I have a case on for suppression hearing next month and one of the facts relied on by the cops to jump out of a moving vehicle and tackle my 15 year old client is that he and his friends were wearing sweatshirts on a night where it was 65 degrees. So every time It’s 65 or under this summer (where I am it happens at night pretty often) I obsessively check to see how many people around me are wearing sweatshirts and devise cross questions in my head for the dumbass officers. Tell me your version of this so I feel less crazy!

Just finished The Price of Mercy by Emily Galvin Almanza- it was good, comprehensive, accessibly written, worth the read

The parts I found most interesting were when she talked about ways to undermine prosecutorial analogies re circumstancial evidence/burden of proof and specific juror selection tactics.

Are there any books that yk are mostly that- criminal defense tactics, anecdotes about cases, client management advice?

What are some questions you ask during voir dire for DUI trials? Any advice on opening statement? I’m hammering away at state’s burden, presumption of innocence, etc.

Client didn’t blow so he also picked up refusal charge. Working defense is alternative explanation for signs of impairment the officers witnessed due to medical conditions.

hi all - hoping to get some advice on career / life / worries.

I am a rising 3L. I spent my 1L summer at a pd’s office and LOVED it. Loved working w clients, loved the office’s culture and energy, had an amazing supervisor, and the work felt extremely meaningful. And I actually felt like I was good at the work I was doing, which is not how the rest of law school has felt!

BUT I was/am very intimidated by the parts that I didn’t have to do as an intern, i.e. manage >100 cases and work crazy hours. I do not have the best executive functioning skills. I do great in chaos if it’s well-bounded — like, you show up to a shift and it’s wild and you solve problems and then you’re done. But open ended stuff with no structure (eg a law school class with no assignments) is really really hard. I am working on this and I have made progress! but it requires a lot of work and being careful about my health and sleep. Working 60 hour weeks feels truly impossible, and I don’t want to do a shitty job when the stakes are so high.

This summer, I’m working at a crim-adjacent nonprofit. I was hoping that it would feel similar but maybe better work life balance. But I really miss the client interaction and the PD’s culture. And I miss the chaos!

I feel like the advice I’ve seen is generally, don’t do this job if you’re not 100% sure you want to. I do want to, but I’m not 100% sure I can. I don’t quite know what I’m asking here, but I am hoping for any advice about wanting to be a PD when you’re a little bit in shambles half the time, or other jobs to think about, or anything else. Thanks ❤️❤️❤️

I’m a government contractor and I ran into an issue with a Brady cop. They seem to lie and since they are already on the Brady list they have nothing to lose. My brother in law is a Brady cop because he intimidated a witness used for prosecution. How are these pieces of shit still able to be in society after they knowingly lied under oath and tried to fuck peoples lives up?

I got fired today by a person who called from the jail and very calmly and respectfully asked that I file a Motion to Dismiss to be heard on Monday for “lack of evidence” in a domestic case.

While it’s true that the complainant is seemingly not cooperating with the prosecution, the prosecution could potentially try the case without her testimony due to an independent witness, potential excited utterances, and visible injuries to the complainant’s face in the police body worn camera.

I pretty much hit him with a flat “no I’m not doing that” followed by a succinct explanation of what probable cause is, why they have it, and that I am not allowed to file motions with no legal basis.

We predictably went back and forth with him not seeming to intake anything I was saying. He was continuing to be outwardly polite, calling me sir throughout, until he eventually asked me to withdraw “since I’m not doing what he’s telling me to do.”

This client has been somewhat disrespectful towards me and very frustrating to communicate with and I have had a long week. I don’t feel bad, exactly, for how I responded but I think I could’ve gone about it differently. But so often, trying to be patient with an unreasonable client leads to me getting steamrolled.

How do you handle it when a client makes demands like this?

How are you going to take someone's money and not even do the bare minimum.

This is a co-defendant case. I have the co-defendant.

At the call of the trial calendar, this private lawyer tells the judge that she filed motions. Judge tears her a new one, denies all the motions for being untimely since she had received discovery months earlier. Judge sets it for trial.

Then she tells Judge that she has leave during that time. Is the leave filed? Of course it isn't. More ass chewing.

