What chair to choose

I am never surprised at work. This doesn't mean it's boring. It means that, overall, I make my living off of people who just don't get it. Here are a few common characteristics. I'd suggest you check to see if these apply to you, but if they do, you probably won't recognize yourself, because you're too fucking thick headed.

1. You're too fucking thick headed.
2. If you don't like a rule, you think it does not apply to you. Guess what? People in uniforms will have a problem with you. Get with the program. That's the point of rules -to get your dumb ass in line.
3. When other people tell you that you are being a dumb ass, you justify your behavior until they get tired of arguing with you, then convince yourself you convinced them and should move ahead with your retarded ass plan. For the record, you probably should not.
4. Nothing is more important than defending your pride, even your record, employability, or freedom from strip searches. Guess what? That idiot talking shit to you will not give you a job, sign your paycheck or bail you out. Let him talk.
5. You regularly break more than one law at a time, or break two in the same day. Today I read about a public employee caught with some weed at his house. Later the same day he gets a DWI in the company truck. He tells the cops he wasn't impaired because he only smoked a roach. Dude. First, you were at work. Second, you already got busted once today. Did you really have to ensure you spent the night in jail and lost your job? Third, you don't argue with the cops about how little pot you smoked. It's all illegal and you just blew your defense. Go home and flush the weed. You are not using drugs successfully.
6. Distorted self image with respect to the rest of the world. If you look in the mirror and see a cool outlaw, an entreprenuer who just thinks outside the box, a risk taker, a gangsta, if you often say 'people don't understand', 'I had to' or 'it will be ok, and if it's not, I'll deal with it then', chances are that you are, on some level, an idiot who is begging for an ass kicking. Haven't gotten one yet? Ask yourself if luck, like hope, springs eternal. No, wait - ask some homeless guy or somebody in an orange jumpsuit with 'inmate' stamped on the back. That won't happen to you? Refer back to #2. Back yet? You are a dumb ass. Now refer back to #3.

These are my people, and I love them, and appreciate that they pay my mortgage. Well, them and my girlfriend, who makes a lot more money than me. And because I know them, they do not surprise me. However, I am acutely aware of how little space there is between our chairs at the defense table. You have to be ballsy, innovative, flexible and headstrong to be a decent defense attorney. But being able to draw those fine lines put me in a suit on the left instead of handcuffs on the right.

The moral of the story is - It is, in fact, the the subtle differences that make a life.

New year, monkeys and here's to no bar

Well, I got a new calendar. Otherwise, what did I tell you? Things are pretty much the same. The hoopla over a 'new year' is really just an excuse to get drunk and a money maker for defense attorneys, who profit from all the stupid shit people do when they are drunk: drive, break windows with firecrackers, punch people, pee in the street, drive trucks into houses, fight their baby's daddy's new baby's mama, break windshields, buy crack from an undercover officer any sober idiot could tell was a cop, yell in the street with an open bottle of shitty whiskey, stuff like that.

If I buy into the idea of a new year, at least I don't have to take the bar this year, which is really a measuring stick. House burn down? Bird flu? Monkey infestation? Hey, it's not the bar. Further, I'm on my way to having associates of my own to abuse and, if I'm lucky, enough money to buy a new car someday. It will probably be after I pay off my student loans, which I'm on track to do when I'm 73, at which time they will take my driver's license, but I won't care, because I'll have that new fucking car and will drive it, fuck them. Oh, that new car smell! A windsheild with no crack in it! A stereo with speakers I haven't blown yet! Dreams I cherish like a child, except I don't beat them. Sigh.

Until next time, glad you got to read me. Happy new year and may you visit bars, not take them.

Resolutions for the faint of obedience

I don't really believe in New Year's resolutions, since I figure if I'm too lazy, selfish or insolent to do something different on any other day, why should getting a new calendar make a difference? However, I recognize the value of marking one's choices - such as getting married, buying a midlife crisis camaro or setting the now ex's clothes on fire, thereby making the breakup official. However, as I am a counselor at law, I've decided to hand out some potential resolutions for the faint of obedience: i.e., my clients, the theives and crackheads of the world. My suggestion to you is to resolve to:

1. To break only one law at a time. If you are drunk, don't run red lights or have your buddy stick their ass out the window. If you have no license, don't drive drunk. If you have 3 pounds of coke in the trunk, don't speed, or rob a liquor store.

2. To pay your fucking lawyer. Guess what? Until you've paid, you have no lawyer and are on your own when the D.A. gets sick of giving you continuances. Know how you thought you shouldn't go in on that robbery without a lawyer? You're going to, and I'm going to be in the back drinking coffee and probably not even wishing you luck. What, am I your guardian angel?

