What have I been watching?: Survivor - David vs. Goliath
What have I been listening to?: Morbid: A True Crime Podcast
I am graduating from law school in 30 days. The time has gone fast, in hindsight, but it's also about damn time. I started law school in the fall of 2019. I completed only one full semester in-person before the pandemic struck and our second semester was converted to remote. Finally, we've been back in person, although it is still not entirely "normal," with lingering mask requirements for in-classroom.
I worked so, so, so hard during 1L and felt so, so, so overwhelmed. I felt barely on top of things, constantly, despite putting in long days consistently. It definitely took time to get accustomed to reading cases, legal textbooks, etc. At first, you didn't exactly know what specifics you should be picking up on out of the great expanse of text we were assigned. So your brain tried to distill it all, tried to comprehend it all. I had thick binders for each class, full of comprehensive notes for every single case and every reading assigned. It all took forever, and was not conducive to a balanced lifestyle, but it got me good grades and helped me get a judicial internship for my first summer.
By 2L, I had finally gotten the groove of things and gotten accustomed to distilling this kind of material. But the added element of Law Review was thrown into the mix, and I all of a sudden had 20-30 hours a week of article review, citation editing, and source confirming on top of the same amount of schoolwork. On top of this, I had to write my Note through the Law Review to complete my writing requirement. The pandemic fucked up the summer associate market, and I got either rejected or ghosted by dozens of firms. Those who managed to secure summer associate positions walked away after that summer with a nice $20-30k in their pocket from 10-12 weeks of work. I got another unpaid judicial position and a part-time job at the school's law clinic for which I received a stipend of around $1200 I think it was.
This semester, my last semester of 3L, has been my most relaxed ever--which feels almost wrong and disconcerting at times. I have had only two classes: Evidence and Animal Law. Evidence is a beast of a class. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of Federal Rules of Evidence, exceptions to those rules, exemptions to those rules, etc. Animal Law was my "fun" class, and I just finished up my last class for it day before yesterday. Our final three classes comprised of mock proceedings in which myself and my other two classmates (tiny class) played either the prosecutor, the defense, or the judge. Most recently, the proceeding was an animal cruelty prosecution. I was assigned to serve as the defense for that proceeding. At first glance, the case did NOT look good for me. The defendant had a history of domestic violence, suspected of prior animal abuse, and served time for assault. However, as I continued reading through my materials to prepare for the proceeding, I realized that the bulk of the prosecution's information and material was going to constitute impermissible propensity evidence. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, you can't just willy nilly point to a person's upbringing or past to say "look, they have been a violent sort of person in the past, so that means they were probably violent in this instance. It's obviously more complicated than that, and there are sometimes ways that you can manage to finesse that evidence in, but we didn't get into the weeds for purposes of this mock proceeding. I was also able to make several successful objections to hearsay. Ultimately, my "client" was found not guilty because I successfully convinced the judge that what the prosecution had been able to show was simply not enough.
This semester, I also completed an internship with the Humane Society of the United States, Animal Protection Litigation (APL). Being offered a law clerk position with them was such an honor and a privilege. I had applied for and interviewed for animal law positions the previous summer, but nothing panned out. I was made aware of this law clerk position with HSUS APL through an alum from my law school. I am so grateful for this because it was exactly what I hoped to do and ended up being even better than I anticipated.
The internship was fantastic, and I am glad that as a 3L with a lot of coursework and experience under my belt at that point, I felt actually competent to help with litigation. I don't think that in my previous internships I ever felt really like a burden or incompetent, but it was always a concern that I had. For this internship, I especially felt like I was really contributing and producing work on par with that of the attorneys. I knew what I had to do for my assignments, I knew where to find the information I needed, and I knew how to write it up and organize it. So I felt really confident with my work and my contributions. I assisted with research and memo writing on a ton of issues--zoning issues (nonconforming uses), municipal ordinances to ban the sale of fur products (and the concern of preemption by state law), deceptive trade practices and consumer protection issues, the responsibilities and ethical implications involved in consulting as an attorney for other organizations, etc. I had to complete a mid-semester review with a supervising attorney, and he said that all the attorneys I worked with gave glowing reviews of my research and writing abilities and that I was able to get them exactly the answers they were looking for. I'm so proud to hear things like that, especially for an organization like this that I admire and support, working on cases that matter for animals and for people trying to protect animals.
APL has a few different focused groups within it: Companion Animals, Wildlife, Farm Animals, and Legislative Drafting. Over the course of my 12 weeks with HSUS APL, I got to help out attorneys in all of the four groups. My attorney mentor for the semester was an attorney in the Farm Animals group, and she was great. I think we will keep in touch.
Right as my time was ending at HSUS APL, shit hit the fan. The US Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that HSUS APL has been litigating for some time. It's a challenge to a California law that mandated minimum standards of living for farmed animals. The challenge is brought by a pork producers association. The fact that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case means there will be a ton of work for HSUS APL to get through.
Here's an article about the grant of certiorari: https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/566784554/scotus-should-protect-states-rights-and-uphold-prop-12-in-california
I would love to return to work for HSUS APL or a similar animal protection organization in the future. I think I would bring some good work to the table, and I am very motivated by these issues.
I'll leave it at that for today--it's time for me to make a late dinner.
Cheers,
-Ginger
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