a day in the life of a lawyer essay

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What I Wish I Had Known Before Becoming a Lawyer

• Dustin S. McCrary

There is always going to be more work — we can’t say the same about our health.

In the past few years, we’ve learned how common burnout is. In this article, the author opens up about their experience of prioritizing their job as a lawyer over their own mental health, and shares some strategies young lawyers or new grads can use to avoid falling into this trap.

• Before taking a job, gauge the company culture. If you take a job in a work environment that doesn’t value you beyond your skills or take care of your psychological health, it’s going to be unsustainable in the long run.
• Don’t ignore your physical triggers. If you feel stressed during your workday, practice small things like staying hydrated, breathing deeply for a few seconds, or taking a short walk around your office to physically disconnect.
• The hard truth is that the legal profession is extremely draining. So, build a life outside work. This could look like taking regular time off such as vacation or personal days. Another option is to look for hobbies and activities outside work that energize you and give you joy.
• Finally, give yourself a little grace. At the end of the day, remind yourself that you’re doing the best you can.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

When I started law school, I loved it. The hypercompetitive classroom, the demanding coursework, and the adrenaline rush of solving complex cases drove me to pursue this career. Once I officially earned the job title “lawyer,” I was drawn even more to the fast-paced work culture. I wanted to stand out, make a difference, and find my own niche. My work was my passion and it empowered me.

• Dustin S. McCrary  is the founder of the Law Office of Dustin S. McCrary, PLLC based in Statesville, N.C. He focuses his practice on the legal needs of divorce and separation serving his clients in all aspects of the process including separation, child custody, child support, alimony and spousal support, property distribution, and domestic violence. McCrary recently published a new book called “Helping Your Children Cope with Divorce.”

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A Day in the Life of a Lawyer: Daily Tasks and Duties

• Post author: Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka ACMC
• Post published: January 2, 2024
• Post category: Legal Articles

A day in the life of a lawyer (an essay): It is no news that the legal profession is one of the most demanding and grueling professions in the world. Most lawyers work close to ten hours a day, with little or no breaks in between, because of the bulk of the work involved. It must also be taken into consideration that the legal profession changes regularly, as laws are repealed and new laws are promulgated, so as to meet the current trends and needs of society. That is why lawyers must read up on these new developments, so that they can stay up to date with the requirements of the legal industry.

Generally, a day in the life of a lawyer is nothing less than eight hours per day, and fifty hours per week. The long hours lawyers put in daily and weekly is because of the obligations the profession imposes on them. Funnily, the notion that people have of attorneys at law going to court in the morning and spending the major parts of their day battling in court before the judge and panels of jurors, arguing a motion or appeal is not really the reality. In real life, the lawyer’s daily routine is quite different from what is dramatized in the movies. What is written below is a perfect example of what the day in the life of a lawyer looks like.

Also see: Best law apps for lawyers and law students in 2021

The activities and tasks a lawyer would carry out in a day depends largely on his specialization or area of legal expertise. An attorney who is laser focused on labor law will of course spend a lot of time in courtrooms or administrative hearings, as opposed to other lawyers who work in real estate or business law. Lawyers start their day very early. Most lawyers wake up from sleep at the early hours of the break of dawn. They do this consistently and constantly every day. This is because they are required by their bosses to arrive early in the office every morning. During that period of the morning, they can settle one or two personal issues, or finish one or two tasks before heading out to work. Also, at work, they can be a little productive as the office is not officially open for the day.

This automatically means that there are no phone calls, court appearances or client meetings, therefore they can focus on finishing one or two tasks on their to do List. Lawyers use this cool time to reply messages, emails, and other data they might have received. They also read up on articles and work tasks in the morning. Most of the lawyers who will later head out to court to defend the client or carry out a procedural function, use this free time to review their cases, practice that arguments, and get ready for the hearing. They draft and compile their court documents, prepping and revising the salient points and issues.

They also try to stay calm and remain cool while doing all these, as the rest of the day may be hectic or demanding. This is the period lawyers use to prepare some of the numerous documents related to their active cases. Most of these documents include motions, pleadings, writ of summons, memorandums, affidavit, witness statement on oath. Usually, drafting these document take time, and that is why mornings are perfect for this, as it is quiet and they are still calm and alert.

This period of time is largely characterized by peace and quiet, therefore lawyers make sure to maximize it. By this time of the morning, phones are not ringing, clients are not scheduled for appointment and there are no conference room meetings. The lawyer is adorned with his private time to reflect common strategies, schedule his activities and tasks for the day. He creates a mental picture of how he wants his day to look like. He may go as far as penning them down on paper for easy recollection and reference. Apart from drafting, practice and scheduling, lawyers use this time to catch up on academic work or carry out further research on specific areas of law.

This is most especially in the case of lawyers who are furthering their careers in various high institutions. The perfect time to catch up on reading is the early hours of the morning, and they endeavor to capitalize on this. They may not have enough time to study during the day because they may be so preoccupied with work, and the nighttime is usually reserved for rest and a good night’s sleep, so the mornings are the best time for personal and individualized study.

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The lawyer during business hours is always busy, except when he takes some time off to relax or for refreshments. The lawyer in the office is always spending time on the phone, at meetings, talking to clients and extracting necessary information and facts from them, updating clients on the progress of their cases and furnishing them with relevant data and documents, discussing and reviewing cases, legal principles and research information with clients. Also the lawyer spends time carrying out further research on various legal issues.

Depending on their specialization and area of expertise, lawyers spend most time in the day contacting and liaising with relevant parties on the issues involved in various cases. Sometimes, lawyers leave the office for the purpose of examining evidence. Criminal lawyers can attempt to visit the crime scene, see the murder weapon, interview the witnesses or interested parties outside the office, visit where negligent accident happened, see a road block that is causing nuisance, collect data and statistics, make their assessments, visit their clients in jail, going to court etc.

Lawyers who have their own firms or chambers, or lawyers who are not part of big law firms might also take more tasks that are not directly related to law but are necessary for the smooth functioning of their business, for example, they can source for clients through marketing and advertising, partner with architectural firms to erect a building for their business, hire new attorney and staff for their business etc.

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During work period also, lawyers can attend classes as part of continuing education. It may be in the form of enrolled in the highest institution of learning or just to stay up to date on recent laws, cases, statutes etc., that is normally required by the bar association. The major responsibilities of lawyers includes:

a . Advising clients.

b . Acting as agents, trustees, guarantors or executers for corporations, businesses or individuals.

c. Negotiation for settlements.

d. Interpreting the law and applying the law to specific cases they come across regularly.

e. Sourcing and gathering evidence for cases and carrying out research on public and other legal records.

f. Counsels hold the brief of their clients at civil courts.

g. Lawyers also represent their clients charged with crime at criminal courts.

h. Lawyers present evidence of both parties to clients. They also use such evidence to defend their clients or prosecute defendants either in criminal cases or civil cases.

i . Lawyers also prepare, draft and edit legal documents for their clients, for example, they prepare leases, wills, power of attorney, deeds, mortgages etc.

j. Lawyers supervise their junior lawyers, associates, legal assistants in their firms and offer them advise and tutelage in order to demystify the legal profession for them.

k. Lawyers first of all examine the legal data, look out for pros, cons and loop holes in order to determine the nature of advise to offer the defendant or complainant in any matter.

l. Lawyers subpoena eye witnesses that will appear in court.

m . Lawyers perform visits to the locus in quo with the judges and courts to examine scenes of events and other relevant evidence.

n. Lawyers ensure that clients files and data are properly arranged and secured so as to prevent private information from leaking to the public eye.

Also see: Why lawyers put on wig and gown in court

Regardless of the time or hours lawyers spend daily or weekly, the aim of the lawyer is to achieve the most favorable result for a client. No one wants to lose a case intentionally, therefore the lawyer makes sure to put in the work, for example, personal injury and workers compensation lawyers can change a person’s life drastically through a settlement or verdict on their behalf, that provides them with the money needed to recover from an accident or injury to their person (physical or otherwise).

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Major Problems Lawyers Face Daily

1. Hiring people for law firms and keeping good employees: Every day, hiring people for law firms and keeping good employees are big problems for lawyers. The law field is very competitive, so it’s important for companies to find and keep skilled workers. Finding good people, interviewing them, and making sure they fit in with the company’s culture all take a lot of work. In order to get the best lawyers, firms often offer good pay deals.

This makes it hard for smaller or less wealthy companies to compete. Once you’ve hired someone, keeping them is just as hard. Lawyers may look for jobs that offer a better mix between work and life, chances for professional growth, or a more welcoming workplace culture. High amounts of worry, long hours, and burnout are common problems in the law field that make people want to leave. Firms need to handle these issues to create a positive and helpful work environment that makes it more likely that they will be able to keep good lawyers. To get past these problems, it’s important to keep working at it, have mentoring programs, and offer competitive perks.

2. Delay in Court procedures: Lawyers have to deal with delays in court procedures every day, which can take a long time and make it harder to settle cases. Lawyers have to deal with cases being pushed back, times being changed, and paperwork problems.

This ongoing problem makes things more difficult, necessitates constant case management changes, and may delay the delivery of justice. Lawyers often have to balance trying to make sure that delays don’t hurt their clients too much with pushing for faster and more efficient court processes.

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3. Fee earner burnout : Lawyers often experience fee earner burnout because their work is so demanding. Lawyers, who are sometimes called “ fee earners ,” work in high-stress situations and have to meet clients’ standards all the time. Many law companies have an attitude of “ billable hours,” which makes these problems even worse by making people work long hours and having little free time. The constant worry and fatigue that come from having to make money and meet business goals can be very bad. Lawyers may have to work late at night and on the weekends, which can make it hard to balance job and personal life. Another source of stress is the mental toll that comes from working with difficult situations or clients. Burnout not only hurts a person’s health, but it also lowers the quality and quantity of work that gets done.

When people are tired and unhappy with their jobs, they may not do as well, make more mistakes, and be less satisfied with their work. Also, lawyers may leave their jobs more often because they are burned out, looking for jobs with better work environments. Fee earner stress needs to be dealt with in a number of ways, such as by encouraging realistic billing standards, creating a helpful workplace culture, offering mental health resources, and supporting efforts to balance work and personal life. To keep a healthy and productive legal staff, it’s important to recognize and deal with stress.

Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka, ACMC, is a lawyer and a certified mediator/conciliator in Nigeria. He is also a developer with knowledge in various programming languages. Samuel is determined to leverage his skills in technology, SEO, and legal practice to revolutionize the legal profession worldwide by creating web and mobile applications that simplify legal research. Sam is also passionate about educating and providing valuable information to people.

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What’s It Like to Be a Lawyer?

A legal career is highly demanding. Unlike what we see on many TV series and commercials, a day in the life of a lawyer mainly sees them facing an uphill battle of civil litigation, document review, brainstorming, and meeting deadlines. Sometimes, these experts do not even have the time to catch up with colleagues over a cup of coffee.

Law practice is not as easy as it seems. However, when asked, “What’s it like to be a lawyer?” these professionals may present their daily routine as an adventure, tempting you to tread this career path. This article walks you through a typical day in the life of a lawyer. We’ll also be showing you what is the average salary of a lawyer and how this corresponds to a lawyer’s daily life.

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What is a lawyer.

A lawyer is a professional licensed for actual law practice. They offer valuable services such as conducting lawsuits on behalf of their clients and offering legal advice about their clients’ rights and obligations. These legal experts shuffle between client meetings, administrative hearings, and time in courtrooms, subjecting them to an ever-busy schedule. 

What Does a Lawyer Do on a Daily Basis? 

Generally, a lawyer reads and researches daily because the law is not static, but dynamic. They need to be equipped with the provisions of the most current statutes to draw up accurate legal documents. Depending on which type of lawyer you become, you may also be involved in the tasks listed below.

