Law Students

First Trial

By Andrea

I have been slow about blogging lately (including a 1-year letter for Becca) because of my impending trial tomorrow morning. I called it my first asylum hearing (as opposed to asylum interview, which is in an office instead of a court and is 100x less confrontational), but it's actually my first immigration court merits hearing of any kind. A lot could happen tomorrow.

I'm nervous, but I expected to feel a lot more nervous about my own performance. I've done a lot of public speaking, mock trials, and what have you in my day, but this is really really real in even a way that my Social Security benefits hearings during my 2L year didn't feel like. I think I'm feeling OK about how I'll do because - and this is a big departure from most law school activities - I'm as prepared as I can be for this. I know the record, and my questions, and if this goes wrong for my client I won't feel like I didn't work hard for her.

But I really hope it doesn't. (We probably won't get a decision tomorrow either way.) The thing I'm nervous about is whether the judge is going to wake up in a good mood, whether the trial attorney's going to have prepared enough to have thought about the weak spots in the legal theories (often they haven't), and what that written decision's going to say at the end when we finally read it. This case isn't easy, but none of mine really will be (or we would have given them to newbie pro bonos at law firms). So I better get used to this nervousness.

Wish me luck and think a good thought for my client, who's been through more than people should have to go through, and has to explain it all one last time. See you tomorrow.

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on January 22, 2009 (boomark / email).