My mentor Theresa is the chief public defender of the Waterbury Superior court. Along with her cases she needs to manage the office and its lawyers. Usually a law firm in Connecticut should have fourteen lawyers in the public defender's office, Waterbury only has eight. And because Waterbury has the second largest amount of cumulative arrests in all of Connecticut each lawyer has two or three times the amount of cases they should have.
As for my day with Theresa, we leave around 8:30 and arrive at 9:00. Having prepared the day before Theresa already knows which clients she be representing. However, Theresa needs to meet with each client so she can hear how they've been doing with: probation, treatment, jobs, etc. before court. But she's not done there, we have to take a trip down the basement a.k.a cell block because Theresa needed to talk with her other clients. Cell block is used for holding incarcerated clients for a couple hours before court; and after court they are taken back to jail. I expected everyone to be yelling, but instead it was quiet for the most part. The creepy thing was that every inmate was up against their screen-like metal doors listening to the whole conversation silently as Theresa would converse with her client.
At court the prosecutors were switching constantly, there was about three of them. For most of the cases a continuation was ordered because a lot of clients were in the middle of programs. If the judge thought the client wasn't showing signs of improvement then back and fourth between the prosecutor and public defender would ensue.
After court there was an hour lunch and the lawyers would come to Theresa's office and gossip. I really liked all of the Lawyers because they gave advice to me for college, and also recommended books for me to read. Aside from socializing we'd go to the prosecutor with the cases for the next day. Theresa would discuss how her client was doing, with letters from treatment programs, and results from drug tests. The prosecutor would have expectations for the client.
Now everyday wasn't like this for me after a couple days things started to get interesting.
As for my day with Theresa, we leave around 8:30 and arrive at 9:00. Having prepared the day before Theresa already knows which clients she be representing. However, Theresa needs to meet with each client so she can hear how they've been doing with: probation, treatment, jobs, etc. before court. But she's not done there, we have to take a trip down the basement a.k.a cell block because Theresa needed to talk with her other clients. Cell block is used for holding incarcerated clients for a couple hours before court; and after court they are taken back to jail. I expected everyone to be yelling, but instead it was quiet for the most part. The creepy thing was that every inmate was up against their screen-like metal doors listening to the whole conversation silently as Theresa would converse with her client.
At court the prosecutors were switching constantly, there was about three of them. For most of the cases a continuation was ordered because a lot of clients were in the middle of programs. If the judge thought the client wasn't showing signs of improvement then back and fourth between the prosecutor and public defender would ensue.
After court there was an hour lunch and the lawyers would come to Theresa's office and gossip. I really liked all of the Lawyers because they gave advice to me for college, and also recommended books for me to read. Aside from socializing we'd go to the prosecutor with the cases for the next day. Theresa would discuss how her client was doing, with letters from treatment programs, and results from drug tests. The prosecutor would have expectations for the client.
Now everyday wasn't like this for me after a couple days things started to get interesting.