• Drawing up legal documents. Lawyers across every stratum base their dealings on legal documents. These documents serve as tool kits for defense lawyers and the trial counsel to make their oral arguments in a courtroom. Out of court, lawyers can also draw up documents relating to divorce, real estate transactions, wills, and contracts on behalf of their clients.
• Providing legal counsel. Clients depend on legal counsel because they cannot claim ignorance to escape liability for violating the law or evading obligations imposed upon them by statutes. Lawyers aid clients by offering legal advice on these rights and responsibilities. This advice enables clients to both maximize any benefits they could claim through their rights and minimize the chances of any legal flaw in their dealings.
• Gathering evidence: In law, seeing is believing. The lawyers cannot convince the jury or judge unless facts and evidence back up their oral arguments. Hence, legal practitioners, especially trial lawyers, make it a point of duty to gather substantial evidence to secure a conviction or otherwise.
• Representing Clients: Many lawyers, like personal injury lawyers, use their communication skills to defend their clients during legal proceedings. Lawyers represent their clients during negotiations leading to settlements for tortious, or harmful, acts. Clients employ these services because they do not have the legal expertise and professionalism required to carry out these legal transactions.
• Mediating disputes: Lawyers negotiate between conflicting parties during alternative dispute resolution sessions. This out-of-court remedy avoids the rigorous formal litigation process and helps parties arrive at a consensus faster in a more casual manner.

How Can I Become a Lawyer?

You must be passionate about the law before even contemplating delving into legal career opportunities. Being committed to this career path will help you persevere through rigorous training. A law career usually requires legal education ranging from three to five years, and the following are various pathways to becoming a lawyer .

Law Degrees

The minimum degree required to become a lawyer is a Bachelor of Law Degree or Juris Doctor. It takes about three to five years to complete this undergraduate degree. More notable firms may, in addition, require a postgraduate degree at the master’s level through a law school. This postgraduate degree takes a shorter time to obtain. However, most schools will need you to have completed a bachelor’s degree first. 

Law Online Courses

The emergence of online learning has made it increasingly easy to take courses online and obtain the requisite certifications. There are various apps for lawyers to acquire and improve upon their legal knowledge. Sites such as Study.com also offer free legal classes online where prospective students can get acquainted with legal concepts and law terminologies. Most of these courses, however, do not confer college credit.

Law Certifications

Law certifications are professional licenses and badges that you can acquire to narrow your concentration into a particular law field. They require less time to complete and are helpful for individuals who want to work as legal administrative assistants and paralegals. These qualifications include those for general legal studies, a law and technology certification, and a legal assistant certification.

How Can I Get a Job as a Lawyer?

A lawyer can quickly get a job in an accredited law firm or any other private practice sector to become a practice’s legal representative or in-house legal counsel. They can also work for the government as prosecutors or public defenders.

The ability to work in a representative capacity in any field is perhaps the unique advantage of being a lawyer. Since lawyers must know something about everything, thriving in the labor market shouldn’t be challenging. However, law is a competitive field, so you’ll need to be distinctive to get the best job options.

Steps to Finding a Job as a Lawyer

• Obtain the relevant qualifications

To be qualified for a job as a lawyer, you need to be certified by a bar association. This certification will require you to have met the educational requirements, such as earning a Juris Doctor degree , passing the bar examination, and undergoing a character and fitness certification. You can also go the extra mile by obtaining qualifications that might be specific to your preferred field of law or prospective organization.

• Take on internships

Law internships are great ways to improve your chances of getting employed. Many firms will consider you eligible to apply for an internship if you’ve completed at least one entire semester of legal study. While interning, you’ll support and learn from top professionals through case management, legal research, and attending client meetings. This internship will help meet the experience requirements to compete in the legal arena.

• Update your resume

You should constantly update your resume to demonstrate your knowledge of recent regulatory changes and an understanding of the industry. Avoid irrelevant information and tailor the featured details to the specific legal job you’re applying for. You should include your achievements, interests, and additional skills to highlight your uniqueness.

Lawyers deal with real people and real-life cases. The confidence and communication skills you get from networking can be applied while handling cases. More importantly, networking is an efficient means of discovering opportunities, even before advertising agencies put out these opportunities. Hence, you must value and utilize personal contacts and acquaintances you meet during your legal training or internships.

• Research and apply

A perfect opportunity to put your critical thinking skills and legal research skills to use is finding a job. You should conduct thorough research on the prospective company or industry and ensure that your credentials align with their requirements. If you’re clueless about where to apply in the first place, you can begin by searching on job boards.

What Is the Average Salary of a Lawyer?

Lawyers earn significantly more money than most other professionals. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual wage for lawyers as of May 2020 is $126,930. This figure cuts across all areas of law. However, those who work in law firms and business establishments tend to earn higher than those who own their practice.

Salary for an Entry-level Lawyer

Although average salaries for junior lawyers vary depending on jurisdictions and employers, ZipRecruiter posits that entry-level lawyers in the United States have an average annual pay of $47,318 . Regardless, you can earn more with related entry-level roles such as healthcare attorney, attorney partner, counsel attorney, and insurance attorney.

Salary for a Mid-level Lawyer

At the mid-level, a lawyer already has considerable experience and qualifications over and above the junior associates. ZipRecruiter estimates that the average annual salary for mid-level lawyers is $80,743 . There will be many opportunities for advancement and increased pay, based on skill level and location.

Salary for a Senior-level Lawyer

These senior associates are at the peak of their careers and can boast of themselves as experts in any legal field they specialize in. According to ZipRecruiter, senior-level lawyers earn $107,722 on average. 

As a senior partner, you can always make more by constantly sharpening your skills in the emerging areas of law such as technology. You could also move to higher-paying locations, such as lucrative locations in the state of California, like San Francisco, Fremont, or San Jose.

Job Outlook for a Lawyer

BLS projects the job outlook for lawyers to grow nine percent from 2020 to 2030 , similar to that of all other occupations. Law is a profession that will remain in demand because individuals, corporate bodies, and all levels of government continuously require legal services across a variety of areas.

Should I Become a Lawyer?

The prestige and awe that characterize a lawyer are exciting factors to consider when delving into the profession. The rewards are also very appetizing, and lawyers are here to stay, making law a stable and future-proof career. While the challenges involved are limitless and the process of becoming a full-fledged lawyer is rigorous, it is undoubtedly a satisfying career if you are hardworking, love researching and debating, and possess excellent analytical skills.

A Day in the Life of a Lawyer FAQs

If you enjoy reading and researching, the idea of being buried between the pages daily will be fun and exciting to you. Otherwise, you would find it nerve-wracking and monotonous.

Yes, people often use the words “lawyer” and “attorney” interchangeably, just as “medical doctors” and “physicians.” Jurisdictions such as the US commonly use “attorney.” In contrast, the rest of the world often uses the term “lawyer.”

Yes, law is one of the most tasking and stressful professions in the world. The academic exertion imposed upon law students is meant to prepare them for the rigorous life of a lawyer. Lawyers never stop reading and researching due to the ever-changing nature of the law, and they must revel in the idea of debate and challenge.

Yes, you can become a lawyer without being particularly smart. Although the general notion is that lawyers are brilliant, if you’re determined to be diligent and hardworking, you can become a lawyer. However, you should have a retentive memory because you must memorize a lot to pass your bar examinations.

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A Day in the Life of a Lawyer

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A day in the life of a lawyer is highly dependent on a lawyer’s practice area.  It is not uncommon that lawyers work more than 40 hours a week, and the typical workday is not 8-5.

I have been practicing since 2008, and I currently work as a litigation attorney primarily focusing on insurance bad faith defense.  I, along with several attorneys at the firm, represent insurance companies that have been sued for allegedly mishandling claims.

Every day can look differently, including tasks such as

• Drafting pleadings and brief and researching case law;
• Communicating with, reporting to and updating the client via correspondence or phone conferences;
• Meeting with witnesses at various locations;
• Reviewing documents relevant to the case to develop a trial strategy;
• Taking depositions or presenting a witness for deposition, including meeting a witness beforehand to prepare;
• Preparing for and attending Court hearings;
• Attending a Settlement Conference or mediation to negotiate a potential settlement between the parties; and
• Preparing for and attending trial.

No day looks exactly the same.  For instance, one day, I might be meeting with a witness to prepare for a deposition.  On another day, I might be drafting and researching a pleading in the office.  Other days, I might be preparing for and attending court hearings. In addition, I am always fielding phone calls and other communications – mainly emails – with opposing counsel and clients.  At the end of the day, the goal is to work towards a favorable resolution for the client.

It is a busy work schedule, and it has changed somewhat since the pandemic. We have been conducting more meetings and depositions virtually, and I believe the use of virtual conferences will continued to be used for the foreseeable future.

Working as a lawyer can be challenging and demanding career path, but it can also be rewarding and very interesting.

About Carrie McNeer Carrie McNeer is of counsel in the Tulsa office of GableGotwals. Her practice focuses on defending corporate and individual clients in a wide variety of complex litigation in state and federal courts. Prior to joining the Firm, Carrie served as Senior Counsel in complex civil defense litigation, including medical malpractice, nursing home defense, dental malpractice, elevator maintenance, and premises liability. Carrie’s litigation practice includes advising clients in all areas of civil litigation from initial assignment to trial.Carrie graduated from law school from The University of Tulsa College of Law in 2008. During that time, Carrie served as a judicial intern to the Honorable Judge Russell P. Hass at the Tulsa County Courthouse. She received her undergraduate degree in Marketing in 2005 from The University of Tulsa.

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Life as a Lawyer

The field of law has numerous subdivisions and you can take your JD down a variety of avenues.

Following are descriptions of four common types of practice:

Bankruptcy Lawyer

Bankruptcy is more than simply a series of hearings before a bankruptcy judge. It's a court–managed transactional process, with every transactional decision having a litigation counterpart, and vice versa. Appropriately, bankruptcy attorneys get to play both sides of the fence, all along counseling their clients on the impact of the Code on their business decisions. And within the transactional and litigation worlds, every area of law is touched upon.

Among the most common roles that a bankruptcy attorney plays are:

It's no surprise that in many law firms, the bankruptcy group is a sub-section of the litigation practice. Bankruptcy is a courtroom process, with a bankruptcy judge overseeing each bankruptcy proceeding and approving all major debtor–and some creditor–business decisions. A bankruptcy attorney spends much of her time in court, arguing for or against debtor and creditor motions and often participating in full–scale trials.

Commercial financing

In Chapter 11 cases, where the debtor continues operating as a "going concern," a primary focus of the weeks before and immediately after the bankruptcy filing is negotiating "debtor–in–possession"–or DIP–financing. These loans provide debtors with their financial lifelines, provide bankrupt corporations with sufficient funds to keep their doors open (or at least close them very slowly and carefully). Bankruptcy attorneys negotiate and draft these DIP financing agreements, fluent in the provisions of the Code and case law governing these facilities.

Mergers and acquisitions attorney

Chapter 7 and many Chapter 11 cases revolve around asset sales, often of the entire business of the debtor. At some firms, bankruptcy attorneys work hand–in–hand with m&a attorneys in creating auctions processes (yep, you heard that–auctions, often complete with gavels) and negotiating and closing these sales; More often, the bankruptcy attorney performs all of the m&a work, including negotiating and drafting relevant purchase and ancillary agreements and overseeing the sale closings. And in all situations, it is the bankruptcy attorneys who request (and hopefully secure) the court's approval of these sales.

Labor and employment

Bankruptcies involve businesses, and businesses have employees. Bankruptcy attorneys provide counsel in communicating with a debtor's labor force, complying with federal and state laws, and stand on the front lines of negotiations of, and disputes about, employee severance and retention programs.

Uniform Commercial Code/Secured Transactions

Creditors' secured status—and whether debtors can "avoid", or void, a creditor's security interest–is an important issue in all bankruptcies, and most bankruptcy attorneys acquire some knowledge of, and often expertise in, the Uniform Commercial Code and other aspects of security interests.

Chief Operating Officer

In Chapter 7 proceedings and the occasional Chapter 11 case, the court appoints a bankruptcy trustee, often a bankruptcy attorney, to operate and/or wind-down the debtor's business. Here, the trustee gets to act as businessman and client, typically hiring another attorney to do all legal work.

And that list just scratches the surface. Bankruptcies also involve issues of tax, real estate, landlord-tenant relations, environmental law, telecommunications, securities regulation, securities fraud, anti-trust, white-collar crime, domestic relations…well, the list doesn't stop, given that every bankruptcy is different, and involves every aspect of the debtor's financial life. A consumer bankruptcy involving a man in the midst of a divorce will involve all sorts of family law issues; the bankruptcy of a media conglomerate will require knowledge of federal communications regulations. This sheer variety of roles makes bankruptcy a unique and exciting practice, guaranteeing nary a dull moment.

Master of Studies in Law (MSL) are available online. Find the best programs here.

