Catch-up catch-all

Extremely busy the past three days with clinical all day on Thursday and Friday, and training for mediation today. Socially busy too: dinner with New Orleans folks on Thursday night, Olympics-viewing party on Friday night at the French King's apartment, and tonight -- well, tonight I was supposed to see Underworld with the Neener, but I am too exhausted to go. Although I left the French King's apartment early and slept for a good 9.5 hours last night, I came home tonight after dealing with training and lay down on my bed, feeling as though I was going to sink through the covers and disappear.

Clinical is good -- I'm going to get the chance to do and see some good work. A lot of the folks around there are Crimson grads from back in the day, and they are incredibly good lawyers with a real dedication to teaching as well.

Far too tired to write up a full description of the two days, so I'm going to just copy my first journal to my employment law prof (we have to turn in periodic journals so she has something to grade us pass/fail on).

I came to [this legal services clinic] in part because I liked employment law and in part because A. Park, Crimson ’05, spoke very warmly about her experience working in the employment discrimination division with Mark [the employment discrimination supervisor]. A. and I met, funny enough, not at law school but at a law firm recruiting lunch in New York in the fall, and discovered we had similar interests in employment, particularly employment discrimination and implicit bias. She encouraged me to do the clinical and pursue my interests academically, and in a sense I feel like I am following in her footsteps; yesterday I found several documents that bore her name in various client files.

This is my second day at LSC. Mark has assigned two employment discrimination cases to me, both of which are in federal court. We were supposed to have met with a possibly new client this morning, but she did not show. (Mark apologetically warned me that this was not an unusual occurrence; I told him at I’d worked in a legal services office this summer, so I was not in the least perturbed.) If she had come to the office, Mark would have done the introduction and legal advice parts of our intake interview, and I would have talked with the client about the facts of her case. The thought of doing that made me a bit nervous, despite having done intake at least five or six times in two different offices since I started law school. I’m always worried that I won’t ask an obvious and important question. It’s a good anxiety to have, but should be alleviated by the fact that I can always call with follow-up questions. Being new at something means I will make mistakes – there’s just no getting around that. I can almost accept it.

The first case involves someone who was fired after being suspected of insurance fraud. Mark called this case a good law school exam – it involves a number of claims, including discrimination on the basis of mental disability, ERISA discrimination, and a couple of other non-discrimination-related theories. This case was filed in December 2004, and we are nearing the end of the discovery stage. There are a number of depositions coming up, and Mark says that he hopes I’ll be able to do some of them. Again, quite nervous about that, but I know it will be invaluable experience. I think I’ll be around long enough for the summary judgment decision.

The other case is much more straightforward: discrimination on the basis of a physical disability. This was just filed on Feb. 1, so I’ll be seeing the front end of a federal case here. Given that most of these trials – if we end up going to trial – take one to two years (in federal court – state court trials take much longer), I think I’ll be around long enough to see the beginning of the discovery stage, which would bookend the other case nicely.

My goals for this semester are to get a better grasp on employment law doctrine, as well as to get some experience working on actual cases. I’d like to figure out if employment law and/or litigation are areas I’d be interested in working in after graduation.

I’m also interested in learning about the problems specific to the state's approach to employment discrimination. Today Mark invited me to accompany him to a meeting of several employment law plaintiffs’ lawyers who were discussing ways to improve access to legal aid for low-income complainants, and how to improve the State Commission Against Discrimination (SCAD), which is widely regarded as a complete and utter mess. An attorney from SCAD showed up halfway through the meeting, and – probably to many people’s surprise – a productive discussion ensued, including the idea of getting an independent organization to audit SCAD and suggest improvements. The next meeting will be in about 4-6 weeks, and I hope I’ll be able to attend again. Today’s meeting was a wonderful opportunity to see how legal services lawyers can also (hopefully) effect systemic change.

In sum -- a good start to what I hope will be a good semester at the clinic.