Anecdotes

I had an interview this past Friday for a prosecutorial position Baltimore. I enjoyed taking the MARC train up, and I was very pleased to discover that Baltimore had a free bus system that ran past Penn Station and went to exactly where I needed to go. Given the weather conditions, this was ideal.

On the bus, one of the other riders stated to no one in particular: "I'm trying to get to (location). Does anyone know what's the next bus I need to catch?" I have not seen this happen in D.C.

Then another rider responded: "Oh yes, I'm going out that direction myself, I'll show you the stop." I have also not seen this happen in D.C. I looked around the rest of the bus to see if anyone else was displaying any sort of sign that this interaction was unusual. I saw nothing. I decided that Baltimore was a generally friendlier place than D.C. and that I would relate this specific anecdote in my meeting if asked why I wanted to work in Baltimore.

After a few minutes, I was at my stop and got off the bus. I started walking towards the appropriate building where I would be having my interview. A woman behind me started screaming that someone had stolen her purse. I turned around to see someone run into the alley being pursued by two presumably helpful Baltimorians. Since it was more of a mixed anecdote, I decided not to tell that particular story during my interview.

The interview itself went well, though it was very different from any other interview that I have ever had. Apparently in prosecutor's offices they actually care whether or not you know the law and aren't content to talk about music or TV shows for the duration of the interview. I'm okay with that. I have a second round interview in a couple of weeks, so at least a couple of my answers must have been legally sound.

On Friday night Kels and I went to the Tempest cast party at Josh/Steph/Dan's place. Steph made ALL the food, as usual, including some new blue mousse stuff made with white chocolate that was excellent. We then played Two Rooms and a Boom, which is a card-game variant on mafia.

On Saturday night we went into Alexandria to celebrate David and Shannan's engagement at Tim's place. I spent most of that evening heckling David, because that's just what we do. Then we watched Hangover II, which was relevant because David and Shannan are going to have one of their weddings (it's complicated) in Thailand.

On Sunday I helped judge a college mock trial tournament. My co-judge was a guy who had been practicing in New York for the past twenty years and he liked to talk a lot, so I was the Teller to his Penn. The college students were a lot better at a lot of mock trial than me, but I was a lot better at pretending I was better at mock trial than they were so they listened to what I said.

Next week is the GGSS performance of The Tempest, directed by Ben and Sara and starring Josh and Dan and Justine and Xander and many of our other favorite people. Also, we have been invited to a party this Sunday for some sort of sporting event. And food. I'm in for the food.

Snow Day!

This week I will end up going to only one class due to snow and MLK day. I am okay with this and I used a majority of the free time between Friday and today to go about the very useful and important work of playing board games with friends and eating.

Today, though, I decided to be somewhat useful to my future self and start the bar application process. For various reasons, including the fact that all of my interviews (including one this Friday) tend to be there, I have decided to take the Maryland bar. I have spent the past several hours listing every address where I have ever lived, ever. In the "reasons for moving" column I have put down "school" in almost every single entry. I'm glad knowing that I lived on Monroe Hall in 2005 is so terribly important to the bar examination committee. Next up: every credit card account number that I have ever held. Should be fun!

In more exciting news, Kels and I will be going to a party this coming weekend to celebrate my old roommate, David Husband, who has just gotten engaged to his girlfriend Shannan. I got to know them as a couple pretty well while David and I were living together a couple of summers ago, and I'm very happy for them both.

The First of the Last, or the Last of the First

I keep confusing myself as to whether this is the first week of my last semester of classes, or the last semester when I will have a first week of classes. Either way, while I was thinking of it the milestone passed.

Last Friday, at the end of my courtroom technology class, we were able to go to the judge's court and play with all of his technology. It was very impressive.

Since he is a federal judge, he gets the nice stuff.

This week I started my three classes that I have for the rest of the semester. Two of the three were chosen 100% based on the reputation of the professor, and if the first sessions have shown anything it is that choosing classes based on professor reputation continues to be the best way to pick discretionary classes.

First I have Complex Litigation, which is all about large multi-plaintiff lawsuits. Not as boring as it sounds, AND there are a few really important class action cases going in front of the Supreme Court this semester, so we get to learn it as it happens.