Corporate Lawyer

You think you want to be there, but how much do you know about the responsibilities of a corporate lawyer? Corporate law has its own unique set of job responsibilities:

Due Diligence

Due diligence, also called document review, is the process of reviewing the existing legal and business contracts of a business (including corporate documents, agreements and financial statements) for potential problems and issues prior to a proposed transaction, such as a merger or acquisition. The usual goal is to make sure that there is nothing in any of the contracts that would prohibit the sale of the company (or require a third party's consent) and to make sure that the contract will not terminate as a result of the sale. Usually, an associate will catalog the documents he or she has reviewed and write summaries of the key agreements. For example, when a merger is being considered and the acquirer hasn't had the time to read all of the contracts of the company it is considering purchasing, the lawyers will be expected to summarize the agreements. The purpose of due diligence is to give your client the clearest possible picture of the company you're examining, so the client can assess the risks and benefits of going through with the contemplated transaction.

In an initial public offering, due diligence involves reading agreements that are summarized in the deal prospectus–the document given to prospective investors summarizing important information about the company and the deal—to make sure the prospectus is correct. If you are representing an underwriter in a securities offering, you will review documents so that the underwriter can claim to have made a reasonable investigation of the issuer's statements in the offering document. Basically, it's done so that the underwriter will be able to claim the due diligence defense if there is a material misstatement in the offering document. ("I investigated and everything looked fine so don't come after me with a lawsuit because the investors lost their money.")

A junior associate does more due diligence than contract drafting because one of the best ways to learn how to draft contracts is to read a lot of them. In the past, lawyers frequently traveled to the company they were reviewing and spent a few days, or however long it took, to review all the materials pertinent to the transaction. Some attorneys have noticed a trend toward cutting back on attorney travel. Apparently, clients have discovered it's cheaper to have their own employees copy all the documents and send them to the law firm for review.

If you do travel to the company, document review is a great way to bill a lot of hours in a short period of time. You don't waste time looking for work or trying to decide whether to go to lunch with your colleagues. And no one can give you any non–billable work to do, like updating the firm's research files. The company sets aside a room for you and puts all the documents in there, and you read and read and read all day. Most lawyers find the work tedious, but again it is excellent training. In addition, it's a chance to get to know your colleagues really well. On rare occasions, you'll get to do a little detective work if the company has not supplied the proper documents and you have to interview employees to determine where they are.

Research and Writing Memos

Researching legal issues and writing memoranda about them is something that you should learn in law school, as both are essential for all aspects of a law practice. However, this process is rarely the same in a law firm. Not only are memos in corporate law slightly less formal and slightly less constrained by citation rules, your superiors might have very different ideas about what constitutes a useful, readable document. In a corporate law department, you are looking up applicable laws and figuring out what practical impact they have on your client's decisions and actions, rather than assessing the state of the law on a certain issue in the abstract. It's important to research and write the memo as quickly and efficiently as possible without sacrificing thoroughness and accuracy. Don't be surprised if your first memorandum comes back to you bleeding with editorial suggestions. And don't let it bother you. Just make sure to incorporate all of the suggestions into your revision and ask questions if you don't understand a comment.

Contract Drafting and Review

Drafting a contract is preparing the contract from the beginning–usually starting with a form and then tailoring it to fit the needs of the parties. You put down in words what the parties have agreed to in principal as best as you can so that there are no ambiguities in the future when the same parties or others read those documents. Then you or your senior associate will go back and forth with the lawyers for the other parties to revise and refine the document until all parties are comfortable signing. Negotiation of the contract involves some compromise. Once you understand what is important to your client and what they can live with or without, you try to strike the best deal for them without risking endless delay or total breakdown of the process. It's best not to spend too much time trying to hash out issues that aren't really essential to your client.

Review of a contract is simply reading the contract to determine what the parties' rights are under its terms and whether any of the terms may be detrimental to your client. When you're starting out, the person who gives you the assignment will tell you what to look for. Ultimately, you'll have read so many agreements that you'll know what's standard and what could be disadvantageous to your client.

Formation and "Housekeeping" of Corporate Entities

As a new corporate associate, you will learn to draft basic certificates, like a certificate of incorporation. These certificates are modeled after a form, so such tasks are pretty easy. In many firms, this kind of work is also handled by experienced paralegals, and those paralegals can often be a great source of knowledge for a new associate.

But before you file the papers, someone has to determine what would be the best structure of the organization, depending on the clients' goals. Examples of different legal entities include general partnerships, limited partnerships, limited liability companies, C corporations, S corporations and business trusts. Each structure offers its own legal and tax advantages and disadvantages. For example, a limited liability company, which is a hybrid between a partnership and a corporation, might provide the best tax treatment while retaining the limited liability advantage of a corporation. If the company wants to trade shares on an open market ("go public"), they have to use a standard corporate form, or C corporation, since that is what stock exchanges usually require. For a smaller company, with no immediate plans of going public, an S corporation, which, unlike the C corporation, does not pay income taxes on earnings (instead, the shareholder pays income tax on dividends), might present a better solution.

Forming the company is easy, and a paralegal can usually accomplish this task, although it is a good idea for a new lawyer to learn the process and be able to review the paralegal's work. The hard part is determining what the rights of the owners are in relation to each other, including consideration of how the parties are going to get out of the relationship if they decide their goals are not being met, and making sure that all of this is reflected in the company's documents, whether via a shareholders' agreement or an LLC agreement, in the articles of incorporation or bylaws, or even on the share certificates themselves. As a new lawyer, you won't be making these decisions. Either you'll be executing the instructions of another attorney, or taking a crack at the project yourself and then learning the correct reasoning when someone else reviews your work.

After you have created a legal entity under the applicable state law, you have to continue to ensure that proper documentation is made of the company's decisions and actions so that there is a clear corporate history of regulatory compliance. Corporate "housekeeping" involves drafting and filing the necessary paperwork to maintain an entity's corporate status with the appropriate governmental entity, usually a state secretary of state's office and the Internal Revenue Service. For example, you may draft and/or review board of directors' resolutions, file tax records, maintain and prepare stock certificates, and draft partnership or shareholder agreements.

Often, small companies are formed without the advice of a lawyer. When this happens, the corporate formalities, other than the filing of simple articles or certificate of incorporation might be largely ignored. This doesn't usually become a problem for the company until it becomes an acquisition target (meaning someone wants to buy the company) or when the company has expanded and wants either to start raising capital through the sale of shares or to go public. At this point, a lawyer will often have to work with the client to recreate the records that the corporation needs and may even have to amend the articles of incorporation to permit for the issuance of additional and different types of shares. You will either have to know or research the corporate statutes of the state of the company's organization to make sure that the company is in compliance with the state's requirements.

Preparing Filings for State and Federal Agencies

It's likely that a new associate will prepare filings other than corporate organizational documents. At a minimum, an associate will usually get some exposure to corporate securities filings. When a company wants to start selling shares to people who were not involved in the inception and management of the company, that company must share a great deal of information about itself. The kind of information the company must provide and the format in which the information must be provided depend on the level of financial sophistication of its investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulates this process. If your client wants to sell shares to all kinds of investors, they go public and are traded on an open market. If they choose to do this, they will be subject to very strict disclosure requirements. The documents they have to produce are lengthy (usually over a hundred pages) and extremely number–intensive. They must comply with very specific rules and regulations. Most associates will spend some time proofreading these documents and researching applicable laws and regulations.

Public Defenders

The public defender might be the unsung hero of the legal system. As a government employee, he makes relatively little for a litigator. He has little say over his cases and often works with the defendants that no one else wants. He doesn't have the resources that the district attorney's office has and must often engage in his own investigations. Many of his cases seem almost hopeless and, to the victims of crime, he appears almost as bad as his defendants. So why does he do this job?

For one thing, public defenders are integral to the criminal justice system. The law affords everyone the right to an attorney including those who cannot afford one. “It's a mistake to say that we're against the system. We're part of the system,” observes one public defender. Public defenders work for government agencies or are private lawyers paid an hourly rate by the state. Either way, there's not a lot of money to be made.

There are public defenders at the state, federal and appellate levels. At the state level, a public defender represents impoverished clients in state criminal court, handling everything from small violations to juvenile offenses to violent crime cases. He is responsible for acquiring all background information on the case, interviewing witnesses and filing the appropriate papers and motions in court, as well as preparing for trial and negotiating plea bargains. Although previous litigation experience is always looked upon as an asset, a lawyer can become a state public defender in his first year after law school.

The public defender at the federal level represents those who cannot afford private representation in federal court. An assistant federal public defender does both trial and appellate work in the U.S. district courts and the circuit courts of appeal. In general, a candidate for the federal public defender's office must already have a few years of serious litigation experience, preferably in criminal court.

Some states have a separate agency for public defenders working at an appellate level. These appellate defenders work with appeals either in state or federal court, preparing for appellate-level hearings or representing defendants at the post-conviction level. Their job is to make sure that the defendant has had a fair and impartial trial and that his treatment in the justice system continues to be appropriate and fair. Some appellate defenders specialize in capital cases (cases involving the death penalty).

First-year public defenders will find themselves in court very quickly, defending petty thieves and vandals and the like. They might work odd shifts and have only a few minutes to meet with each client before appearing before a judge. Often, the defense attorney's job will be to get a fair plea bargain for his client. Public defenders spend a good portion of every day either in court for hearings or in jails with their clients. Gradually, as the public defender increases in skill and knowledge of the legal system, he will start trying more complicated misdemeanors and eventually felonies. Most public defender agencies offer some kind of training, but most of a public defender's duties are learned on the job and on his feet.

Like their adversaries across the aisle, public defenders get court experience and criminal law experience very quickly. As a public defender, you will be representing clients in trials long before your friends with civil litigation jobs and, in some cases, before your classmates who became assistant district attorneys. As the defenders of the indigent and needy, public defenders can find immense satisfaction in helping someone who would otherwise be lost in the currents of the legal system. There will always be work for public defenders, and the litigation experience is unparalleled.

Being a public defender is, however, often an uphill battle. In many cases, the prosecution has a mountain of damning evidence and a defense attorney might start to feel as if his job is merely defending "guilty people." A public defender at an agency has very little say in which cases he takes and, while he may happily take on a burglary case, defending an alleged rapist can be a sobering experience. (A public defender can sometimes turn down a case, but this is rare and usually frowned upon.) The role of a criminal defense attorney is very demanding in any case, but the public defender often works with those considered "the dregs" of society and may have to face the victim or the victim's family in court every day.

Many public defenders enjoy the legal challenge. "I think my job is very creative," says one public defender. "I'm given a set of facts and the ADA's theory, and it's my job to see other perspectives. It's challenging." Others are devoted to making sure that even the most despised and vulnerable members of society are represented fairly. Some defenders see their role as ensuring that the prosecution is forced to put together the best prosecution it can, given that a person's freedom is at stake. Others have political or sociological views that clash with the established judicial or prison system. "I think you need a pretty strong belief system to do this job," says one public defender. "Not always – I mean, there are people who do it just for the experience. But it can wear you down, and it helps to really feel that you're contributing something."

Whatever their motivation, the ranks of public defenders are full of excellent lawyers. The salary at a state agency is generally commensurate with that at the district attorney's office, although in some jurisdictions a public defender can make much less. Appellate defenders at the state level will make about as much as their trial counterparts. Federal public defenders make salaries similar to those of the U.S. attorneys in their area. Generally, a prospective public defender at any level will pass through a series of interviews and be asked to make a commitment of a certain number of years to the agency. (Three is a common number.) Most agencies look for evidence of interest in community service and helping the needy, from a legal or other standpoint.

Public defenders who are not part of an agency are assigned their cases by a court and paid by the hour. Lawyers in every state have complained that the hourly rate set by courts chases many good would-be public defenders into different fields of law. Clearly, lawyers remain public defenders for reasons other than the money.

Public defenders can work many long hours, especially if they're at trial. However, the hours of a public defender, like those of an assistant district attorney, are not as unrelentingly demanding as those of corporate litigators. And while hiring is dependent on government budgets, the high turnover rate of public defenders means that new, eager lawyers are always wanted.

Plaintiffs' Counsel

Representing the underdog.

If you have a passion for civil rights and like to root for the underdog, you might find working on the plaintiffs' side of the employment bar a good fit. While plaintiffs aren't always the underdog, many plaintiffs' lawyers report that they at least feel like the underdog most of the time. Plaintiffs' side attorneys encounter many unique, challenging and potentially rewarding aspects of litigation practice not experienced by their peers on the management side. The substantive nature of the work, however, is virtually identical.

