Week One Done...

Still O.T.
Still chugging along through our case in chief.
So far so good.
____

In other news:


Carter

As you avid readers may remember, I was down in Missouri last month teaching at a public defender conference. Well it seems that our faculty dinner and the party after it made an impression. As it turns out, another one of the presenters--the legal humorist Sean Carter. ( Caricatured above) has actually written about it in his column in the ABA journal.

Now do you really need to guess who was sitting across from Carter at the aforementioned dinner? Why, yes it was yours truly, flanked by the inimitable and raucous Asheville attorney Steve Lindsay

Here's a selection...

"In my travels, I have had the good fortune of meeting many interesting lawyers. Last month I had the pleasure of spending three days with a very interesting group of public defenders in the Midwest.

To put it simply, these men and women were the most down-to-earth lawyers I’ve ever met. Of course, if the rest of us worked for prison-level wages, we’d probably find it hard to be pretentious (or adequately nourished).

Also, given the fact that PDs spend so much time in jails and prisons working with criminal defendants, some of their clients’ streetwise traits and mannerisms have rubbed off on them. This is particularly true in regard to their language. To say that they often expressed themselves in colorful terms is the greatest understatement since Survivor-winner Richard Hatch’s 2001 tax return.

I haven’t heard so much profanity since watching an episode of HBO’s prison show, Oz. In fact, in many ways I felt like I was in Oz–—the prison, not the land of Dorothy. At any moment I half expected someone to walk up and inform me that they had purchased me for a carton of Marlboro Lights. Of course, given my rugged good looks, that kind of transaction is bound to take place at even corporate and large law firm events.

Needless to say, my fears were overblown. I wasn’t forced to join a PD gang for protection. Nor did I have to get a tattoo or shank the hotel concierge to earn my stripes. In fact, the event organizer (i.e., the "shot caller") even refused to take my dinner dessert, even though I dutifully offered it to her each evening in the "commissary."

To tell the truth, once I got over my fear of becoming someone’s property, I had a blast! In addition to knowing several thousand words to describe various parts of the human body, these lawyers know how to party, old-school style. They did away with the goose liver pâté and chicken on a stick, the glasses of wine and the string quartet playing in the background. Instead (and I’m not making this up) they had a bowl of Cheetos in the corner, real liquor in plastic cups and a boom box blaring gangsta rap. Now, that’s how you throw a (bleeping) party!

At the end of the week, I was left with two thoughts:

I should have kept my wallet in my front pocket.
I wish my other clients were just as down-to-earth..."