I grew up wanting to be a criminal attorney. I changed my mind after my first DUI case. I went to a small unaccredited law school. This meant I could take the bar exam but I would not have the job offers graduates from ABA accredited schools would get. But that was all right. I figured I would break into criminal law somehow. I simply wanted to graduate. Then I wanted to pass the bar. I would think about getting work as a lawyer later.

The best place, if not the only practical place to get experience as a criminal attorney is either with the district attorney's office or the office of the public defender. But again, government jobs were handed out to large ABA accredited law school graduates. I did have the opportunity to interview for one position with the public defenders office however. The state had lifted a hiring freeze. For the previous year the state was not even interviewing anyone for government legal jobs regardless of what school you were from. In interviewed and received an 88 out of a 100 on the interview.

I knew this was not good enough to get the one and only job opening with all the competition out there. Two days late I received a notice in the mail that the hiring freeze was back in effect. The county had not even filled the one position before the freeze was back in place. I decided to take a course in drunk driving defense. What I learned seemed easy enough to put into practice. After completing the course I ran an ad in the local shopper. My phone rang all day long. I went to court with my first client.

The courtroom was in the city I grew up in across the street from the college I graduated from. There was no defense to my client's charge. As my DUI class instructor said sometimes lawyers are there simply to hold their client's hand in court. That was my job. But I wanted to go through the steps just the same. I walked over to the district attorney's desk. She was chatting with the female bailiff. I went over to the deputy district attorney to discuss the charge and the penalty she would agree to as I learned in class. She was chatting with the female bailiff. I patiently waited for her to finish.

The bailiff looked me up and down, turned her nose up and walked away. When I asked the deputy district attorney about the charge and penalty she curtly said I would find out from the judge. She said this without looking up from her files.

I was treated very politely by the female judge however. I think she probably came up the ranks of the public defenders office. My client got the basic penalty he was due and although his license was suspended for one year, I was able to allowed to drive to and from work and while he was working since driving was part of his job. But I pulled the ad from the shopper. One DUI defense was enough. One criminal case was enough for me to change my mind about criminal law. At court I felt like I was the one who was on trial not my client.

But the truth of the matter is, the criminal attorney is the agent of the accused and has to know that going into not only the courtroom but into law school.

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Article Submitted By: Adriana Noton
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