Plaintiffs' lawyers represent the parties that initiate a range of employment litigation, from sexual harassment to age discrimination to wage and hour litigation. Plaintiff–side practice is almost exclusively focused on litigation. The kind of counseling plaintiffs' attorneys provide entails consulting with potential clients to evaluate the merits of a case. Again, if your civil procedure class seemed like a trip to the dentist's office, employment litigation may not be the field for you. On the other hand, if the thought of standing up in front of jury and telling your client's story excites you, there may be no better place to practice than on the plaintiffs' side of the employment bar.

Focus on Smaller Cases

Unlike the different sizes you find on the management/defense side, plaintiffs' firms tend to come in one size only – small. Most plaintiffs' firms are small litigation firms with a handful of attorneys who represent plaintiffs in a variety of cases. While some plaintiffs' firms specialize in employment litigation, others combine their employment practice with civil rights cases, personal injury work or other kinds of litigation. Examples of plaintiffs' firms well known for employment litigation include Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff in San Francisco and Hadsell & Stormer in Los Angeles. Because of their smaller size, plaintiffs' firms tend to have localized practices concentrated in one metropolitan area or, at most, an entire state. The mainstay of these firms are single– and multi–plaintiff actions. Larger class actions, which involve significant financial risk for plaintiffs' counsel, are usually brought by firms with expertise in class actions or by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC is a major force in the world of employment law and acts essentially as the federal government's plaintiffs' firm for employment matters. (The EEOC will be discussed in more detail below.)

Sink or Swim Training

At private plaintiffs' firms, the focus on smaller cases allows new lawyers to work on significant matters early in their careers. In fact, as a junior attorney at a plaintiffs' firm you will probably get substantial responsibility on a case–even before you think you're ready. This "sink or swim" method of training is common at plaintiffs' firms which need associates to be competent litigators early on because they just don't have time to slowly train new attorneys and bring them up through the ranks. Not only do junior plaintiffs' attorneys frequently enjoy more responsibility than their counterparts at large management firms, but they also are likely to have greater client contact.

Holding the Client's Hand Plaintiffs' lawyers work closely with clients who may feel victimized and at times be very emotional. The close relationships that often develop between employment discrimination plaintiffs and their attorneys can require a certain amount of “client management” or “hand–holding” (as some lawyers like to call it), and at such times plaintiffs' lawyers may assume a role closer to counselor than litigator. Plaintiffs' attorneys also have to deal with clients' mood swings that range from disenchantment with the litigation to holding onto an unreasonable settlement position because they are so emotionally entangled in the case. These aspects of the attorney–client relationship come at a much earlier stage to attorneys on the plaintiffs' side than to defense–side lawyers. Associates at plaintiffs' firms often have significant interaction with clients in their first few years of practice, while partners are usually the main contact with clients on the management side and actual interaction with corporate clients may not trickle far down the ranks. Many lawyers find the early responsibility, close client contact and opportunity to litigate a ton of cases attractive aspects of plaintiff–side practice.

More Food for Thought

On the other hand, the plaintiffs' side of the bar offers fewer opportunities for young attorneys to obtain practical training from attentive senior litigators. Plaintiffs' side litigators tend to be independent types who aren't in the business of building a law firm full of well–trained associates. Even when you find an opportunity on the plaintiffs' side it will not be nearly as lucrative in the beginning as starting out on the management side. In addition, more senior plaintiffs' attorneys have to deal with all of the risks associated with contingent fee arrangements that are the foundation of plaintiffs' side work. Contingency–based fees can, of course, prove very lucrative, but they involve a degree of financial risk that management–side lawyers don't usually have to deal with.

As the agency responsible for enforcing federal employment discrimination laws, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission might be considered the biggest plaintiffs' firm of them all. EEOC lawyers tend to serve two functions. First, they serve as in-house counsel for the investigative arm of the agency. In this capacity EEOC lawyers might take complaints or investigate claims. Second, EEOC attorneys serve as trial lawyers in federal court, prosecuting the employment cases that could not be settled by the parties voluntarily through the EEOC's conciliation process. The cases actually tried by the EEOC tend be higher profile cases and provide EEOC lawyers with the opportunity to litigate opposite some of the best private practice employment litigators in the country. Such unique litigation experiences are among the reasons that positions at the EEOC are in short supply. Another reason is that the EEOC's ability to hire lawyers is directly tied to its general budget, which must be approved by Congress.

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• Why everyone should think like a lawyer

The unloved profession has a lot to teach managers

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L AWYERS ARE often seen as the most tedious of professionals. And the most derided (“What do you know when you find a lawyer up to his neck in concrete? Someone ran out of concrete”). Yet that damning reputation is undeserved: lawyers are in fact role models. The method and meticulousness entrenched in the legal style of thought has something to teach other knowledge workers and their managers.

In “One L ”, a book about his first year at Harvard Law School, Scott Turow describes the slow, arduous progress of going over his first case as “stirring concrete with his eyelashes”. But legal education is not about specific cases or statutes. It is, as Mr Turow later understands, about processing a mountain of information and exercising judgment. It teaches how to infer rules from patterns, use analogies, anticipate what might happen next, accept ambiguity and be ready to question everything.

The sober way of going about this is by sticking to the facts. What matters is what you can prove. In her final year of law school, this guest Bartleby gave her hairdresser of many years advice on whether another client’s behaviour amounted to breach of contract. It did not—the law did not offer an effective remedy for that problem. This left the salon owner grateful not to be spending resources on a lost cause. (She proceeded to remunerate your columnist with a free haircut.)

In a world of business that is increasingly dominated by amorphous, ever-changing markets, the interaction might sound familiar to managers, and many of their subordinates. White-collar workers, after all, also need to remain rational in the face of unexpected situations and undeterred by initial incomprehension. No lawyer knows every law, but by the time their training is over they are calm in the face of the unknown and know how and where to look anything up. Likewise, anyone running a company will never have all the answers. What they need is equanimity and a method of quickly arriving at conclusions that are likelier than not to be the correct ones.

Managers also have something to learn from the adversarial legal system, central to common-law jurisdictions like America’s and Britain’s, where advocates represent their parties before an impartial arbiter (usually a judge and a jury). In preparing for trial, lawyers attempt to identify and rehearse both sides of litigation. By putting themselves in their opponents’ shoes they are forced to engage with a line of reasoning with which they may disagree.

In so far as managing employees is, like arguing a case before a court, about persuasion, managers would be wise to adopt some of the same tactics. That means avoiding emotional reactions (lawyers may try to appeal to jurors’ feelings but they never let their own get in the way). It also means considering the strongest criticism of their own reasoning. This not only makes their own arguments bulletproof but is liable to look fair in the eyes of employees and fellow managers. (Plus, a friendly but thorough performance review is essentially a mock cross-examination of your witnesses.)

Law, after all, is a way of dealing with social stress. If attorneys are trained for one thing, it is on how to maintain focus, precision and a clear strategic plan in the midst of a crisis. When a team feels a wrong should be redressed, a manager should look for the rule that governs the conduct in question, how that rule was applied in the past and act in a way that seems morally defensible. If the crisis is external, a manager should also follow precedent, which is the basis of common law and much of what lawyers do in court. The purposefulness and heady resolve that characterise most lawyers are attributes that executives, too, should cultivate. There is no room for passivity when something goes wrong, only for action.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson from lawyers is both the most obvious and the most scorned. The antidote to work anxiety is not taking your mind off work with meditation or Netflix. It is disciplined preparation. There are rewards in leaving no stone unturned. By putting in the hours, even if these are not billable, managers can ensure they are as ready as they can be for the uncertainties that lie ahead. As an added bonus, hard graft wins them the respect of colleagues and subordinates.

Your columnist ended up not pursuing a career in law. But she never regretted her training as a lawyer—and not just because of the free haircut. ■

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This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Why you should think like a lawyer”

Business June 29th 2024

Is the revival of paris in peril, european millionaires seek a safe harbour from populism, a new lab and a new paper reignite an old ai debate, why big oil is wading into lithium, boom times are back for container shipping, who shaved $250bn from kweichow moutai’s market value.

• Is artificial intelligence making big tech too big?

From the June 29th 2024 edition

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Career Goals — Why I Want to Become a Lawyer: My Future Career

Why I Want to Become a Lawyer: My Future Career

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About this sample

Words: 502 |

Updated: 9 November, 2023

Words: 502 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

You may also be interested Turabian Citation Maker

Works Cited:

• Hobbes, T. (2018). Leviathan. Penguin UK.
• Rousseau, J.-J. (2019). A discourse on inequality. Oxford University Press.
• Avineri, S. (2018). The social and political thought of Karl Marx. Cambridge University Press.
• Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. Holt Paperbacks.
• Brennan, G., & Pettit, P. (2019). The economy of esteem: An essay on civil and political society. Oxford University Press.
• Gauthier, D. (2016). Hobbes's social contract: An introduction. Cambridge University Press.
• Locke, J. (2019). Two Treatises of Government. Oxford University Press.
• Manent, P. (2018). Natural law and human rights: Toward a recovery of practical reason. University of Notre Dame Press.
• Sandel, M. J. (2012). Justice: What’s the right thing to do?. Macmillan.
• Skinner, Q. (2019). Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Cambridge University Press.

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A Quiet Place: Day One Review

Pretty much the best case scenario for a prequel..

A Quiet Place: Day One opens in theaters Friday, June 28.

It’s impressive just how great A Quiet Place: Day One is. Not that the first two Quiet Place movies weren’t good – they’re both strong films in their own right. But this spinoff/prequel to those earlier films introduces new characters in a new setting that successfully elevates both the tension and the emotional impact of John Krasinski’s nearly dialogue-free horror films. The result is the series’ best movie to date.

As the title implies, Day One brings us back to the very beginning, to the day sightless alien creatures with extremely sharp hearing first crash down to Earth. Yes, we saw some of this invasion play out in A Quiet Place Part II’s harrowing prologue, but the big difference here is a change of scenery: Where that sequence was set in a small town in Upstate New York, Day One takes place right in the middle of Manhattan. That change gives the action a different feel, which only expands as the movie charts the first steps toward the post-apocalyptic world established in the first two films.

A Quiet Place: Day One Gallery

Our main character this time out is Samira (Lupita Nyong'o), who’s in town on a day trip during a time of personal crisis. As fate would have it, she won’t be catching a bus home that afternoon, due to the nightmarish creatures who show up and mercilessly wipe out any humans they hear in their vicinity. Nyong'o is a proven talent – she has an Oscar for a reason. And yet, perhaps because she’s only made a handful of movies since her breakout performance in 12 Years a Slave , every new role she plays feels like a reminder of what a terrific actor she is and how effortlessly she holds the screen. The opening scenes of A Quiet Place: Day One establish what Samira’s life is like and the impulsive hostility she’s sometimes capable of – an efficient explanation of what causes her behavior. But it’s Nyong'o’s performance that does the heavy lifting of quickly connecting us to her, so that we’re invested even before the world starts ending.

As the survivors of the aliens’ initial attack process what happened and how quiet they need to be to avoid detection, Samira finds a new focus. She knows exactly where in the city she wants to travel. Her reasoning becomes clear as time goes on, and by that point, writer-director Michael Sarnoski (taking over for Krasinski, who returns as executive producer and receives a “story by” credit) has fully immersed us in this story, grounding an outrageous premise in a relatable emotional core.

What's the best horror movie of 2024 so far?

Sarnoski pulled off a similar trick in his first feature, 2021’s Pig , turning the story of Nicolas Cage tracking down his stolen pet foraging pig into something so empathetic and soulful. The other Quiet Place movies have powerful, compassionate moments of their own, but Day One manages to dig deeper. In a film that only sparingly uses dialogue, Sarnoski and his talented cast manage to convey a lot through brief yet meaningful glances and small observations. The prequel underlines the awful, nearly impossible plight of its protagonists. Could you truly stay silent while moving fast? Or if you were in terrible pain? Or if you were just plain terrified? There are several wrenching moments throughout that demonstrate just what an ordeal this would be, and why so many wouldn’t survive it.

