Confessions of a Litigious Mind

The random, irrelevant musings of a law school graduate.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

lesson learned

never help anyone.

so after class from 1030-4, i had vita (volunteer income tax assistance) training from 630-10 tonight. despite the fact i was already tired, i had no choice in the matter. so i get there, and the lady to train us goes thru her introductory mumbo jumbo, then finally starts in on showing us how to file the returns on the computer. now i'm sure its not difficult, but all the training and practice problems we have done (we got homework for this, mind you) have been in the paper forms. there are many shortcuts on the computer program we need to familiarize ourselves with, but a 4 hour crash course where she speeds thru it is hardly the way to accomplish that.

but maybe i'll somehow know everything by the time we start in 2 weeks. or not. all i know is i've already done a shitload of work, i'll be spending 4 hours of every week until april 15 on this. what have i done?

i'm frustrated and exhausted. fuck it, bedtime.

posted by josh @ 1/17/2006 10:53:00 PM

6 Comments:

At 1/17/2006 11:24 PM, Blogger sadielady said...

This reminds me of the most humbling experience I've had so far in the practice of law (although I'm not comparing my experience to yours, I'm sure you'll be great, it just reminded me is all). We have this thing in my state where the bar association has set up a free telephone number for anyone to call to ask a legal question during certain working hours; the phones are manned by licensed attorneys in our state; it's all anonymous - not only do callers not divulge their identities, the people manning the phones also do not divulge their identities, or their employers' identities. It's a chance for a free, open dialogue between lay-person callers and licensed attorneys, to hopefully allow callers to obtain some legal answers and/or advice, plus it's a great resource to find out how to find an attorney in your area in general, and how to link to other opportunities for free legal advice, etc. Ok, point is, my second year out of law school, my firm made my volunteer for this. Four hour segments of answering phone calls and trying to answer legal questions from random citizens. And let me tell you what, that will fucking humble you. Most of my responses were "um, I don't know the answer to that, but I have another number I can give you, and hopefully that person can answer your question." Whereas, the more experienced attorneys manning the phones next to me were able to answer the questions w/o referring to someone else. Fuck, why is it that once you become a lawyer everyone thinks you can answer any legal question, and why the fuck is it that once you become a lawyer you find you actually can't answer everyone's legal questions?

 
At 1/17/2006 11:52 PM, Blogger sadielady said...

It's a necessary evil, and you're halfway through (I think), so just keep plodding along. And you probably do learn uselful stuff along the way, I just don't remember what it is.

 
At 1/18/2006 12:29 AM, Blogger d$ said...

do you think bread bowls would help?

 
At 1/18/2006 9:11 AM, Blogger josh said...

i cant speak for sadielady and holmes, but bread bowls would definitely help me!

as an update, part of my problem was that yesterday was extremely long, and i was tired by the end of the vita training. while i do think the program could have done the training in a far better way, i also think it will be more bearable than i made it out to be. besides, we're in good law schools, so we must be somewhat intelligent, no? i think so. hey, it helps me sleep at night.

 
At 1/18/2006 10:49 AM, Blogger First Year said...

You'll get it :) Just so what I do to learn something new on the computer. Mess with it until it does what you want it to do.

 
At 1/20/2006 12:47 PM, Blogger The Platypus said...

Sadie's story reminds me of when I was living in Dallas and I was jailed on a bogus traffic warrant. The ticket had been paid but their records didn't reflect that so I spent some hours in jail. Not fun.

Of course, i wanted some Texas Justice of my own but I had no idea of how to find a lawyer. I called the ACLU. I figured they must have a list of liberal barristers eager to take on the system, but what I got on the phone was the most cynical and worthless person I ever talked to.

Her advice was give up. Just roll the fuck over and play dead. She started into a list of horror stories about people who were denied justice, many incarcerated for years on no evidence. Fuck, I just wanted a referral.

I filed a clainm againnst the city and took what they offered, $400, and agreed not to pursue it further, As for the ACLU, I never thought much of them but after that I thought even less.

 

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