This is my last day at my externship with the King County Prosecutor's Office! Yesterday a few of my supervisors took me out to lunch at the Rainier Club, which is this gorgeous old fashioned mammoth of splendors past. The rooms are endless and lavish - both overwhelmingly grandiose and subtly detailed at the same time - and there is a super sized fire place to go with the dripping chandeliers and red leather everything. And of course since it is Christmas season, we were strewn between life sized nutcrackers and toy soldiers and displays upon displays of what best resembled the sorts of decorations you imagine in the high-end department stores of the 1950's (all so absurdly Mad Men, I expected more cigars and felt horribly under dressed). We ate in a back room buffet area, where I exhibited my vegetarian alacrity by making a vegetarian salad out of sandwich fixings and the heavily laden fruit trays.
At lunch they praised my work very highly (and repetitively) and expressed their deep regret that the county is not hiring. I am apparently uncommonly exceptional at analysis, writing, communicating and managing my time (and yes, I'm oddly most pleased about this last one, because it was the hardest earned). And I am glad to say that the underlying goal of externing has been accomplished - yes I learned all kinds of practical skills and developed my abilities, but more importantly I have more references to list when asked! They then confided in me that they both had always regreted not having stayed in smaller towns and practicing in small firms and heavily encouraged me to look for work in Bellingham and to avoid buying into a culture of work.
I guess it's just refreshing to speak with attorneys outside of the law school grind, where all you hear is "FIRM FIRM FIRM... the better your grades, the bigger the FIRM!!!" Jane also suggested that there were fields of law that focused on facts and fields that focused on complicated abstractions and she imagined I'd be much happier dealing with the latter considering my analytical abilities on some of our assignments. I sometimes am torn between these highly abstracted complex legal hazes and between client contact-oriented work. I'm - not to toot my own horn - excellent at both and find both incredibly energizing and rewarding, but it's rare to find a field where you really have the chance to use both of these skills. Really, I think I'd be happiest doing mediation/collaborative law by day and working as a TA for a Law Prof by night.
In related TA career news, I am considering doing more work as Professor Kelly's research position. Ok, not considering, but avidly excited to be agreeing to do next quarter. The reason this is insane is that my work-study allowance is very restricted and I'm pretty much using it all up working at the mediation clinic. So I will most likely to severely underreporting my hours (shhh, don't tell) so that I can do both jobs for just around the price of doing one. The thing is, I absolutely loved working with Professor Kelly and find her topics of research so fascinating I would unquestionably do them for free. Since there actually is a paucity of family law classes at UWLS, being a research assistant is a good deal in some sense, because you learn everything you would in a class and you don't have to pay for it.
In unrelated news, I managed to leave my phone in San Francisco. Actually it either dropped out of my pocket somehow or somebody picked it off of me in Whole Foods, but either way, praise all the beings of heaven and earth I was insured and because the original 'droid is no long in stock, I have been upgraded to a 'droid 2 for about the price difference I would have paid to get a 'droid 2 in the first place. So I'm not ahead, but I'm pretty much not behind either and I have to say, I really like the 'droid 2. It has a nicer keyboard and cooler graphics and plays flash...
But back to my externship being over. The great thing about working is that working may have work that bleeds into homework, but you don't really have finals. And I really don't have finals! While all my colleagues are stressing out and retreating into crazy outlining mode, I am set to work my ten hours a week at the clinic and take off for day trips to Bellingham for dancing and fun and Christmas cheer. Boy is next quarter going to hit me like a ton of bricks!
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