From Sea to Sea: January 2012

We recently had our interviews with the Criminal Clinic course to find out where we would be best placed. My articling at NS DOJ in Halifax means despite their interest in counter-balancing my prosecution bias with defence experience, the likely future conflicts of interest meant I would have to be assigned to a judge or different prosecution office. In the interview I was asked to rattle off three personal characteristics without thinking about it. I had heard classmates outside discussing this question before my interview, so I told the interviewers what I had heard. The interviewing Crown said "well, he's honest at least" before the defence lawyer said "and a bit sneaky. Are we sure he wasn't listening at the door?" "Honest and sneaky, that's two characteristics" said the judge. "What's the third?"

The end result was that I would be placed with the federal prosecution office here (PPSC), who mainly handle smuggling and drug files. Pending docket changes, I am also supposedly going to be assigned to a supreme court justice during a jury trial in the end of March. I say supposedly since trials have this annoying and rather amazingly ephemeral quality, where when they're expected they disappear by guilty plea, and when they're inconvenient they get dragged out longer than expected. I'm hoping the trial goes ahead because I'll never again have the chance to tag along with a judge in chambers unless I were to become one, but if it falls through the feds should be giving me interesting work to do.

Anyway.

Here's where the high school reference comes into play. Be ready to get confused with names.

If you know me/us much at all, or have been paying attention to the previous blog entries, you'll know that I'm married to Racheal. As if to deliberately confuse my life the profs assigned me to a principal lawyer at PPSC named Rachel. Don't worry, it only gets better from here.

In high school there was one class with three Aarins (well, actually 2 Aarons and 1 Erin, but since there's no way of combining the spellings that makes sense so I've just chosen a common spelling of convenience - sorry, Erins of the world!). I had gone through high school and part of elementary school sharing classes with that Erin, whose last name had the decency to start with S. Not so in law school.

In 2L I was paired up with Erin E. Matthews for the compulsory moot. She's articling with the Newfoundland Legal Aid outfit in Gander, NL, doing criminal defence. Naturally our Crim Clinic profs figure that means she goes to prosecution side for balance. And, just our luck, she's assigned to PPSC, to a different principal, but once again working with me. Now, we get along great and she's a smart and talented student - there's no personal problems at all, just the common and long-endured phonetically identical name confusion. Some cosmic joker however has seen fit to put the Aarins not only at the same department, but also to be sharing an office and computer, in an office next to her principal (Tim) - so when he calls out "Erin, come here!" we have a moment's confusion.

Now, my principal (Rachel) hasn't had a student assigned to her before, so she's working closely with Tim. And given how trials come and go, it's occasionally come to pass that the Aarins get lumped together to share assignments and shuffled off with whatever Crown has something interesting on the go. Tim met his Erin first, so calls her "old Erin" despite her being 6 years younger than me. Tim also calls us "kids," "youngsters," and the like, and sometimes when offered a choice of which Aarin is to be assigned to which Crown, he'll say something like "it doesn't matter, pick one." Other nicknames are floating around the office, including "Thing 1 & Thing 2" - nobody knows which is which, as the designation changes with whoever's using it.

Tim's an interesting guy for sure. He's older and energetic, bordering on immature at times (but described by a judge as "animated"). He loves to argue, not just to win, but also just for fun. While the Aarins were waiting for their security clearance to come through he was giving sanitized files to his Erin to review, while my principal Rachel made me sit on my hands out of an abundance of caution. She's younger (a few years older than me) and restrained, from Newfoundland originally but having practised a few years in Nunavut. We're a good match, and now that security clearance has come through I'll be running a guilty plea and sentencing negotiation and hearing next week, and likely a drug trial later in February. If I had to make a comparison, I'd say the Aarins are like compatible cousins or fraternal twins assigned for a semester to a doting aunt and eccentric uncle and passed off to whatever interesting babysitter's handy at the moment. It's going to be confusing but fun, I suspect.

The first few weeks of our placement involved much courtroom time, where I renewed contact with the various prosecutors and legal aid lawyers from my first year summer. One day, however, the Aarins were assigned to Tim for a trial. The trial was set for 2 consecutive full days, and the judge is not one to entertain delays lightly (before the trial started a legal aid lawyer was commended for her contrition in asking for a delay she knew the judge didn't want). Well, the trial starts and one of the accuseds stands up and fires her lawyer on the spot. The judge asks some questions to make sure there's a good reason beyond stalling and she claims the lawyer doesn't listen to her. Well, the lawyer chimes in, saying he's done his best and could he please be excused. The judge sat there silently and visibly counting to ten before responding. The trial got put off a couple months to allow the woman to get a new lawyer lined up, however she has to report to court each Friday to confirm progress is being made - after a couple months trial will be going ahead whether or not she has a lawyer.

Needless to say this was a bit unexpected and disruptive. While the judge had been counting to ten Tim's whole head went a bit red - he had a couple handfuls of police officers in the hall outside ready to testify as witnesses, and now they'd be told to reschedule their appearances. After court was adjourned, and before the judge left for the day, Tim stood and said "Aarins, come here." We figured it was bag-carrying time and made our way forward, when Tim introduced us to the judge. The judge recognised me, and asked if we had any questions. I said no questions, just compliments on everyone's restraint in not saying what they were thinking. It seems the judge had tempted fate at New Year's and resolved not to allow any unnecessary delays in his courtroom, and made it known to all and sundry when court resumed. Fate, it seems, loves a challenge, and is not without a sense of humour. Hopefully the judge finds other ways to introduce efficiency to his courtroom.