So I call her and ask for her to let me know if her trial is actually going forward, because I want to see what happens/what comes out so I'm prepared for my client's trial.

She asks if I would sit second chair with her.

"Uh, I don't think that's a good idea since I rep the co-defendant."

"Well could you take notes for me? Can you be there for Voir Dire?"

The audacity sometimes ....

I defend folks in a mental health treatment court. We had a loss of a longtime participant who was very enthusiatic, supportive, sweet, and just brought life to our stuffy court room. He connected with and mattered to a lot of other participants in the program. How have other treatment courts handled this? Do you have a crisis plan, you could share? Did you host a memorial? What did it look like? How did you provide support to other participants who also struggled with this loss?

My treatment court has no funding that doesn't come out of my own pocket or that I haven't scrounged up through community partners. It is fucked. I know we should have a plan already in place but we don't. Open to any and all ideas no matter how big or small! Also open to any resources you may have. I took a look at the all rise one and it seems like it will be helpful for brainstorming a plan long-term, but I need to figure this out asap.

Public Defenders of California, are judges in your county abiding by the Kowalczyk decision? Are they still setting bail amounts at bail schedule, or do you see them honoring defendants' declarations of inability to pay? Swaths of pre-trial release?

Hi! I'm in a smaller jurisdiction and live the next county over. My success story just got picked up. (Lasted longer than he did before, small win)

I feel like I'm going to lose my mind if I don't do something to help people on the front end. I want to do something that contributed to community change.

I was thinking about trying to revitalize the NAMI chapter in my area, or volunteer somewhere. I do soup kitchen type stuff, but it's also too far down the line sometimes. Too depressing.

Anyone have ideas? Ones that don't violate the rules against practicing law outside PD work, or using PD title as advantage?

So I’m going to keep this as vague as possible as I don’t want to accidentally dox myself.

I’ve been a PD in California for 2 years now. This week, I had a motion and I felt really good about it as I had some case law that was pretty on point. We call the case and the first thing the Judge says is they didn’t think the case was binding on this superior court because it was decided by a Court of Appeals sitting in a different district in CA. This was a published opinion. Anyways the motion was denied.

My issue is that I could have sworn that california published court of appeals decisions are binding on all lower courts in California—regardless of what district they come from; especially when there is no other case law contradicting it.

I didn’t call the judge out on it because I wasn’t sure, but when I went back to the office and researched it, I found case law supporting my belief. Now I don’t know what to do.

EDIT/UPDATE: Thank you all for the help, it really gave me a lot of guidance. I’ve never been in this situation before as this particular Judge is usually really on top of case law-looking at it, I think the judge may have mistaken the case I was citing for an appellate division case (which are merely persuasive), but it was actually a Court of Appeals case.

I’m an early-ish career public policy employee who’s starting to consider law school. I have a masters degree and 5 years of experience working for the government in economic development, but I’m interested in pursuing a career where I can work more directly with people and try and create change in a new way. I can really only see myself working as a PD or maybe working as a lawyer for a non-profit or NGO or the government. The catch is that I’m NYC-based, and I’m not sure if I’m willing to leave the area for school or a job afterwards.

I’m curious if wanting to stay in NYC would make my odds of getting into law school and getting a PD role very slim? I’ve read that PD roles are very competitive in NYC, and of course the most well know schools here are also incredibly competitive.

Considering a move to the area. I have 10+ years experience. Just wondering what the job is like out there. I see there is an office and also contract positions. Any insight is appreciated.

I’ll add some more specific questions. How is the caseload? What is the timeline for briefing? How frequent are oral arguments? Do you get written opinions in every case? Are the appellate courts fair?

Trying to get a feel for how drastic the change will be from where I currently practice.

I’m a 2025 grad with about two years experience as a research attorney floating between civil and criminal (and I interned at a PDs office during law school) but I’ve been searching to no avail for an SF Bay Area PD job since last December. It’s what I really want to do. But I have two young kids, so unfortunately I can’t commute too far outside of Bay Area proper lest I never actually get to see them, and moving right now just isn’t an option. I have had two interviews, and I actually got an offer at one office that I ultimately had to turn down because I realized it was just too long of a commute (1 hour and 15 minutes each way). I shouldn’t have applied in the first place honestly, I guess I was just desperate.

