First Day of Internship

Well I got done with my first day of internship an hour ago and to say the least it was very interesting. I ended up getting there about 30 minutes early because I didn't have too much confidence in my ability to decipher the San Diego trolley system. The public defenders office is in a nice old building near city hall. The office decor is what you would call "city funded chic", though not bad. After waiting in the reception for 30 minutes I finally meet my mentor. She's a nice lady and takes my picture for my id then sends me upstairs to an intern orientation (which is for all the law school interns), I didn't understand half of what was being said, though the presenter did throw in several well placed expletives which were quite funny. Anyways, after that I got my id and was told the codes for the doors, which made me feel pretty cool and important. I was then sent to court to watch the felony arraignments. To get into court there is a "normal line" and then an employee/attorney line. I got to take the employee line and flash my badge which was really cool. At the arraignment I was sitting next to a kid who appeared to be maybe my age or a year older, and seemed nice. Then he got called up and turns out he was being arraigned for stabbing a guy! Yikes! Being in court was definetly an interesting experience, wasn't the way I had imagined it. But when you see a guy being walked into a courtroom by two armed deputies with his hands shackled to his waist, it really makes you want to stay in school. Once court was out of session, I went back to the office, where I had to do some clerical type stuff (which is mostly what I'll be doing, because I am 16 I can't really work with the clients, though I will be observing in court a lot). I might get to do some french translation work though. I'm also going to be visiting the jail and the medical examiner's office, which should be interesting. I'll post about those experiences as they happen. Anyways, it seems like it's going to be a great experience, not what I had imagined but amazing nevertheless. My apologies for just making this one big long paragraph.

 

Sadly it's not paid, if it were that would only make it better ;-) Though I am thinking about extending it once it is over and maybe then it might become paid (though it would not be a lot) but I think I would rather not get paid a lot and do something I enjoy then not get paid a lot bagging groceries.