This is especially true once Samira meets British law student Eric (Joseph Quinn). Barely holding it together, Eric latches on to Samira. He sheepishly follows her, whether she likes it or not, and their dynamic adds more heart to Day One. We see how Eric and Samira rapidly forge a real connection, even though they can’t really speak to one another. Quinn is wonderful at displaying Eric’s sweetness and vulnerability through his actions, rather than any big monologue, and he proves to be the perfect scene partner for Nyong'o.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the emotional components of A Quiet Place: Day One, so I should also note that this movie is truly scary and often intense as hell. (It gets an extra jolt in IMAX, where the sound design genuinely made me feel like I was in the middle of a city under siege.) There are terrific scenes throughout that ratchet up the tension, such as when our heroes must travel through a flooded subway tunnel. When the aliens attack, it’s brutal and memorable – this is one of the harder-edged PG-13 films in recent memory. Sarnoski gets a lot of visual mileage out of the creatures swarming the streets of New York and scurrying across skyscrapers, which is especially impressive considering how many other monster movies have used the city as their backdrop. There’s a genuine dread that sells this as a believable look at how people would react to a situation so beyond comprehension and so out of their control.

Day One is mainly a two-hander between Nyong'o and Quinn, though Alex Wolff (who worked with Sarnoski on Pig) does good work in a smaller role. Djimon Hounsou also pops up to reprise his role as Henri from A Quiet Place Part II – the only real attempt to establish more connective tissue to the larger Quiet Place franchise. It’s fan service, but to the film’s credit, there isn’t any eye-rolling foreshadowing of what Henri’s future holds. (You can absolutely enjoy Day One without any prior knowledge of A Quiet Place.)

There’s one other significant character: Frodo, Samira’s therapy cat. As a cat lover, I was nervous for Frodo from the get-go – after all, this is a film series that kicks off with the death of a young boy. I won’t say whether Frodo makes it out alive or not, but I will say that the two cats playing him, Nico and Schnitzel, give excellent performances. Granted, the extent to which Frodo never meows or cries out – no matter what is occurring around him – requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief. Look, I have cats, and they truly won’t shut up when they’re hungry. But Frodo is just built different, okay?

A Quiet Place: Day One shows that the horror franchise can thrive without its core characters and can go even further in terms of how impactful its stories can be. Day One combines expertly done moments of terror and tension combined with a story about two people it’s easy to care for, as we watch them forge a relatable human connection while trying to evade freaky alien monsters with really strong hearing. It’s both the best A Quiet Place movie to date and one of the best movies I’ve seen in 2024.

More Reviews by Eric Goldman

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Inside Look: A Day in the Life of a Lawyer

It usually comes as a shock when people realize how many hours a week lawyers commit to their practices. A day in the life of a lawyer is anything but a nine-to-five routine with an hour or more for a leisurely lunch. Bloomberg View reported that an attorney at a large law firm works anywhere from 50 to 60 hours a week on average. The long hours are the result of the obligations the practice of law imposes on an attorney.

The image people have of an attorney heading to court in the morning and spending the remainder of the day engaged in a trial before a panel of jurors or arguing a motion or an appeal in front of a judge has probably been shaped by what they see on television or in the movies. The reality of a lawyer’s daily routine can be quite different from those dramatized portrayals. Here is a look into a day in the life of the average attorney in private practice.

Starting the day

One common trait among attorneys, regardless of their area of practice, is the habit of being the first, or one of the first, to arrive in the office each morning. Ask a group of lawyers in private practice to describe their most productive time of the day, and most of them will probably say it’s the early morning, before their offices officially open for business.

Early morning in a law office is when the phones are not ringing, clients are not scheduled for appointments, and the other distractions that arise throughout the day are absent. This is when lawyers can catch up on reading and responding to emails and other forms of correspondence or, particularly for attorneys practicing in multi-attorney law firms, they can use the early morning hours to catch up on messages and memos from paralegals and other attorneys giving or seeking updates on pending cases.

For attorneys whose practices take them to court or to administrative hearings, the hours before the rest of the office staff arrives and the lawyer heads out the door is an excellent time to conduct a last-minute review of the cases on the court docket or hearing calendar for the day. It is also an opportunity to review the status of some of the pending cases in the office to make certain whatever needs to be accomplished to move them along is being done by the attorney, paralegals, or others working in the office.

Some attorneys use the early morning hours to focus on doing the legal research of the laws and case decisions that goes into the preparation of each case. This might also be the time the lawyer prepares motions, memorandums of law, pleadings, and other legal documents required for the cases on which they are working.

Business hours

Even though emails and text messaging seem to have replaced telephone conversations as the preferred method of communication for most of the population, phone calls continue to play a key role in a day in the life of a lawyer. For example, the typical personal injury attorney and workers’ compensation lawyer must set aside time each day to make or return calls, particularly to the following:

• Clients: The use of letters or emails to update clients about the status of their cases will not replace a telephone call from the attorney to answer client questions or to respond to concerns a client might have about a case.
• Claims adjusters: Insurance claims adjusters are busy people, so getting them on the phone to discuss a case may not come about without leaving messages and returning their calls. Speaking to adjusters is the only way personal injury or workers’ compensation attorneys can settle cases on behalf of clients.
• Attorneys: It is important for a lawyer, regardless of the area of law in which they practice, to discuss cases with co-counsel or opposing counsel. Attorneys might see each other in court or at administrative agencies, but it is easier to have a meaningful conversation about a case when it is conducted away from distractions and at a time when both attorneys have access to their case files.

On those days when an attorney is not heading out to court or to an appointment, the time in the office is spent seeing clients, preparing pleadings, reviewing correspondence that comes in, and attending to other matters that need to be completed as part of representing the firm’s clients. There are also other tasks that solo practitioners or partners in law firms must attend to that are related to the running of the practice. These tasks might include:

• Marketing: Attracting new clients to a practice is essential to its existence. The internet has opened the door to a new array of marketing tools that attorneys must become familiar with in order to make the best use of them.
• Personnel and staffing: Hiring and training attorneys and support staff take up a considerable amount of an attorney’s time when it is necessary to add or replace someone.
• Continuing education: Lawyers must take courses to stay current in their knowledge of the laws and thus remain in good standing with their state bar association. For instance, members of the Oregon State Bar must complete 45 hours of continuing legal education every three years to retain the right to practice in the state.

Committed to making a difference

Regardless of the number of hours worked each week or the area of law in they practice, a day in the life of a lawyer is aimed at achieving a favorable result for a client. For personal injury and workers’ compensation lawyers, what an attorney does each day can change a person’s life through a settlement or verdict that provides the money needed to allow the person to recover from an accident and injury.

This article was quite informative. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your webpage! I am currently doing a study on Attorney and how anthropology interact with day to day activities on Attorney. I apreciation your advice on how to be a good laywer and what it is like.

John Kroeger

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A Day In A Lawyer’s Life : Through The Eyes Of An Intern

In this article Sarang Khanna, Content Marketing Executive at iPleaders, talks about a day in the life of a lawyer. Read this interesting piece through the eyes of an intern for a smile-worthy experience.

“I see you have brought the entire library with you, Mr. Advocate”, remarked the Judge noticing the excess of books and manuals. “Indeed I have, My Lord”, said the lawyer, “I have brought all these books to teach you a little about the law.”

Arguments are the fuel that drives the legal profession. It would be appropriate to say that a healthy argument is an art which is practiced on a daily basis in all courtrooms across the country. Yes, advocacy is perhaps the only profession where you can reply in the above manner to your superior, and still get to keep your job. From the rush of the heated arguments one after another, to taking subtle digs at each other, lawyers are a breed that continuously feed on an intoxicating and almost addictive urge to outsmart each other. The sense of power that comes with the black robe and the stiff collar band, is known only to the ones who wear it.

Coming from a generation that has been largely awestruck by the charm and wit depicted in the courtroom dramas on television, I always wanted to have the lawyer’s way of life for myself. Choosing law school was the obvious choice for anyone who considered their tongues to be sharper than the shredding machine. But I always knew it wasn’t going to be as fancy all the time, not at least in college.

Life at law school can be extremely demanding, and rightly so. I knew internships were the best way to get on the ground and start learning from the horses. Well, many might assume that internships are an easy time before their yet-to-commence law career, but no. The experiences that you have during them, give you an opportunity to direct your professional training in one serious direction. Litigation or Corporate? – I think it is a cusp every law student finds themselves at. For me, I knew this question was best dealt with as quickly as possible.

Practicing lawyers and corporate lawyers are like flipsides of a single coin. The Yin and Yang; the same, yet so different. While the early years in litigation are a constant hustle, corporate counterparts can enjoy the glorified and well-cushioned desk jobs. For some, the vast difference in initial earnings itself gives them a clear winner, but I knew I was in it for the arguing, for the intoxication. And hence, litigation it was for me.

I figured early on, that internships are a time to perform and figure what’s working out and what is not. Most will give you only a glimpse of what it is going to be like, but the true story still remains behind the curtains. Of course, you have to lift the curtain for yourself and find out the reality.

For example, while interning at a big law firm, one might feel that the job profile will be about research work, and making notes to present to the partner. But alas! This is not even a percent of what these dexterous associates are required to do. One might think the practice of criminal law is fancy, and just because the subjects are interesting they are good to go. Though you probably have no idea of what it takes to build a stable clientele or how to deal with court-room politics.

Which is why, internships are a beautiful way to get some real world insights, but yes, your entire decision to choose your path cannot be completely based on that.

Personally, what I didn’t realize during previous internships were the challenges that were in field of litigation. There are times when you are put in situations you did not imagine could exist; right from appearing for cases you do not know anything about, to advising clients on laws which you didn’t know existed. From appearing in the courts prepared (or unprepared), to struggling to put a case file in order, a litigating advocate’s life is anything but about arguing in the court and wearing the glorious black robe. It is struggle, struggle and some more struggle.

However, what was it that made it so intoxicating, so addictive and so worthy?

Unlike the popular belief, litigation can be extremely rewarding. There is just one challenge when it comes to litigation – lack of knowledge, whether procedural or substantial. Everyday you will need to know about something you never really knew about before. What can you do about it? Earlier, I would have asked you to do nothing. Learn how to swim by jumping into the waters. There are two possibilities to that. Either you learn how to swim through the currents, or you drown. But of course, drowning is not a good feeling.

To save myself from drowning, I naturally started looking around as hard as I could. What if I could find a rope to help me climb up? Thankfully, I did. I increased my reading, indulged in extensive researching, and found whatever ways that could add to my knowledge. It was during my research that I learnt of online studying, and I found these online courses covered everything I possibly needed to know, even the insights that only practical court-room experience could get. I could learn on the go, without having to feel embarrassed everytime I made a mistake. It was a boost to my knowledge, my confidence and my career.

Let us fast forward to the present day where ‘Mr. Advocate’, with whom yours truly is interning, continues to flip through his plethora of books and documents, and makes his case invincible in a soft but assertive exchange of expressions. A few jibes here and there at his not so ‘learned’ friend as the opposing counsel, and he walks out of the courtroom with an aura like no other. “Surely, there’s no paycheck bigger than multiple such ego boosts throughout the day”, I thought to myself.

Next up on the task list was the big one. A matter listed in the Chief’s court, Courtroom No. 1. Mr. Advocate needs a mandatory coffee after almost every hearing, especially before the big ones.

Walking past the several greetings and salutations he makes his way to the coffee shop where strategy is discussed for the next hearing, while work for the evening flows through texts and emails which are constantly being swiped up and down the mobile on the side. I was amazed by the amount of effortless multi-tasking all lawyers around me were accustomed at doing. The energy of the High Court premises can only be felt, not described. Apart from the quite apparent task of trying cases in the courts of law, a lawyer certainly has exponentially more to do. I soon realized, the job is certainly not restricted to just arguing and polite exchanging of subtle one liners. It differs from case to case and client to client. To cope with this dilemma,  this  is what came to my rescue.

While corporate lawyers are mostly drawing documents for businesses, a litigating lawyer represents interest for both individuals and businesses which may fairly complicate things. Corporate offices often have teams working on a single project, whereas a litigator is, more often than not, a one man army.

But wait, how did the big one go? Things took the usual route at the Chief’s court as well. The classic my-interpretation-is-better-than-yours debate, until it is mutually agreed to commence arguments at a later date. This is followed by some out of court chit-chatting, networking and some business card exchanging, and all that important stuff. Somehow, conversations with the clients and especially prospective clients is very amusing to me. To me, how a lawyer deals with his client is an instant tell about his stature in the profession. Never mind, moving on!

A typical day in a lawyer’s life is never restricted to just one courtroom or even to the one High Court premises, for that matter. In the capital city, a lawyer must know exactly when to wrap things up in one matter, to be able to reach in time for the other – which might sometimes even be at the other end of the city. And if this was not all, the real preparation for the next day begins in the evening back at the chambers, where plans for the next day are laid out; strategies are discussed, documents are drafted, and arguments are framed. Do you think you are ready to take such challenges?