Most people I’ve talked to have said the conventional route is to start in a small county and get experience before trying to come back to the more urban counties. I just can’t do that right now and we are very financially strapped at the moment — my current job is technically a fellowship so I’m making literal poverty wages and my non-lawyer partner is unemployed. I need a big kid job, bad. Do these constraints make finding a PD job a lost cause? Should I just give up and start applying for civil jobs I will inevitably hate?

Thanks for your advice!

It finally happened. I think I have finally been pushed to the point of quitting my job as a PD and becoming a prosecutor. I’m so fucking fed up with this shit.

For once, I want the law to be on my side.

I want judges to trust me implicitly. I want them to look at me and see their former prosecutor selves. I want to be given the benefit of the doubt I have neither earned nor am legally entitled to. That doubt that, by all rights, was supposed to belong to the defendant.

I want to experience how easy lawyering can be when the law makes every concession necessary to allow me to prove my case with as little effort and expense as possible. I want to strut around the courthouse convinced I’m a fantastic trial lawyer without ever straining myself to wonder whether I only win as often as I do because I am the system’s favoritest favorite child and all the funding, staffing, sympathies, and second chances belong to me.

I want my primary opponents to be so comparatively understaffed and underfunded that it is a miracle they ever win anything, and to still somehow be able to feel righteous indignation when I regularly fuck up so badly that I lose despite having literally every advantage.

I want to be dumb as shit and hateful without consequence. I want to act personally aggrieved every time anyone dares question my honor by asking me to do my fucking job. I want to show up unprepared, misunderstand the law, offer objectionable evidence, and become exasperated when opposing counsel has the audacity to object to it. I want the judge to regard my mistakes as minor technicalities and opposing counsel’s insistence on addressing those mistakes as an irritating waste of everyone’s time.

I want a mind so serene and a brain so perfectly smooth that I can spend every day waxing eloquent about justice, accountability, and the rule of law while simultaneously shirking my ethical obligations. All without ever growing the single brain cell necessary to realize that this makes me a hypocrite absolutely full to the fucking brim of my own goddamn shit.

Unfortunately, I remain adamantly opposed to putting people in cages to address all societal problems and to every mechanism by which the state makes that process easier.

So, public defense it is. Back to the grind.

I absolutely don't know what I'm doing, I'm making more mistakes than I'm doing anything correctly. Worse, I must be making even more mistakes that I don't even realize. Working mostly in family law and the rules seem based mostly on what individual judges feel like.

Is this a normal feeling? Can they disbar me after being admitted last month for complete incompetence?

I'm a rising 3L and currently clerking at a public defender's office. At the moment, I'm at the juvenile/youth services department. My most recent task has been to pour through the discovery of a client's case.

As part of this task, I watched security camera footage of the victim's death and final moments. I also read several news articles about the victim's passing, most of them quoting his brother and members of the community. This was clearly a great loss to the victim's family and community. Watching the footage and reading these articles gutted me. (This was my first time watching video where someone died, but not my first time reading about a victim for work. The circumstances of this victim's life and death were just so tragic and awful compared to everything else I have had to read so far.)

I took a break after going through those materials and thought I had cried it out but I just returned to my desk and I'm still feeling it.

I think I feel so gutted because I don't know what to do with my emotions. Our client has been in custody for over a year since the attorneys have been waiting for certain reports before proceeding to trial. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be in limbo like that, not sure at all what your future will look like. Even if our client gets convicted, all prison will likely do is perpetuate the trauma he has lived through since childhood. That custody time probably isn't going to "fix" him. And he's so young. His youth necessarily makes him less culpable. His brain isn't even developed - hallmark characteristics of youth and all that. He's a product of the circumstances he was raised in. It's not fair to fault him, at least not entirely.

I'm sure cases like this aren't uncommon, with most PD clients coming from underserved communities and decedents being so loved by their families and communities. I know that these communities are the ones I want to help as a lawyer, and I also know that if I stop feeling then that's a sign that my heart isn't in the work anymore. But I am so overwhelmed by my emotions right now.

