hours.

But it frustrates me. And it makes me angry that people aren't given the chance to turn their lives around. Many from the age of 18 or 19.

And then there are the mentally ill.

I think I will save that for another day.

Thanks for listening.

Glass Ceilings

I went to work for a large firm just once. It was an insurance defense firm in Bakersfield. I was the only one there with any criminal experience. I put in more hours than anyone else there and I was paid less. I quit and opened my own firm.

When I first graduated from law school in 1985, I was interviewed by a large firm. I was very excited. I walked in and sat down in front of a man in his 60's. He smiled and said, "Why does a pretty young thing like you want to work in law?"

I walked out. I was furious.

I had a young child. I was a single parent and no firm wanted me.

So when the job in Bakersfield opened up, I went for the interview. I didn't like Bakersfield. I had been raised about 60 miles north of the town and still had childhood induced prejudices about the place.

I didn't expect much. But the interviewer was THE Public Defender. His first question was "When can you start?"

I blurted out, "Aren't you going to ask me about my qualifications?" And his response was "I read your resume, I talked to one of your professors. If you want the job, it is yours."

I jumped on it.

And I stayed for nearly 15 years.

But I was still under a glass ceiling. The bias that women couldn't handle felonies was ever present.

So I spent lots of time with the guys. The ones who did the felonies. I listened and I used some of the techniques that they bragged about. I worked longer hours and I read.

When I left that job, I was one of two women in the county that was qualified to do Death Penalty cases. I handled some of the toughest felony cases that the Public Defender had.

I am not bragging. I am simply saying that I had to spend more time and do more work for the same recognition.

Now, I believe (really don't know this for a fact) that I am the only female in the county where I live now that is qualified to defend high level felonies. I am probably the only one that enjoys them.

The point?

There is a very thick glass ceiling. And talented, strong women are needed to break it.

I hope that law schools will start empowering women to realize that they can make a huge difference by saving one person at a time in criminal defense work.

This diatribe got started when I read the following editorial in the New York Times this morning:

Editorial

The Glass Ceiling

Published: October 8, 2011

Thirty years ago this month, Sandra Day O’Connor heard her first cases on the Supreme Court. Many thought her appointment would herald the shattering of the law’s glass ceiling, but at best it only cracked.
Decades later, the profession is still resistant to putting women in leadership positions, and many women have abandoned the law altogether. Women still make up less than one-third of American lawyers, even though they have made up almost half of new law-school graduates for the last two decades. In law firms, women make up 45 percent of associates but only 15 percent of equity partners and 6 percent of equity partners at the 200 largest firms.
More women have joined the bench in the last three decades, but progress in that arena has been slow as well. While three women are on the Supreme Court, as of last year women made up only 22 percent of the federal judiciary and 26 percent of state judges. No state has equal representation of women on the bench.
Women with children are having the hardest time staying in the profession. They are half as likely to be hired, a recent Cornell study found, when compared with childless women with similar qualifications.
Even when women do not have children, bias is reflected in the major factors that shape careers in law firms — evaluations, assignments and compensation — according to a landmark report from the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession.
The presumption that women are less devoted to their jobs means that they often have to show more evidence of achievement than men. Even when their legal work is outstanding, women have tended to get fewer opportunities because of how work is assigned through the buddy system. And pay for female lawyers is generally less — the median income is 74 percent of what men earn — with the gap widening as they move higher. Another study has found that some 90 percent of female lawyers report having encountered sex discrimination in the profession, a percentage that has not decreased since the 1970s.
Some women do succeed in private law firms, especially if they fit the traditional model of the lawyer who can leave family responsibilities to a stay-at-home partner or a nanny. But that model represents only one-sixth of the work force, and is outmoded. There are ways to retain more women in the law. Flexible schedules can work well, but to end their stigma men need to choose to use them as well as women. And firms must have transparent systems for evaluating, assigning and paying lawyers.
Legal employers should understand that unless they retain a higher share of women, the profession will continue to lose talented lawyers. It will fail to be a profession that embodies gender equality — what many thought the O’Connor selection promised to bring.

A version of this editorial appeared in print on October 9, 2011, on page SR10 of the New York edition with the headline: The Glass Ceiling.

 

I Did NOT Panic

It is Saturday morning. The silent discussion over who is going to get up and feed the dogs has begun. Mohawk is standing by the bed whining as only he can. Zelda is trying to climb up the side of the bed and is nudging my hand to get petted. And LadyBug is standing on my legs.

But she is not licking me or trying to get to my face.

I know that something is wrong. 1) she is NOT licking my face and 2) she is shaking.

Sleep leaves me and I lean up to find her with twitching eyes and a head waggle.

I knew immediately that she was having a re-occurrence of the geriatric vestibular syndrome. And I knew what to do.

I wrapped her up nice and warm, offered her food and water (which she refused) and called the vet.

Within an hour her symptoms began to subside and by the time I got her to the vet she was walking (albeit sideways but walking).

By the time we got back home, she was ready to eat. I just had to put it where she could see it and down it went.

She is sleeping now. She is not in pain. In fact, she is being pampered more than ever.

And I did NOT panic!

I think I will recover from this one. I know LadyBug will.

Caffine and me

I love coffee. It is a beverage that I was raised on. My father gave me my first taste when I was a toddler. He called it sucabee. It was a sugar cube soaked with coffee.

And I was off and running.

Coffee was a way of life at our house. It was the first thing on the stove in the morning and the last thing off the stove at night. When percolators came out, it was plugged in by the first person in the kitchen in the morning. Usually mother.

Dad always unplugged it at night. But only after he had his afterdinner cup and his beforebed cup. And don't forget the watching tv cup.

I really got into coffee in college. Trying to stay awake to study and (to be honest) I thought it was VERY grown up.

Well, now I am grown up and I still wake up with coffee.

When I went to Italy, I got a chance to drink European espresso. (It is NOT EXpresso, it is ESpresso!) So black and thick you might think it was liquid tar. But it was not bitter, just strong. And flavorful.  When I got back to the States, I couldn't drink the coffee here. It was WAY too weak.

So I got an espresso machine. And went crazy.

I have backed off since then. I really can drink American coffee now. It is much stronger than it used to be.

But, I can't sleep if I drink the fulled leaded coffee at night.

So I switched to unleaded at night. (Decaffinated....)

Except last night I put the wrong coffee in the coffee machine.

So I am writing about coffee at 3am.

Just in time for a fresh cup. In about 2 hours.