After Complex Litigation, I have my Supreme Court Seminar. This was my top choice class and will basically let me geek out about current term Supreme Court cases and get credit for it. Everyone in the class is responsible for understanding pretty much all of the cases, but we each get one case that we are responsible for. By "responsible for" I mean that we are in charge of prepping the judges at a moot court where the lawyer who will be arguing the case in front of the Supreme Court will test out his or her argument. My case is about whether police officers should have something called "qualified immunity" (can't be sued so long as they aren't violating clearly established law) if they shoot a suspect to end a high-speed chase. Should be fun!

Finally I have Decedents' Estates, which is basically a class about how terrible things will happen to you if you don't have a plan in place regarding your healthcare and property. Also it explains how nowadays is the best time in the past two hundred years to die if you want to create a Downton Abbey-esque estate that will last forever and be completely immune to federal taxes. Hooray for the aristocratic renaissance.

I went up to Gaithersburg today to help out my little adoptive mock trial team there, and it was so much fun to teach a little again. The kids were so smart and eager- they have no idea what they're doing but they are doing it as hard as they can, which is everything that you want from first-timers. When I demonstrated how you could frame facts differently depending on what you want a jury or judge to think they looked at me like I had just done an amazing magic trick. I'll be helping them out over the next two months as they compete in four rounds against other high schools. That's a lot of rounds, so they'll be experts by then.

I think that's everything new that's going on. The ear is healing well- it'll take a month for it to "settle" and so until then it will (hypothetically) slowly improve in hearing every day while making weird popping noises that only I can hear. I can already hear close to what I could before the surgery, so that's good. And one last thing- this past weekend was Kels's and my second anniversary! I'm sure that you can't believe she has put up with me for so long. I certainly can't, but I'm very glad she has.

We Get It, Law is Theater

I'm taking a one-week one-credit course this week, mostly so I can take an underload of credits for the rest of this semester so that I have more time for mock trial things. On that front, I have volunteered to help a random school's mock trial team in Maryland, I have volunteered to teach a street law mock trial team every other Friday, and my own mock trial team will be competing in Puerto Rico this April. I feel like the trial director, who is very considerate, put me on the Puerto Rico trip as compensation for sending me to Detroit last semester. Another fun fact about the Puerto Rico competition is that I was able to get Palmer, my Woodberry friend who is the reason I currently attend GULC and who has been a public defender in Miami for the past two years, to be the coach for our team.

Anyway, this week one course is about how to use technology in a courtroom: computers, trial software, transcription software, monitors, remote witnesses, etc.... Beyond simply describing the technology, it goes into how to use it without getting an objection slam-dunked on you every two seconds. As with most law classes related to trial practice, every single piece of information would be equally useful in a theatrical context.

Examples:

• Tailor your presentation for the jury/audience that you have.
• Always give the jury/audience something to look at.
• Allow the jury/audience to come away feeling like they haven't been manipulated by you, but definitely manipulate them as much as possible.
• Everything you do will make the jury/audience like you more or less, so make sure that everything you do is calculated to make them like you more.
• You must make your presentation work for both the critics/judges and the jury/audience, but if you can only win over one group, pick the jury/audience.
• Don't be flashy or use fancy technical things just because you can, only use what you need to tell a clear and compelling story.
• Don't let your witnesses/actors go up unprepared. 
• For defense attorneys: Always leave them wanting more (evidence).

If I ever have the opportunity to pick some sort of assistant/technical operator for trials, I'm just going to hire a tech director.

My Ear is Still Attached

Shortly before Christmas (which was great, but I'll post about that later) I found out that my second waiver request to the Navy was denied. They are super serious about making sure their lawyers can hear a pin dropping on a bed of pillows, because having a lawyer who just understands speech isn't good enough. So I scheduled myself an ear surgery, because when one door closes-but-not-quite-all-the-way I tend to jam my foot in the tiny opening and ram myself against it until it opens or I break something. Half-closed doors bother me intensely.