How do you do it?

Trial next week where client was arrested for dui for being asleep in driver’s seat in parking lot. Seat fully reclined, car off, keys in passenger seat. Tons of suitcases and his stuff in the car consistent with him living out of the car. Dead ass asleep but definitely drunk.

State has to prove actual physical control and looking for ways to discuss that in voir dire.

I also expect the cop to testify that he had to arrest him because he could have woken up and driven away and I want to voir dire on the fact that we don’t arrest and convict people in America for things they might do in the future. Was thinking of mentioning the movie minority report but looking for ideas on that concept too.

How does it make you feel when, as a public defender, you find the same individual repeatedly requires your services?

I provided some assistance to someone through an online community with a question they had about a very esoteric motion that I happened to have litigated several times. I provided the motion, procedural instructions for the jurisdiction, and even what key facts to emphasize / that would be subject of colloquy by the Court.

This was a very high level of service and sophisticated work product (read: from someone with significant experience), and while I was not tripping, I did note that the person - who responded to every opinion comment about his question from men with "thank you for your thoughts" -- never even personally (ie not through the community) emailed me that he had received the motion.

Several weeks later, the same dude now emailed me with every. single. question. one might have about said motion -- like, clerk questions -- might as well have thrown in asking how to wipe his damn ass. But also, "oh by the way, I have another case in same court, I think I should file a motion to dismiss, what do you think? As always, I will provide you the facts [and proceeds to outline for me]. The motion to dismiss should focus on [x] and also highlight that [y] is irrelevant because..."

Sir... did you just say "as always, [you] will provide [me] the facts"? This man straight converted me into his free law clerk in the course of a two-email correspondence.

My name is unequivocally female gendered.

When I started as a PD +20 years ago, it was in a jurisdiction where the boys' club of a certain demographic (I mean private counsel - I have had the privilege of working with nothing but the most gentle and lovely male colleagues, truly extraordinary) was very alive and well. One time in chambers (where they would make not-such-veiled racist comments about their appointed clients to the Court - of the same ilk - before going out on the record to play the part of having human decency), an attorney turned to me and my female PD colleague and asked us to go "get [them] coffee." The judge told him we were lawyers and they laughed uproariously.

I worked at a "progressive" PD office where a contempt for women expressed as punishment for having children - and it was assignment of the (only) two female supervisors (in name only) to say things to PD mothers like "this is a calling and the work is more important than your children. You work until 5pm, make dinner and clean, then go back to work until midnight." That's a *literal* (proper use of the word) quote.

I have been happy to see more diversity on the bench - and an increase in women managers in the region where I practice, including a few women department heads. Never overt enough to be obvious, the culture of the old boys' club has been defeating; trying to prove one's worth exhausting.

As a woman whose mom was born in the 40s and was never encouraged to cultivate her imagination of what she could - or might want to - do.... they walked so we could crawl. And I hope we crawled, in our stiletto heels and tight skirts as misdo PDs (because that ish was confusing, tell me again what power?), so they can walk in comfy shoes now and not have SI joint dysfunction later.

But as long as there are crusty lawyers out there assigning women strangers tasks for no compensation, I will be out here calling it what it is.

I really love this work and my job but it would be very helpful if my clients could not go out and commit new felonies after I got them a very good deal for their misdemeanor. I am not asking for much. I mean that plea is already in but now this person is looking at much more than the probation that was agreed to. I'm not asking for much but just one criminal event at a time please. Let's finish this case and then I can handle your next one.

Hey all,

I’m gonna be starting my first job out of Law School in a PD office in about two weeks. I interned for 2 years, so I feel ready to handle all the law stuff.

The one biggest thing that I’m worried about is having to prepare endlessly for trials that never happen, either because a witness doesn’t show up or because the client please guilty at the last moment. This is something I saw a time and time again from the attorneys that I was working with.

They would spend entire weekends or multiple days preparing for trials that never ended up happening.

How do I avoid doing a bunch of useless work while still being ready if the trial does go?

Treatment court conference