Definitely, the captivating portrayal of a lawyer’s life on TV is the mere tip of the iceberg. But in all those things, what the TV courtroom dramas do manage to get right, in my opinion, are the long working hours, the stressed personal and social relationships, the overwhelming office hubbub, and the sly “greasing” and “string-pulling” to get things done. So well, after a long night of lengthy researching, lengthier drafting, and adjusting fonts, numberings and footnotes, we finally call it a day; only to experience another unknown adrenaline rush the next day. You never know what you get to see in the courtroom tomorrow.

I have often wondered, though I can only imagine, what a successful lawyer’s mornings must feel like. Would they be anxious, excited, or just indifferent (having experienced both of the other emotions way too often)? I frequently wish to take a trip inside a lawyer’s head to know what the world can’t really see. What is the real emotion of a lawyer when they casually sip their morning tea accompanied by a mass of opened files before them.

This philosophical approach – because the one thing that lawyers are often restricted to bring along with them to the courtroom are their emotions. Of course, there is always the good fight once in a while – for the right, for the poor, for the unrepresented, for change; but the moral flexibility that the legal profession demands is almost perplexing. The job requires you to be only analytical, persevering, and also justful, in your own right.

The room for emotional over-thinking is minimal in a profession so black and white. It is a consuming job, but you never come out of it empty. You either come with a burden or with a baggage full of learnings; but always stronger, always mightier. In law, your challenges are your rewards, for they seek your steadfast involvement and that is what keeps a lawyer going.

I quickly sip my thoughts down my throat with my morning intern-tea and get ready for the first matter of the new day. We reach the courtroom almost in time, while another matter is going on. The atmosphere seems intense, I can sense a certain chill on everyone’s faces. When suddenly, “You think we are fools?”, asks the angry judge, to the lawyer, who seems to have had enough already. There is a brief pause and the ambiance intensifies further. “My Lords have put me in a rather tricky situation here. If I agree, I am in contempt; and I commit perjury, if I don’t”. The light courtroom humor gets everyone including the judge to share a little laugh.

Surely, there’s no other profession as intense and simultaneously entertaining as the legal one.

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A well-written piece, no doubt. Hope everybody takes the seemingly light banter lightly.

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• Life as a Law Student: 7 Things You Really Have to Know

Whilst we have all heard a little about studying law at university, whether through family, friends or films, it is difficult to know what it really does involve – and there’s no shortage of stories out there, from the mostly accurate to the utterly fantastical. This article should debunk a few myths, confirm a few and make sure you know what you are signing up for when you fill in that application form! It also includes a little advice to help you settle into law student life that bit quicker. Or if you’re considering taking trying the subject through a Law Summer School . Law is a great subject to study at university but it does have its challenges: here’s what you can expect.

1. There is a lot of reading.

Just to get the scary one out of the way first, it is difficult to explain how much reading a law degree involves other than to say that there are a lot of law books! Law students get a reputation for clocking up the library hours because each week you need to learn what the law actually is and academics’ opinions of it from scratch, and neither of these will be particularly short. There is definitely an art to managing the reading lists and you will get all the advice you need from older students when you first arrive, but it does take a while to get used to the pace of learning. That said, by the end of your first term you won’t believe how quickly you can pick up the key themes of an article or find the important passages from a case. Just be ready for the inevitable long nights when you need to stay up getting through an endless reading list. They do happen but they are (almost) only as common as you want them to be; you are never set more work than it is feasible to do if you manage your time well. Self-imposing a schedule for getting reading done, plus whatever other assignments you have been set, is a habit to get into very quickly.

2. There is no single ‘eureka!’ moment, but it does all come together eventually.

Certain areas of law, particularly contract and tort, deal with different types of human action but are so similar in places that they often ‘run out’ just as the other one starts. As you usually learn only a few topics at a time you may not understand one fully until you have covered the next one. It is absolutely normal to feel a little like you’re in the dark to begin with, although universities try to organise the courses so that the first year exams at least can stand on their own. Criminal law, for instance, makes a good first year subject because it is easy to get to grips with the ideas and it doesn’t overlap too much with any other area. It is just important to know that if you study Land law before Trusts/Equity, it is not a problem if you don’t fully understand what a trust is because that will come next.

3. There is a rat race, but you don’t need to join it (straight away).

The law students aren’t considered the quickest off the mark for getting involved in applications and internships early on in their degree, but it’s a close one! More and more law firms are offering placements and taster days during the first year of university so it is tempting to think that you need to get involved in deciding your career choice right from day one. If you are thinking about becoming a solicitor it is worth applying to these if you want to be ahead of the game, but the big one is the summer vacation schemes at the end of your penultimate year. If you are thinking about the Bar then the more mini-pupillages you have under your belt when you fill in your application form at the beginning of your final year the better, and some chambers will expect a certain number as a minimum. However, most of this kicks off at the beginning of second year so you do have time to settle into legal study before you need to think about applications. Don’t forget that there are other options too — charity work, civil service, interning for a while until you decide on a career path (if you can afford it!) or further study are all worthwhile alternatives. It’s also worth thinking about going to a local or regional firm or chambers if that appeals to you, and for this you may have to send letters asking to go and shadow someone rather than applying to an organised scheme. All these alternatives are no less competitive but require you to look further afield than your Law Society e-mails, which may tend to focus on the big London (and increasingly international) opportunities. Your tutors, personal advisor, careers service or equivalent will give you plenty of advice about careers, and where to start looking for opportunities in a field you’re interested in. Make sure you think seriously about where you want to start off — it is easy to be swept along with the crowd! It is also just a fact of life that the legal sector, like anywhere at the moment, is very competitive for finding a job. Keep on top of your work, get involved with extra-curriculars and apply to any placements or schemes which may interest you so that your CV looks as good as it possibly can when you get to more serious applications.

4. You need to sweat the small stuff.

The ‘sharp mind’ you need for university study comes in different varieties, and each degree demands a particular mix of certain skills. Law requires both absolute command of the details of legislation and cases, and a wider view of how different areas interlock and what they (aim to) achieve. This is shown most clearly in the two main types of examination question. Problem questions require you to apply the law to very specific (and sometimes outright preposterous) factual patterns and explain why in this specific set of circumstances a piece of legislation or principle of law would/could be applied in a certain way. You need to know the legislation and the case law, because although you may be given a copy of the legislation it wastes time if you’re using it to do anything other than check minor points. Equally if you don’t know part of the case law in an area that can lose you marks or narrow down the number of questions you could potentially answer. Essay questions require you to make a broad point using specific examples, so you need to have a whole arsenal of examples to hand. Basically, you need to remember a lot of things! And you need to be prepared to sit down and learn cases, and at the very least the structure and key clauses of the relevant legislation so that you can find it in the statute book during the exam. It is absolutely normal to have legislation and case summaries stuck up round your wall during exam season (rent agreements permitting!). But because all this knowledge also needs to be grounded in the wider picture for the purposes of essay questions this isn’t just an exercise in memorising names, which makes the process a lot easier. An Oxford examiners’ report commented a few years ago (in light of students forgetting the names of key cases) that if you have done the work properly then remembering case names should be no more difficult than learning the names of breakfast cereals. I may not know hundreds of breakfast cereals, but it’s true that you learn a lot of small details without thinking about it.

5. Everyone is going to ask you for legal advice. And you won’t want to give it.

Somewhat ironically, the more law you know the less confident you become definitively stating what the legal position in a certain area is. You are, after all, focusing on the more controversial and uncertain areas of law so it is easy to forget that some are actually quite simple and clear-cut. There also comes a week where you learn about liability for giving advice and accepting responsibility for it being correct. It’s fairly well-accepted that casual remarks in social situations don’t come within this category but as soon as law students learn these cases they immediately stop wanting to give any form of legal advice! All this of course assumes that you know the area of law your friends are asking about in practical detail in the first place, which usually isn’t the case because law degrees are more theoretical than practical. No matter how many times you try to explain this to your friends however, you will still be asked. It’s something you will find frustrating, but it won’t stop you from asking the medical students about your twinging knee so it’s just something to resign yourself to I’m afraid.

6. It can be absolutely fascinating — especially when you think it won’t be.

Perhaps the really big thing to know about an English law degree is that there are subjects which (i) you have to study (ii) you expect you won’t enjoy. This is an unfortunate side-effect of the fact that law degrees are at heart vocational and so you study certain areas which are crucial to the smooth functioning of society but aren’t considered too glamorous. It’s worth noting that some people do come to university with a professed love for commercial law and that’s great, but it does seem to be the norm to start university dead set on being a human rights barrister. However, because you have to learn these topics in significant depth you do find yourself getting far more interested than you ever plan to. What can seem like a fairly technical subject such as land registration is actually vitally important to individual people when you think about it — many cases on the topic end up with someone being evicted from their family home, or allowed to stay despite the aspiring purchaser having no idea that they had a legal interest in the house as it was not entered in the register. There is a frame of mind to adopt here, and it’s absolutely central to ensuring that you enjoy studying law. Find the interesting element of something which doesn’t originally appeal to you — there will always be one, often the ‘human interest’ or political angle. Make as much of it as is possible as interesting to you as is possible. And resign yourself to the fact that you’ll just have to learn the rest!

7. Being a law student is what you want it to be.

Perhaps I’m giving the impression that law students spend their whole lives in the library learning statutes back to front, and that when they do emerge it’s to go to networking events, apply to careers or to sit exams. This just isn’t true. As with any other subject, university is exactly what you make of it and that will invariably (and should!) involve meeting some of your best friends and many of your future colleagues, getting involved in as many societies as you can make time for and having the odd quiet night in. There is a core amount of work which has to be done, but as a humanities student you’re in the enviable position of being able to manage your own timetable to a certain extent. Make the most of it! Specifically for law students, there are also plenty of extra-curricular activities which can be really rewarding for yourself and others. If you’d like to get involved in pro bono work then most law schools have a scheme running, really do make sure you try some mooting (mock appeal trial, where you pretend to be a barrister) because even though it’s quite scary it does wonders for your public speaking, and make the most of any opportunity to get the sort of legal experience you’re interested in during the holidays. There is no single ‘law degree experience’, much as there’s no single ‘university experience’; choose what you want to make your priorities over the three year period, as long as you always make time for your work.

Like any subject at university, studying law has its ups and downs. However, if you’re interested in the subject and able to motivate yourself to work sensible hours then there are definitely more positives and it is a fantastic subject to study for three (or four) years.

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Sandra Hemme spent 43 years wrongfully imprisoned. Missouri would pay little if she is freed

Missouri state law promises $100 a day for each day of life lost to prison on a wrongful conviction. For Sandra Hemme, who was first convicted in 1981, that’s roughly $1.6 million — which some critics say is too little for more than four decades behind bars.

After serving 43 years in prison for a murder case hinged on things she said as a psychiatric patient, Sandra Hemme could be cleared of the killing and freed in less than three weeks, by July 14 .

For that, Missouri state law promises $100 a day for each day of her life lost to prison on a wrongful conviction. For Hemme, who was first convicted in 1981 for the 1980 killing, that’s roughly $1.6 million.

Some critics say that’s too little for 43 years. If her case had been in federal court, she would be in line for about a third more. In Kansas, nearly twice as much. In Texas, the money would have been more than doubled.

Livingston County Circuit Judge Ryan Horsman ruled in mid-June that the state must free Hemme unless prosecutors retried her in the next 30 days. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said shortly after the ruling that his appeals division would look into whether to challenge the judge’s decision.

The judge ruled that prosecutors presented no forensic evidence or motive linking Hemme to the killing of library worker Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph, Missouri, in November 1980.

Rather, the case relied on what she said in a psychiatric ward in a St. Joseph hospital. At the time, she said conflicting and impossible things. At one point, she claimed to see a man commit the killing, but he was in another city at the time. At other times, she said she knew about the murder because of extrasensory perception. Two weeks into talks with detectives, she said she thought she stabbed Jeschke with a hunting knife, but she wasn’t sure.

Hemme’s lawyers accuse a now-discredited police officer of her murder. In a rare departure from its policy a year ago, the attorney general’s office didn’t object to a hearing to explore a wrongful-conviction claim.

If she’s cleared, Hemme’s case would mark the longest known wrongful conviction of a woman in U.S. history.

Her compensation for those years in jail will not be a record.

Caps on wrongful-conviction compensation vary widely across the country. In federal cases, the limit is $50,000 for every year someone’s wrongly held in prison plus $100,000 for every year on death row.

