I have an interview with the public defender’s office this morning and I am nervous – first day at a new school and will anyone like me, that kind of nervous. I was not this anxiouis for the legal aid interview (probably because I knew deep in my heart that it was not the job for me). I want these people to like me, I want to impress them with my legal prowess. But I know how competitive it is to get one of these jobs, despite the fact that its thankless and hard and scary all rolled into one. Not entirely the makings of a rocking good time. But I know how to defend people. And I’m kind of good at it.
I think part of the reason why I’m so scared is because of Woman of the Law’s tales of her interviews where they asked her to cross-examine witnesses etc. Now, mind you, I’m not an anyL. I’ve been a practicing lawyer for many years and have spent most of my time in a courtroom, cross-examining witnesses, getting yelled at by judges, having witnesses say stuff you’d never expect and having to shuffle through your notes to find where the inconsistencies are and either trying to exploit them or to fix them. But its very difficult to do this as a piece of performance art, because the way I’ve done this may not be the way they want me to do it. But how will I know until I’ve already done it wrong?
So, here is the exchange I’m imagining:
Interviewer: Now, Ms. Notguilty, we’d like to see if you are actually as good as your resume states. You have glowing recommendation from judges and prior employers, but we still need to see you in action. Say you had to cross-examine this major witness in two minutes because no one told you you had this trial until five minutes ago. Here is his prior testimony. What would you do?
Notguilty: Hey, you want me to show you my skillzzz? Like what? You just gonna sit there and watch the notguilty in action so you can learn from me? Uh huh. No. I don’t think so. I’m not your monkey. This is patented stuff.
Interviewer: Now, Ms. Notguilty, we are just trying to assess your, um, skillzzz. We need to know how you would use the prior testimony in this case.
Notguilty: You mean how I would drop kick kung fu style the prior inconsistent statement on this dude? How I would be able to get in the hearsay within hearsay? How I would overcome the fact that this is my own witness and now I needs to impeach him, you wanna know hows I’d do that? That is on my video. You need to buy it for two payments of 19.95. I’m not just gonna show youz how its done and then walk out of here. You could be taking notes. Hell, you could be videotaping this to sell on the street. I know how you do.
Interviewer: Thank you for coming in, notguilty. We’ll call you.
Okay, time to put on my high heels so I’ll look like I’m 5’1′!
