nin137

Nick's Journal
2008-02-08 03:37:40 (UTC)

Well...I know what type of work I DON'T want to do

about a month ago i decided to finally cave in and do a
project for one of the lawyers who interviewed me. i
promptly got hired and have now been spending the past month
working for a civil litigation attorney. now, i've never
really quite liked civil litigiation; to me it's the drunk
uncle to all of the other areas of the law; you don't know
how to get rid of it, it always ends up showing up in your
life, and once in a while its useful for some money.
well now i know for damn sure i don't ever want to make it
my profession. at first it was all good. i was given
theoretical legal issues to research. i enjoyed the
challenge and promptly produced 3 page memoranda explaining
the law and whatnot. then the past two weeks i've been
asked to put this law to "good use". the only way i can
possibly describe what this whole experience has been like
to me is through analogy. imagine a man who loves
manufacturing guns. for some reason he's just infatuated
with the unbelievable mechanics of the trigger and lock
mechanism, the hammer, the rivets throughout the barrel. he
puts his all into each gun and believes that each one is a
beautiful construction to him.
then one day a guy takes him on a ride on one of his guns
(sort of like how it was done with the bullet in Lord of
War) and he sees it ending up in some crook's hands as he
uses it to blow out a little kid's brains.
that's what i'm feeling like. i'm starting to realize to
what monstrosities my beloved legal theories can be put to.
ugh.
and you know...it's not like this guy is doing something
wrong, it's all right and good and whatnot, but to me,
personally it feels like a complete betrayal of the law.

like for example, the other day i had to call this tanning
salon for a statement. this lady had gotten pretty badly
burned a while back and was now suing. the person i got on
the phone was coincidentally the same person who had
accidentally set the timer to the wrong setting.
"she's suing me?"
"well you and the tanning salon."
"but, but, i thought we were good." she sputtered,
"i offered, her...she said...did she use the cream we gave her?"
for some reason this entire conversation was some how
breaking my heart.
"why's she suing me now?"
"i don't know."
"i thought we were good. i just made one mistake and i'm so
sorry!"
this whole thing was WRENCHING my heart out now.

ugh. by the way. it sucks to get sued. i've spent a month
working on answering complaints and i can tell you its
something else. especially if the other side as a savvy (in
my opinion unethical) lawyer. you see there are two ways to
start a lawsuit.
1) file it with the court (gotta pay a filing fee etc.) but
it's all legit and shit goest through the court
2) send the complaint directly to the defendant with a summons
now this second way is just as official, but it looks so
much less so. and if you dismiss that complaint, or don't
answer in 14 days...guess what? the other side can go to
the court and get a default judgment against you which
essentially means, "i gave him the complaint, he didn't say
nothing...now gimme mah money!"
just nefarious.

people do stupid shit too, shit that i think they should pay
for. this one dumbass got duped into renting the same house
that he had bought. granted the perpetrator was wrong, but
come the fuck on. how you gonna get tricked into renting a
damn place you put money down to buy? huh?
and i'm sitting here trying to figure a way to wriggle your
dumb ass out of this shit?
call me one of those bastards who "blames the victim" but
people gotta fucking account for their idiocy sometimes.
and moreover, i hate this "pain and suffering".
i've written so many god damned demand letters that i would
take a shit on if i got...saying, "oh she hurt her head and
she couldn't enjoy life the way she used to, she can no
longer smell the roses, hug the kittens, and watch maury
povich like she used to."
get the fuck serious.

anyhow. i'm prepared for a huge ass-kicking coming my way.
i'm already looking for toher employment and, while none is
evne close to being on the horizon, if i were to kick out
early on this dude i got a feeling he's gonna rain down on
me like a category 5 hurricane.
in fact, i'm so sure he's gonna let me have it that i've
already decided to use one of my favorite lines from The
Wire. it's when Cutty tells Avon he wants out of the drug game,
"yo, whatever it is that lets you grind the way you
do...let's you flow the way you do...that shit just ain't in
me yo."
and avon knew. he was cool.

says a lot about the legal profession when i think that a
west baltimore drug dealer will react more calmly about one
of his soldiers leaving the game, than a lawyer will to his
legal intern leaving his practice.




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