The thing about trials, other than their elusive nature, is how they can run at inconsistent and unpredictable speeds. Some will get cut off abruptly and put off or pled out, while others will drag on with delays between cases, delays between witnesses, court recessing for 5 minutes (come back in 20!) for consultations/negotiations, and what have you. One day in Dartmouth the Aarins were following a different Crown and things were dragging on. Thankfully we get along well enough that we were in the back of the courtroom, waiting for the show to resume, making our own fun and terrible jokes. Or during witness testimony we'd be studiously taking notes (and making jokes in the margins), especially during a tedious witness going into great depth on irrelevant details. We're not disruptive, but able to entertain ourselves when required to.

My principal Rachel has tried to come up with other ways to sort out the name confusion. She can't say "Aaron M" because our last names both start with M. She got into the habit of using our first and middle names, only to be recently and gently asked to stop after reflexive nervous twitches and quick shoulder checks became common. Having an authority figure invoking the dreaded full name formula brought back traumatic childhood flashbacks of being in trouble. She's now using "Aaron D." and "Erin E.", while another Crown has taken to calling me "double-A Ron." Added to the mix is not just our sharing an office, computer, phone, and occasionally principals and Crowns, but somehow we're starting to mirror each other in some ways - at lunch one day someone asked an Aarin to pass the ketchup, so we simultaneously reached for the ketchup at the same part of the bottle (while sitting across from each other), realized what we were doing, and frowned at each other for a few seconds until I leaned back and let her make the pass. Another day we were both assigned to a Crown over in the Dartmouth courthouse, which was unfamiliar to us. Unlike Halifax the Dartmouth courthouse is part of a larger office building, and we were left to find the courtrooms on our own. Mistake. We went up the elevator, stopping floor by floor, sticking our heads out and looking at signs and for sheriffs, only to reach the top without success. So we started coming back down, only to realize that had we looked left instead of right on the 2nd floor (out of 5) we would have seen the search station. Line of the day: "How many Aarins does it take to find the Dartmouth courtrooms?"

That's how things stand for now with the Criminal Clinic. At least I don't have to worry about the Rache(a)ls being in the same place at the same time!

Until later,
A.

You may have correctly gathered that my previous semester was a bit intense with reading, workload, and exam scheduling. You may have also rightly wondered why I would do such a thing to myself? This semester, that's why. I'm having a fun last semester here, and going out with the minimum of workloads. Here's the breakdown:

-Monday afternoon - Succession law. Taught by a practitioner (unfortunately much less experienced at course planning and teaching), I'll be learning how to write wills. Why? Because it's useful, only worth 2 credits, not much of a challenge intellectually, and has one of my two exams.

-Monday evening and Friday afternoon - the legendary and highly-recommended Criminal Law Clinic. Taught by practising professionals (a judge, defence lawyer, and Crown lawyer) this small class involves 16-20 hours per week assigned to a principal lawyer to do actual work in court and in the office. It's designed to be very practical with a variety of intensive experience, and it's expected we're to be involved with files, getting our hands dirty. We also get to go on a field trip to Springhill prison in mid-February. There's no exam for this class, just a requirement of ongoing feedback from the principals and in-class participation. While there's no reading schedule, as part of our placements we're expected to do research projects in addition to courtroom work. Did you notice that there's no exam for this 9 credit course? I did!

Wednesday afternoon - Professional Responsibility, aka PR. Our legal ethics course, wherein we learn the codes of conduct and various rules for practising law. Taught by professor Devlin (Mr. Contracts from 1L) I'm expecting the entertainment value to be high and the practical value to be immense. He's planning to use a "ripped from the headlines" approach, using recent examples of what not to do, some of which could be filed under the category of "blindingly obvious stupidity/mistakes" while some other examples fit rather uncomfortably under the "there but for the grace of God go I" file. Light reading, 2 credits, and my only other exam. Not bad at all!

So what does all this down time get me? Well, Tuesdays and Thursdays all day I'll be with my Criminal Clinic principal, as well as Friday mornings. The rest of the time I'll be doing a bit of reading, housework, prepping for the baby's arrival, taking care of Racheal with foot rubs and chauffeur duties as needed, and pre-loading on sleep.

My friend Scott has finally arranged his articles for after grad - he's excited to be working in Crown prosecution, but to my disappointment he'll be far away in St. John's, Newfoundland, enduring their constant wind and frequent storms, and trying to learn how to speak Newfie. On the upside there's a variety of other good friends staying local to connect with. I'm looking forward to getting back to the NS DOJ and getting paid to learn and practise, but apparently they're rather slow with job offers after the year is up. With any luck I'll be able to parlay references and my Crim Clinic experience into a job in criminal law afterward, but that's a ways down the road yet.

Counting down to the end!
A.

From Sea to Sea

30 January 2012

High School All Over Again - A

05 January 2012

Final Term Outlook - A

01 January 2012

Whistler Olympic Sights - A&R