In Washington, D.C., the cap is $200,000 a year. Connecticut pays as much as $131,506. Nevada has a sliding scale that pays $100,000 a year on cases of 20 years or more.

Kansas pays $65,000 for each year. In more than a dozen other states, the rate runs from $50,000 to $80,000. Of states that set limits or promise compensation, Missouri’s $36,500 a year is low.

The National Registry of Exonerations counts 54 people convicted of crimes in Missouri who have been exonerated since 1989. Only nine of them got payouts from the state. Missouri is the only state that gives wrongly imprisoned inmates compensation if they were proved not guilty by DNA analysis.

Gov. Mike Parson vetoed a bill in 2023 that could have provided inmates proven not guilty with a larger compensation up to $179 a day, allowed prosecutors to seek judicial review of past cases and created a state special unit to help prosecutors with investigating cases.

This story was originally published by The Beacon , a fellow member of the KC Media Collective .

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• Nation & World
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New laws that involve the First Amendment are soon taking effect in Florida

A number of the bills that passed during the 2024 Florida legislative session are taking effect July 1. And some of the most high-profile legislation involves the constitutionally protected right to free expression — and possibly even collides with it.

They implicate areas ranging from strip clubs to campaign advertisements, from schools to emergency scenes.

Here are some of the related changes to state law coming this summer, though many could soon after face First Amendment challenges in court.

No more 18-year-old strippers

Floridians will have to be the drinking age to strip for money, and employers who are caught hiring someone younger will face criminal penalties.

That age restriction won't just apply in strip clubs. No one younger than 21 years old will be able to work in any " adult entertainment establishment ," which under state law also affects places like adult movie theaters and libraries.

Chaplains in schools

School districts and charter schools will have the ability to allow volunteer chaplains to provide support services to students.

The Satanic Temple has said it plans to take advantage if K-12 education leaders choose to do so, as first reported by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis responded that the group wouldn't be able to, saying it's not a religion, even though  the IRS recognizes  The Satanic Temple as a tax-exempt church.

Non-parents limited on challenging books

Floridians who are not parents or guardians of a "student with access to school district materials" will not be able to file more than one book challenge a month.

This follows some Florida school districts getting swarmed by hundreds of book challenges .

Others, though, have been preventively barring loads of books anyway, worried about running afoul of school library laws passed in recent years. And some avid book objectors are parents .

Citizen police oversight boards limited

Citizen police oversight boards will be limited on what they can do.

They will have to be re-established under county sheriffs and municipal police chiefs, who would appoint the members and can't investigate complaints of officer misconduct.

No 'identity politics' in teacher prep programs

Instruction that teaches "identity politics" or "distorts significant historical events" will be barred from teacher preparation programs, as well as theories that "systemic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political and economic inequities."

Yet previous Florida measures similarly aimed at limiting trainings and instruction have faced ongoing litigation and blocks in federal courts .

Donald Trump became a household name by FIRING countless people *on television* But when it came to Fauci... pic.twitter.com/7Lxwf75NQm — DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 5, 2023

Disclaimers of AI in campaign ads

Disclaimers will be required on political advertisements that use artificial intelligence to "deceive" about a ballot question or negatively portray candidates doing something they didn't do, with civil and criminal penalties for violations.

Though the governor signed the bill into law, his failed presidential campaign stoked controversy last year after it used AI-fabricated images in an ad showing former President Donald Trump hugging and kissing Anthony Fauci, the longtime federal health official who played a key role in COVID-19 treatment and prevention policy.

Social media restrictions not yet taking effect

But one of the most talked-about bills passed this past session is not taking effect until the start of 2025.

That measure bans minors under 16 from social media platforms with "addictive" features, unless they're 14- or 15-year-olds who get a parent's permission.

It also requires age verification to  access pornographic websites  in Florida.

'No-go' zone around first responders

Also taking effect at the start of next calendar year: Criminal penalties await anyone who, after a warning, approaches or remains within 25 feet of working first responders, like police, with the intent of "impeding, threatening or harassing."

Supporters of the bill say it will protect emergency personnel and those they're helping, but opponents say the law is vaguely-worded and could be abused to prevent the documentation of police brutality.

But what didn't pass last session?: What happened and what's to come: A First Amendment recap of Florida's legislative session

Proposals for next sessions coming in: Florida transparency advocates push measure to toughen public records violation penalties

Other state laws that take effect July 1

Hoas fees to be reined in; parking, vegetable gardens allowed.

HB 1203 , Homeowners' Association is essentially a Homeowner's Bill of Rights . As of July 1, HOAs will be prohibited from banning common-sense parking, fining residents for leaving garbage cans out on trash day, creating rules for the inside of structures or backyards (like prohibitions against gardens or clotheslines) that can't be seen from the street, neighboring property or common area, and more. The law also mandates more transparency and accessibility on the part of the HOA officers or management companies.

HB 59 , a requirement for HOAs to provide copies of all rules and covenants to every member of the association and to every new member going forward also goes into effect on July 1. A bill requiring HOAs to allow members to harden their homes against hurricanes became effective as soon as DeSantis signed it in May.

Local governments can't protect workers from heat

The roughly 2 million people in Florida who regularly work outside in the state's record-setting heat now must rely solely on their company's policies to avoid heat stroke . One of the more controversial bills passed and one that drew national attention, HB 433 , Employment Regulations , prevents local governments from creating or enforcing heat exposure requirements for businesses beyond state or federal requirements.

It also prohibits local governments from "maintaining a minimum wage other than a state or federal minimum wage" and prevents them from basing contract decisions on a company's wages or benefits policies.

No sex at massage parlors

Under HB 197 , Health Care Practitioners and Massage Therapy , any sexual activity is banned within a massage business and the Department of Health will suspend a massage therapist or business license if any employee at the business is arrested on charges related to kidnapping, human trafficking or prostitution.

It also prohibits condoms in the building, specifies how tinted the windows can be, regulates advertising and signage, prohibits anyone sheltering or sleeping on the premises, and adds money to the Department of Health for more personnel.

Teens can be scheduled for more, longer hours

The first version of Employment and Curfew of Minors (HB 49)  that allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to work more than 40 hours a week and more than eight hours a day without breaks was widely panned by critics as a "child labor" bill, but by the time it got to the governor to be signed, it had been watered down. Under HB 49, 16-and 17-year-olds can't work more than 30 hours a week unless they obtain parental permission (or unless they are home or virtually schooled).

The law also prohibits 16- and 17-year-olds from working more than eight hours if they have school the next day, unless it's a Sunday or a holiday. The law requires a 30-minute break every four hours if the minor has a shift longer than eight hours.

Driving, parking, towing changes

Currently, Florida Statutes just say that drivers must be licensed and fines can be levied. HB 1589 , Driving Without a Valid Driver’s License adds penalties: first conviction is a second-degree misdemeanor, second conviction is a first-degree misdemeanor, and a third or subsequent conviction means a first-degree misdemeanor and 10 days in jail.

Under HB 179 , Towing and Storage Practices , counties with maximum towing/storage rates must post them on their websites, towing services must now send lien notices faster and keep unclaimed vehicles for longer, and the law makes it easier to pay for and get your vehicle back.

Pulled into a private parking lot by mistake? HB 271 , Parking on Private Property gives you a 15-minute grace period to get out. Parking facilities also must post their rules and rates at the entrance and are prohibited from selling the personal information of customers.

You can buy really big bottles of wine

HB 583 , Larger Wine Bottles will allow the sale of bottles of wine up to 15 liters, or just under four gallons, at restaurants and retail locations. Currently, Florida wine lovers buying retail are limited to individual glass containers holding no more than 1 gallon.

You can shoot bears in self-defense

Floridians may now stand their ground against bears. Under HB 87 , Taking of Bears , residents may kill a bear as long as they reasonably believe they or someone else, including pets, were in danger, they didn't lure the bear or recklessly place themselves in harm's way, and they report the incident and give the corpse to state officials. 

Child safety, domestic violence, family planning

In response to the death of Gabby Petito at the hands of her husband Brian Laundrie, SB 1224 , Protection of Children and Victims of Crime , empowers Guard ad Litems to protect children and requires law enforcement officers called out for domestic violence incidences to determine if a domestic violence victim is at a higher risk of death or serious injury based on a statewide domestic violence lethality assessment .

Children as old as 17 testifying about child abuse, sexual abuse or neglect will be able to present out-of-court statement s under HB 305 , Offenses Involving Children . The bill also changes the definition of people designated as sexual predators to include the first offense of sex trafficking of minors.

HB 385 , Safe Exchange of Children requires sheriffs to designate at least one parking lot, with a purple light or signage and a camera surveillance system, for parents to safely exchange their child.

Parents may surrender newborn infants at hospitals, fire stations and EMS services up to 30 days after birth, no questions asked, under HB 775 , Surrendered Infants . Current law restricts it to one week. Parents also may call 911 to arrange a pickup if they don't have transportation.

The Department of Health must establish a “comprehensive state website” with information about pregnancy and public and private parenting resources such as education, maternal health, prenatal and postnatal services, mentorship programs for fathers, financial assistance and adoption services under HB 415 , Pregnancy and Parenting Resources .

HB 461 , Pregnant Women Excused from Jury Service , allows a person who has given birth within six months before the reporting date to be excused, from jury duty if requested.

Emergency insulin, HIV screenings, skin cancer screenings

Need insulin but can't get ahold of your doctor to authorize your prescription? Under HB 201 , Emergency Insulin Refills , pharmacists may provide emergency insulin refills for diabetes mellitus patients, but not more than three consecutive times per year.

HB 159 , HIV Infection Prevention Drugs allows licensed pharmacists to screen adult patients for HIV exposure; provides pharmacist certification to order and distribute PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) which can prevent HIV after a possible exposure.

An estimated 9,880 people in Florida are expected to get new melanomas , the most dangerous of the skin cancers, in 2024, according to the American Cancer Society. HB 241 , Skin Cancer Screenings requires the state health insurance plan to provide coverage for annual skin cancer screenings without a deductible, copayment, coinsurance or other cost-sharing requirement for coverage. The plan may not be bundled with any other procedure or service.

New holidays, commemorations

Two new commemorations were added to the official state schedule , including:

HB 357 , Veterans Appreciation Month : Changes "Veterans Week" to “Veterans Appreciation Month,” which will be in November.

HB 591 , Hot Car Death Prevention Month : Designates April as “Hot Car Death Prevention Month” in honor of 10-month-old Ariya Paige, who died last year after being left in a hot car for five hours .

Chris Bridges of the Gannett-Florida Network and Jim Turner of The News Service of Florida contributed to this article.

This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule can be reached at  [email protected] .

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Moms are going viral for sharing dramatic before-and-after photos of ‘pregnancy nose’

Tyreece Gilligan knew her body would change when she got pregnant. She wasn’t prepared however, for the “startling” transformation of her facial features.

“When I was three months pregnant, my nose grew three sizes,” Gilligan, 26, of Minnesota, tells TODAY.com , adding that her skin also dried out, her body odor changed and her naturally curly hair flattened and frayed.

Although she was self-conscious about her face, Gilligan’s doctor assured her that “pregnancy nose” — when nasal mucus membranes inflate due to surging blood flow and hormones — was normal and likely temporary.

Two weeks after delivering her son, Gilligan’s nose shrank back to its normal size. Today, she can laugh about her discomfort, grateful to be the mom of a toddler.

Gilligan shared before-and-after photos of her pregnancy on TikTok, where her video got more than 16 million views and hundreds of comments.

• “Pregnancy nose is real AF, y’all. I’m on my 3rd kid, it never gets better.”
• “I feel this spiritually. I thought I’d be cute but I turned into a potato.”
• “Same! Exactly how it was for me! My son is 8 now and my nose is back to normal!”
• “I refuse to believe that’s the same person.”

According to  Dr. Nicole Alicia Sparks , a board-certified OB/GYN, two hormones that increase during pregnancy are responsible for swollen body parts, including the nose.

“There are so many physiological changes during pregnancy, with the key factors estrogen and progesterone,” Sparks tells TODAY.com. “Estrogen causes blood vessels to dilate and can make the nose look fuller, rounder or bigger and progesterone increases blood flow to the mucus membranes.”

According to Sparks, not everyone’s nose grows in pregnancy; when it happens, it’s usually toward the third trimester and it typically reverts to original size in a matter of months. There’s no way to prevent “pregnancy nose,” adds Sparks.