I purposefully told as few people as possible because I don't especially like people taking care of me. It's a problem I have. There was also no guarantee that it would work, or that even if it did work that it would work well enough for the Navy. Ever since I found out I had a hearing issue in my right ear, though, I have noticed it due to some sort of awareness-bias that I didn't have before, so I also wanted to get this done just so that it would stop annoying me.

Anyway, I showed up at the hospital yesterday at 8AM for my 10AM surgery. Davia and Noah were nice enough to drive me. I forced Kelsey to go to the cabin in the woods New Years celebration with some of our friends because I was not going to let her skip her vacation to take care of me. Everyone at the hospital was very nice, but things were going rather slow. This was probably because they kept confusing me with other Johnsons, as there were three of us there for surgery that day. As good as Georgetown's doctors are, their scheduling and general-awareness department has some room for improvement. After convincing them that I did not need either brain or foot surgery, I found my appropriate loading bay and sat there with an IV in my arm for what seemed like an hour or two.

I met with my anesthesiologist, my anesthesiologist's student apprentice (teaching hospital), my attending surgeon, my attending surgeon's student apprentice, my nurse, my other nurse, my third nurse, and finally my actual doctor. Apparently they had all seen the letter that my doctor had sent to the Navy as part of one of my attempts to get a waiver, and so I had the same conversation with all of them:

Doctor/Nurse: "So they still wouldn't let you in?"

Me: "No."

Doctor/Nurse: "But your hearing isn't actually bad."

Me: "I know."

Doctor/Nurse: "But you would just be doing lawyer things for them."

Me: "... I know."

Doctor/Nurse: "I don't get it."

Me: "I know."

Which is all to say that they were all very sympathetic and on my side and they all wanted this surgery to fix me up. I think that they enjoyed having a patient who wasn't in any pain at all and who didn't have any other problems- allergies, prior surgeries, medical conditions- that would make their jobs more difficult.

Anyway, my doctor knew the deal and promised to attack my ear as conservatively as possible once he figured out what was wrong. There were three options going in:

1. I had otosclerosis (a bone growth in my ear was throwing off my ear bones- very bad)
2. I had ossicular fixation (a bone got stuck somehow - less bad)
3. I had an ossicular discontinuity (two bones weren't touching - also less bad)

They hit my IV with the knockout drugs and I was gone within twenty seconds. Good job, Duke anesthesiologist. I think the last thing I said was "I appreciate that you all are doing this on New Year's Eve," which isn't the worst last thing that one can say before passing out and being in the complete control of a roomful of people with sharp instruments. When I woke up I had some mild pain in my ear, of course, and some soreness in my throat from the breathing tube that they had inserted and then taken out after the surgery.

The first thing that my doctor told me was that he had never seen what he saw in my ear. Ever. This is a guy who was referred to as "overqualified" to perform this surgery by another ENT because he had done more ear operations than you could count. So, you know, not the most comforting thing to hear. What happened was that my stapes and my incus were disconnected because they very top of my stapes had broken off... somehow. We don't understand how I was hearing anything at all beyond the possibility that one heroic fiber stretching between my stapes and incus was holding it all together. This was fixed by cementing my incus and stapes back together, sort of like an arts and crafts project. The great news about this is that the cement is the same composition as my bones and so I have no graft or prosthetic or anything like that in my ear- just extra bone connecting the bones.

I won't know whether or not it worked for another 30 days, and it all depends how the ear heals itself back together since we're dealing with such minor changes in hearing level. If it doesn't work, they can take out my stapes and replace it with titanium, but I would rather they not do that for obvious reasons. Regardless, now I can know that I did everything I possibly could to do the job that I have wanted to do for the past two years, and if it doesn't work out I can walk away from it in peace.

More good news- they were able to get at the problem through my ear canal and didn't have to cut my ear off and then sew it back on (that was an option and yet another reason I didn't tell many people about this). 

After my surgery Noah and Davia came to pick me up and made me soup and helped me fill out my prescription for the fun kind of painkillers that make you feel irrationally invincible. Then they drove me to Josh's, where I had a laid back New Year's Eve with a bunch of people who just let me eat until I got tired, which is exactly what I needed. Then Dan and Christina drove me home. I'm feeling much better today and have stopped taking painkillers for the time being. Yay!