Have we decided whether this is a Story-Update blog or a Work/Life-Update blog or..?
Because I think I'm just going to go ahead and write about work - which is going to be boring because 1) My writing skills are all shot to pieces (which is not making my job any easier since the entirety of my job is just writing pieces) and 2) I'm not sure the incredible level of technical skill necessary to make working way out beyond the cornfields sound interesting.
Right now, I'm externing for a justice on the appellate court (I just found out today that the judge's mother was the first female judge in Alexander County, the first female circuit judge in the judicial court, and the first female appellate court justice in the district! - Also, unrelated: apparently yesterday her caretaker/nurse/whatever tried to pull a cover-up on her by saying someone broke into their house to steal pain pills or something ridiculous like that; and in the office we were all like, I can't believe someone's trying to pull this on a judge...).
It's a pretty sweet job.
A basic day starts at 9am, an hour or so for lunch, and then the day ends at 4.30pm - although, I get the feeling that the times aren't really very strict: sometimes people leave early, or arrive late, or take a nice long lunch. And since we work for the State, we get all the State holidays off, too. I was talking to one of the clerks in the office, and she said that one of the main differences between working for the State and working for a corporation doing transactional stuff is that you really feel like you're making an impact.
And I feel it, too: On my first day I was assigned to write a disposition/rule 23 order - kind of like an opinion but because the facts are so similar to other case law it won't add anything new. But still, it kind of feels like what I'm writing has a definite impact (alright, so maybe not what I am writing (unless!), but the work done in the office anyway) - I mean, you can pull up a picture through the database of the very person whose case I'm working on.
Also, it's a little like a behind the scenes peek at what goes into those cases, the thousands of which we've had to read. At the appellate level, there's a panel of three judges who listen and then they take an impression vote - and so we got to hear what their initial thoughts are following the oral arguments and there's a better idea of what direction the opinion is going to be like. It's totally different from cramming for contracts/torts - and it's definitely like a practical application of some of the key terms we've learned in class.
I've also gotten to do a few court observations [Small world note: at the first courthouse I met another extern; and then today, I almost met his wife, who was externing at the other courthouse!] - haven't seen any big bench trials or anything major - but it's kind of cool just to be there, I guess. Though sitting through the criminal cases definitely reaffirms that I am not interested in crim law (thankfully, the two crim cases I'm dealing with now are on appeal for other issues, more procedural type stuff). Haven't seen any really exciting family law cases - but I've heard them described to me as really nice... Basically, court watching days are just watching the judges handle long cases really quickly, mostly preliminary hearings or assigning new days for the cases to come back.
Took a brief tour of the Appellate Courthouse today - it used to be the Illinois Supreme Court at one time. Lincoln argued a case there!
Well... I think that's everything about my job.
Updates, please!
P.S. The people in Southern Illinois are all incredibly nice. I mean, I'm from the Midwest so I guess I've always heard other people say Midwesterners are nice, but - let's just say, everyone here is so nice it almost makes me think I could live/work here for a little moment (which is coming from a girl who never even thought she'd have to learn how to drive because who needs to drive when you live in the city).