3. To not smack your girlfriend. If your girlfriend is a bitch, leave her. Smacking her up will not make her less of a bitch. In fact, she will, surprise surprise, probably just be pissed at you and get your stupid ass arrested. In a nutshell, "she deserved it" is not a defense.

4. To not come to court drunk. Seriously, it doesn't help.

5. To not come to court high, particularly on a drug charge. People can tell you are high. You are fooling no one. Your red, slanty little eyes and inability to dig your keys out at the security station will not be chalked up to allergies.

6. To pull your damn pants up. The judge will not be impressed by your fine choice in underwear.

7. To realize I am your advocate, not a miracle worker. See those other 276 people in the courtroom? They want to get out of here too. Sit down and shut up. If you didn't want to spend the day in court, you shouldn't have been buying meth in a stolen car.

8. To not smash windshields. Smashing someone's windshield only makes one point: you are an asshole with anger issues who needs to grow the fuck up. Find another solution.

9. To run your story by a couple people before you bring it to court. If they laugh, it is not a good defense.

10. To keep your car on the road: not to veer off into a ditch, a japanese maple, a convenience store, or someone's living room. Ass on the asphalt, it will save you a lot of money in the long run.

Good luck to you and happy new year. May your crimes be smart, your cops be lazy and your alibis strong.

Habeas is corpus

I've apparently killed my fishie and am very sad. I really loved this fish. He lived in my office and I felt guilty every weekend when I left Habeas by himself with no one to talk to him or feed him, and apologized every Monday morning. I rescued him, since people are always stuffing bettas in these tiny, sad bowls, which I think is terrible; so he got a 3 gallon tank with live plants and was very happy. However, yesterday I thought the tank needed to be cleaned and I changed out the water and washed the algae and fish poop out of the gravel and apparently, he liked it better dirty because he was dead this morning. We buried him in a paperclip box outside my window and I cried in the parking lot.

This leads me to philosophize a bit about some of the fucked up people I see every day. The system punishes them and occasionally tries to rehabilitate them but maybe if they cleaned up too much, they'd go belly up. Maybe some people just need to be in a little crap to be OK. Who are we to say? Maybe the laws of nature apply to us too. For instance, a catfish wants to eat gunk off the bottom of the pond. It's what makes him big and fat and whiskery. Maybe some people are just made to have a continually revoked license, a pissed off family, a familiarity with the jail guards, a lawyer budget, and favorite games to play in a cell. They provide jobs for lawyers and judges and district attorneys and jail guards and legislators and police and probation officers and clerks of court and probably a bunch of people I don't even know about. Maybe some people just don't need the water changed.

Sigh. Well, guess I'll mourn the fish for a couple of days and find another, perhaps luckier, inhabitant for this lonely looking tank, and let him get dirty if he wants to. In the meantime, more power to the catfish people who pay for my office so I can give a dirty fishie a home.

Ours is not to reason why

I have been sworn in as an attorney for 10 weeks. I have decided my job is to be helpless for the hopeless. However, I have not yet turned off the impulse to wonder why people do the things they do, though I manage not to ask. Why, when you need your license to keep your job, were you drag racing? And why were you racing in a shitty pickup truck that can't outrun the cops? Why did you try to beat up the guard when you were in jail? Why did you throw beer on the cop? Why did you steal all that shit with cameras on you? Why have you been skipping court for the past 7 years and what, exactly, am I supposed to do about it? How did it seem to be a good idea to show up to court shitfaced drunk? The list goes on. In fact, it goes on and on, every day. This is how I make my living.

It would help if just the clients were confusing. The guy I work with collects stray dogs of the person type and dragged in this nutjob with no office social skills for 6 weeks to help her feed her kids because she can't find a job. I pointed out that this just means she'll be out of a job in 6 weeks but the logic seems to have escaped him. Yesterday she insisted on telling us all about how her husband told her she was fat then left her for a 500 lb. woman. I am still wondering how I managed to not say "maybe he meant fat in the head." We'll put that down as divine intervention. This saga was detailed in the car on the way home from lunch, so the staff was trapped in this sedan of sorrow with no way out. Help! I thought. I sweated with the exertion it took to not explain I'd probably choose being crushed by a woman the size of a refrigerator to being crushed by the daily torture of listening to her too. I looked around wildly, wanting to jump out in traffic but had on a nice suit and didn't want to rip it up, so I came up with the idea of counting blue cars and billboards. Then this morning I was rushing to get out to court and talking to the office manager about my files when chick interrupts to show me a picture of her kids. I have one question. How did this seem to be a good idea? Oh, right, I don't ask why anymore. I just try not to shoot people.

Ultimately, I suppose mine is not to reason why, mine is but to do what I can and collect fees. We'll see what I've learned 10 weeks from now. Maybe I'll be able to afford some new suits and hang them in the office in case I have to jump out in traffic and have everyone else staring at me asking "now why did she do that?" Time will tell.