There was an article in one of the papers today about the death of one of my former clients. She was the first of my clients to pass away (that I know of at least). She was young and she was a severe addict. I once got her out of jail and straight into a detox. The last time I saw her, she remembered me as the lawyer who got her help. She looked healthy. She had a tough life, but she was a genuinely nice person and I’m very sad to hear that she died. I don’t think there were a lot of people who helped her out in her life, so I like to think that I did help her, even a little, even if it didn’t ultimately make a difference.
I have been thinking about this post for about a month and a half now and I’m still not sure exactly how to say it. Basically - I sold out. Sort of. I left the public defender’s office for private practice. BUT it is still criminal defense and my heart is still in the same place. I was not looking to leave the public defender’s office at all. But a judge, of his own accord, passed my name onto a well-known private attorney in solo practice who was looking for an associate. He offered me a job and my world was thrown into turmoil for a few weeks while I wrestled with whether I should leave my beloved job as a PD for an opportunity to do the same kind of work for a different kind of paycheck and a different kind of client. Ultimately, I decided that it was an opportunity that I should not pass up, for many reasons.
I went back yesterday and read the interview I did on Monday Musings last year. I said that I had found the job I was supposed to do, that I couldn’t shake the part of me that gravitates towards the poor. And my heart still aches to think about that. I wanted to use my skill and my soul and my position as someone lucky enough to have a phenomenal education to serve those that were not as privileged as I was. But in the last month, I have worked on cases that I was not getting the opportunity to tackle when I was a public defender, after being passed over for a position to handle superior court cases. I have already written and filed a brief with the Supreme Judicial Court. I’m getting to delve into the law more than I was before, when so much of my time was occupied with triage as a result of too many cases. I’m working longer hours, but my commute has shortened considerably and my paycheck has grown comfortably.
I do mourn the loss of the public defender camaraderie. It is not the same to be a private criminal defense attorney and I know this. There is something special about people who choose to pursue the life of a PD and I thought that I was going to be a part of that for as long as I could. But it’s been a period of a lot of changes and a lot of transitions in my life and I am embracing this particular one. I still feel like I am fighting the good fight.
I still have the urge in me to write, so stay tuned for the future of the blog. I don’t know where it is headed, but I like it being here.
