Great Moments in the Life of a Public Defender

Have I mentioned before that I love my job? Only 10,000 times? Well, let me mention it again. So why am I leaving it in January? God only knows, I mean, I guess I have to try this new gig out to see if I like going private, and I'd be lying if I said that money didn't matter at all to me, so I guess I'll hope that I don't lose any of the great social and personal aspects of my job when I leave the office. But, I digress.

I'm meeting with the son of a client who's brought some stuff by for his dad's case. Client is facing 13 years for hitting his wife, his grown son is trying to help his dad out (the victim is his step-mom, but she can't be more than 10 years older than him). I'm in the office talking with the son, and while I'm there I get about 4 other calls related to work. A couple of DAs, and we discuss our cases, I posture to them how I'm going to kick their butts in trial if they don't back down, stuff like that. I also have a couple of clients or doctors call and I discuss the case. The client's son is still sitting there, watching the whole thing, mouth agape.

I finish about 20 minutes of calls and the client's son (a really cool guy who I just enjoyed hanging around with because I he was so interesting to talk to) says "you have the absolutely best job ever!"

I sort of grinned, and said to him, I really do. Afterwards I was thinking about it, and I don't think this is PD or private speaking, but I really do have a great job. It is so cool to have this responsibility given to me where people entrust me with their lives, and I can fight for them without concern for anything except helping them out (I guess that's sort of limited to PD life, as I'm going to have to be more concerned about money when I'm private). It's just a great job.

Civil lawyers out there who hate your jobs, take heed. This is the best job in the world.