Yesterday was an interesting day. I went to my job interview at the public defender’s office and I think it went very well. I met with three women, the head of the hiring committee, the head of the Southern Maryland Division, and an Appellate Attorney. It was all very intimidating at first, with the head of the hiring giving me this very nicely prepared speech about how the interview would go – a series of questions on which I would be given a point score, followed by a hypothetical also given a point score. If the score is high enough, it would be forwarded to the executive committee, then I would get another interview, then another. So, I was nervous because I could not imagine what questions they would ask me for scoring purposes. Were they true/false? Multiple guess?
First question: What kind of trial experience do you have? Have you done felony trials? What level.
Answer: My first trial as a criminal defense attorney was an attempted murder. How about rape? Multiple count child sex? Your run of the mill drug charge for which the client can get life in prison? Oh, and I’ve had plenty of experience with your regular cow tipping/disorderly conduct/dwi as well.
I think I kicked ass on that question.
Second question: What case keeps you up at night and why?
Answer: Easy, my first trial, the attempted murder. I worked my ass off on that trial and the guy was convicted. Not of the attempted murder, but of lesser includeds that, because of his prior convictions, still got him a shitload of time in jail. I heard later that the jury was going to walk him – until he testified.
I think I got all points on that question too.
Third question: On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your desire to work at the public defender’s office.
Answer: Okay, how do you answer this? Do you say, oh, I don’t know, a seven? What does a seven mean? Or an eight? Or a five? It makes no sense, so I said ten. What else would you say?
Hypothetical: You represent someone charged with petty theft. The DA says that because your client has no priors and has never been arrested before, she’ll be okay with a plea to something along the lines of a NY style ACOD (but with actual probation during the six month period) with expungement after 3 years. Your client says to you, “yes, that would be great because last time I was on probation, I did great.” So, you go into court and the judge looks at your client and says “I will go along with this plea, but tell me, Mr. Client, is it true you have never been arrested before?” To which your client answers “oh yes, judge, never.” What do you do as his lawyer.
Answer: NOTHING! I don’t have to volunteer information. Sheesh. Does anyone get that answer wrong? I said I would probably yell at my client afterwards for being such a turd, but I haven’t encouraged my client to lie, haven’t counseled him to lie, and didn’t even know he was going to do it until he did it.
And here I was thinking I’d have to do something super creative, like my solid gold dancer imitation complete with the hair flip and split combo, or bake a molten chocolate cake.
Well, here’s the sticking point. Apparently there is a hiring freeze in the pd’s office. They have 23 new positions which they can hire for, though. There is one position that is available soon, but it is in Southern Maryland. Being open minded, husband and I drove down to a town called La Plata yesterday to check it out. We quickly drove back. I had no idea how much the rest of this state sucked. I’m not usually in love with Baltimore, but driving down there made me realize how good we have it here. The rest of this state is SOUTHERN! We walked into the 7-11 and the woman had a bee-hive and no indo-pak accent. They looked at me and, as husband said, they were probably thinking “man, is she brown. She must be from Cancun.”
Anyway, I’m hopeful that they will offer me a position closer to this fair city, or else I’ll have to just say no. I have my second interview with legal aid tomorrow. Compared to Southern MD, the drive to Annapolis seems like a cake walk.