Women with severe swelling, especially in the third trimester, says Sparks, should seek medical attention to rule out pregnancy complications.

New mom Abby Heath also shared a TikTok video of her changing face in pregnancy with the caption, “Normalize pregnancy nose and swelling.”

Heath, who gave birth two months ago, didn’t notice how much her face — and in particular her nose — had changed until she looked at her pregnancy photos.

“My forehead also got puffy and I had a double chin,” she tells TODAY.com. “Everything got bigger and swollen.”

Although Heath’s husband swore he didn’t notice a change in her face and friends assured her that she looked normal, she avoided photos — which Heath says she now regrets, given her college graduation ceremony fell days before she gave birth.

Heath’s nose is nearly back its original size, she said in a TikTok video .

“Even if my nose doesn’t go back to the way it was beforehand, I am OK with that,” she said. “I feel like, even if I do keep losing weight and the swelling keeps going down ... my body is still going to look different than it did before I had a baby, because I had a baby and my body is supposed to change and that’s OK.”

Becky Hathaway is seven months pregnant with her second child and she’s already seeing signs of “pregnancy nose,” which she had in her first pregnancy.

“I went past 40 weeks and was living in Florida at the time, where it was super hot, which contributed to my (swelling),” Hathaway tells TODAY.com. “I was really insecure about it and I believed that my facial features were changing permanently. My doctor just said I was swollen.”

Hathaway, whose daughter is now 4, says it took approximately one year after giving birth for the swelling in her nose to reduce.

Remember that pregnancy is a big period of emotional and physical growth, says Jennifer Meyers , a certified nurse-midwife at the Mayo Clinic Health System.

“Just like you don’t notice the rate at which your kids grow, you see your face several times a day,” she says. “You might not notice (the size of your nose) until you look back in photos.”

Now pregnant again, Hathaway isn’t bothered by the size of her nose.

“I know it’s temporary,” she says, adding, “I am giving myself a lot more grace.”

Elise Solé is a writer and editor who lives in Los Angeles and covers parenting for TODAY Parents. She was previously a news editor at Yahoo and has also worked at Marie Claire and Women's Health. Her bylines have appeared in Shondaland, SheKnows, Happify and more.

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‘Law & Order’: 5 Reasons Why Early Episodes Wouldn’t Air Today

Never mind critics of Hollywood “wokeness” — it’s good that TV creators are becoming more sensitive to societal issues and systemic oppression. Just go back and watch early episodes of the Law & Order franchise to see why.

As you’ll read below, the first few seasons of Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit  had episodes that would never make it past NBC’s standards and practices department now — or so we hope, anyway. And some of those early seasons’ bad habits persisted long into L&O and SVU ’s runs. Here are some of the worst offenses….

1. Depictions of police brutality

The Law & Order universe is rife with police brutality, especially on SVU , where both Stabler ( Christopher Meloni ) and Benson ( Mariska Hargitay ) — but mostly Stabler — have assaulted suspects. Even the NBC website notes that Stabler “[can] be a bit abusive toward suspects, never afraid to twist an arm to get a confession.” The site also hosts an SVU clip titled “Benson Beats Up a Perfect During Questioning.”

2. Racial controversies

The Law & Order: SVU Season 4 episode “Rotten” drew condemnation from the Dominican-American Anti-Defamation League and even a protest outside Rockefeller Center in 2003, according to the New York Post . At issue was a line of dialogue in which an interview subject says, “He’s Dominican. They’re animals.”

Mercedes Jimenez-Ramirez, a spokeswoman for the Dominican-American Anti-Defamation League, told the Post , “That’s what really has us upset. It’s a generalized term — it sounded like they were talking about Dominicans as a whole, not as [just one] character in that particular case.”

Two years earlier, the Law & Order Season 11 episode “Sunday in the Park With Jorge” angered the National Puerto Rican Coalition. That episode depicted a murder at the Puerto Rican Day Parade — which is a real-life event where, in 2000, a group of assailants groped and sexually assaulted women.

“No one was murdered at the parade — they took a real event and sensationalized it at the expense of the parade,” Manuel Mirabal, then the president of the coalition, told the Post following the airing of that episode. “It’s character assassination and incites a bias across the country about the Puerto Rican Day Parade.”

After meeting with the coalition, NBC eventually promised to never re-air that Law & Order episode. “We sincerely apologize for offending members of the Latino community,” the network said in a statement at the time, per the Chicago Tribune . “We had an extremely productive meeting, and given the context in which the program was aired, we have agreed not to repeat the episode.”

Reddit users also report early Law & Order episodes dropped the N-word racial epithet frequently , and that’s not the franchise’s only slur…

3. Homophobic slurs in dialogue

A search of TV Show Transcripts reveals that a certain F-word used as a homophobic slur came up in 21 episodes of the Law & Order franchise, as far back as the second season of the original Law & Order and the first season of SVU . (A character even uttered it as recently as Season 2 of Law & Order: Organized Crime .)

4. Transphobic slurs and content

Law & Order has also used offensive language to refer to transgender individuals. “I’m five minutes into [ SVU Season 5, Episode 20, “Lowdown”] and everyone’s said [a transphobic slur] so many times already,” one viewer wrote on Reddit . “Fun. I’m trying to watch, but it’s infuriating, and I have to stop every time they say it.”

5. Assorted other offensive language

TikTok user @epicfedora shared a montage of other offensive language from SVU . In Season 1, Episode 16, “The Third Guy,” for instance, a lawyer uses an outdated and pejorative term for intellectual disability.

In Season 3, Episode 2, “Wrath,” Fin ( Ice-T ) calls someone “fat boy.”

And in Season 2, Episode 16, “Runaway,” Fin refers to Munch ( Richard Belzer ) as “my Jew.”

“Munch and Fin seriously just said whatever they wanted, and everyone was just like, ‘That’s fine,’” one commenter added.

Law & Order Season 24, Thursdays This Fall, 8/7c, NBC

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Season 26, Thursdays This Fall, 9/8c, NBC

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Day Life Law Student 1L Survival Guide

How to succeed in law school.

A day in the life of a law student, especially a 1L, is filled with study, papers, legal citations, learning legal research, being yelled at in class, reading cases and then reading more cases.

CLICK ON THE LINKS AT THE LEFT FOR RECOMMENDED LAW SCHOOL STUDY AIDS AND TEXTBOOKS FOR YOUR COURSE

CLICK HERE FOR THE BEST PRICE ON LAW SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

My first day as a law student I was totally clueless. The law school sent my package of information to the wrong address and failed to contact me when it was returned. I was trying to move my family, finish work at my job so I could return if I decided law school was not for me, and figuring out how I was going to pay for all of this. On top of that my laptop computer had not arrived and neither had my law school books.

Here are a few tips that I wish someone had someone had written out and given out to all the first year law students.

LEGAL CASE BRIEFS First is that good attorneys do not necessarily make good teachers. Your law professor will insist that you do legal case briefs. THIS IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME and of your day. There are a lot of free resources for legal case briefs and I have included links to some of them on the individual course pages. Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw also provide legal case briefs. I prefer the "Lawyers Edition" on Lexis Nexis. If you are not familiar with them go to the Legal Writing page and do the tutorials. The best way to do case briefs is to include them in your legal outline.

How to Read a Judicial Opinion for First Year Law Students

How to Brief a Case

YOUR LEGAL OUTLINE Your legal outline is where you need to spend your day. You need a computer program similar to ONENOTE. Most of their other material is crap but this program is excellent and cheap. It allows you to link to the cases directly on Westlaw or Lexis Nexis and you simply copy the case brief directly into your notes. You can also incorporate any other material directly into your final exam outline. You will need to play around with your final outline as you go along. You want enough information but not so much that you are overwhelmed. Find out what materials, if any, your professor will allow you to take into the exam and prepare your final law school outline accordingly. Click on the links at left to find legal outlines for each law school course. There are also some links to outline banks below. Please do not rely on these outlines as anything but a guide. If you do not prepare your own outline, you will be lost at exam time. There are links to various law school outline banks at the bottom of this page. Also check the link on the left for the specific law school course for resources and sample law school exams.

LEGAL STUDY AIDS My first year as a law student I was naive enough to believe that I could get the material from the textbook and going to class. WRONG While I knew the cases, I was lacking in the concepts. You are much better off ignoring the hornbook and purchasing two good legal study aids at the start of the semester. I waited until just shortly before exams to buy the study aids and then realized how little the class prepared me for the law school exam. The Examples and Explanations Series or Glannon should be your first purchase. Then Siegles or Exam Pro depending on the particular class. Click on the links at the left to see the recommendations for each course.

CLICK HERE FOR EXAMPLES AND EXPLANATIONS STUDY GUIDES

THE ESSAY EXAM The ONLY way to prepare for your final law school essay exam is to look at past exams and practice writing the answers under timed conditions. There are only so many concepts and so many situations per course. By going over past law school exams you will get the "black letter" law down and will not waste time with the rule. You will also learn how to quickly pick out the issues which is the most important ability required to ace the essay law school exam. You need to start this early in the semester and not wait until just before your exam. This will help you understand the concepts and ask questions in class about anything you do not understand. Click here for tips on essay exam taking.

Basic Rules for Taking a Law School Essay Exam

LAW SCHOOL ESSAY EXAM BANKS

University of Chicago Law School Exam Archive

Practice Law School Exams

Law School Past Exams from University of Dayton School of Law .

LAW SCHOOL HELP Highly recommended. Past exams with model answers and outlines.

Berkely Law Exam Database It is important to know how the exams are scored and this site has model exam answers.

CHECK THE SPECIFIC COURSE LINKS ON THE LEFT FOR MORE SAMPLE EXAMS

TAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF Every day get involved in activities outside of class. Treat law school like a job and give it your best, but be sure to get involved in activities outside of class. Try joining a student group or picking up a hobby. You need to keep up an exercise routine. One of my major mistakes was to spend time studying and snacking and not enough time walking, jogging or at the gym.

BEFORE LAW SCHOOL

Before you decide to go to law school or if you have already been accepted, I suggest that you read Succeeding in Law School and then Legal Reasoning by Delaney . This will get you started on the right track.

ONE L SURVIVAL WEBSITES

For those of you who like flashcards to help memorize the Black Letter Law Law Flashcard Exchange

Having problems with citations? Introduction to Basic Legal Citations

DAY IN LIFE OF 1L STUDY TIPS

This is from Melly who teaches law and bar review:

"Everyone out there has a different way they learn, the best thing you can do is law school is figure out what yours is. As for outlining - it's the process of outlining that is key, not the end result. It doesn't matter what it looks like, as you create the outline you should be condensing what you know and ensuring that you understand the material, as well as helping yourself memorize key elements of black letter law.

Second, law school isn't about memorization, which is mostly the case with undergrad. It's about taking the black letter law (which MAY require memorization) and applying it to facts. This can only be done by practicing with hypos, not reviewing an outline ad nauseum.

As for supplements - they help you understand the concepts, which is necessary to fully apply the black letter law, but that's about it. They can also be a good source for practice exam questions and hypos, though your best source is always professors old exams. Examples and Explanations is a great resource."

I posted this just to emphasize my point about hypos. The best way is to ask your professor if he has some that you can answer and then meet with him to go over them.

Another excellent way to study for your law school essay exam is to go over actual bar exam questions and answers from past bar exams. We have a link to many of the various state bar exam sites and bar exam study guides at

BAR EXAM ESSAY QUESTIONS AND STUDY GUIDES

OneNote & Law School: beginners guide Tips on using One Note

LAW SCHOOL COURSE OUTLINES

These outlines are from a number of sources so use at your peril. You should prepare your own outline and only use these for reference.

How to Outline in 6 Easy Steps

Law Outlines and other legal resources including some exams

1L Outlines from NYU Law School

Legal Outlines from Lewis & Clark School of Law

FindLaw for Students Extensive list of outlines and some exams.

Outline Depot They claim to have 49,589 currently approved outlines available for download, OutlineDepot.com is the most comprehensive source of law school outlines anywhere. You have to post an outline to download.

LAW CASE BRIEFS

NEVER EVER waste your time briefing cases. You can find case briefs online at a variety of free sites.

Case Briefs  

Free Case Briefs From 4LawSchool

You should purchase the Examples & Explanations series for each of your courses. You can purchase used ones at the following site from other law students at a very reasonable price.

Examples & Explanations 

Complete Listing of Law School Study Aids

ASK AN ATTORNEY YOUR LEGAL QUESTIONS

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