summer classes / internship

My last 2 classes are an internship and an advanced legal research class. The internship class does have a classroom participation component (sort of) that is fulfilled by answering questions and keeping a journal online. I will post some of those journal entries here because it fits both needs. The other (advanced legal research) class is one that I wish that I could have taken prior to writing my rigorous writing assignment. But oh well...

My goals for the internship are mainly to complete the required number of hours in order to get course credit and to observe as much trial tactics and skills as possible. As a secondary goal (which grows into more of a leading goal as the days pass) I need to network and market myself into a job. I want to pick up as much information as possible about the effective practice of law while I am working at the public defender office however. I want to learn how the criminal moves through the system from his arrest until his ultimate freedom if he is eventually released entirely from the “system”. I hope to see how criminal defendants think in regards to their lawyer, and how much of the information that they tell is actually truthful and forthcoming. I want the opportunity, however small it is, to stand before the court as the representative of another person who needs that representation. I want to stand beside him with the compassion that “this is my client and I owe a duty to him to speak for him in his best interest” while detaching myself enough to actually do what is in his best interest. Most of all, I would like the opportunity to taste the success of whatever victory I can achieve for my client, however fleeting that victory may be.