Entry 81: Survival in Much Ado About Nothing

Even before getting in to the office this morning there were two truths that were inescapable.
(1) I have more work to do for today than I am capable of doing in one day
(2) Four of our attorneys are on Spring Break with their kids. Embrace for a moment what that means, numbers wise. An office that is already short staffed and desperate to hire? So, we’re already down 2 attorneys as a general Status Quo. Now, we’re down another FOUR. That we know of. So far, I have only visually confirmed Eight Attorneys present. In an office that I was told had 15 attorneys total. In which, since I was hired (before in fact) I have never seen 15 attorneys in this office. But from that, we are working on a grand total of EIGHT attorneys. The number of active court rooms today requiring one of those eight attorneys? Nine Courtrooms. SO as long as ZERO other work needs to be done, we’re still one attorney short of bare minimum to get things done. And, of course, as my Number 1 statement would suggest.... we all have a lot more work that needs to be done besides covering Court Rooms.
AT BEST this seems like another night where I will be here plenty late!

As for my own cases today- there is only 1 going to trial and I deeply hope the defendant thinks better of this waste. It is a shoplifting charge. In a brightly lit store. With cameras everywhere. If we have to go to trial this afternoon, the State will submit SEVEN videos whose total length amounts to 12 minutes of straight video. And it isn’t subtle or inconspicuous. The guy takes a big box into a fitting room; comes out later with his jacket zipped up, hides the now much lighter box ditches his cart and flees the store. Literally, doing this trial is a waste of everyone’s time. But he’s a Heroin addict so stealing to support his habit is a way of life for him. And making wise decisions is not. So… we’ll have to wait to see what happens, but I’m not holding my breath for a smart decision here. In the interim, I am wildly going about my TO DO list like a madman! Filing Motions, Drafting Subpoenas, Preparing Dockets, trying my damndest to make sure I’m not here until fucking 8 PM again!

I’m not sure if this is positive (considering the preceding) or if I can just experience it like additional bullshit; but I think both situations are true simultaneously. Literally, as I was leaving for lunch- the judge called me. He can’t hear this afternoon’s case; he represents the Defendant in matters outside of the county. Okay. But if he wants to plead… never mind, I guess, bye! Defendant comes in at the appropriate time. Because his Attorney/Judge didn’t call him to tell him otherwise. He really doesn’t want to have to keep coming back, which I can appreciate. He wants to know if he can just plead guilty and take care of it. Of course, we don’t have any Magistrates available to do that; but if I go over their head, will I piss them off? I mean, we have literally hundreds of cases per week- if we can get one cleared off the board, that is important. So… a more important Higher Judge did the order and we call it good. I’ll find out if that creates an issue later, for now- I’m just happy to get shit off the board. Especially for a trial where we’d submit 12 minutes of video and the whole trial would mostly be “lets watch the Defendant go through the store, steal, and leave.” Just… plead and move on.

Which frees me up for the rest of the afternoon… to do.... the other 5 things on my To Do List. One of which promises to take at least 3 to 4 hours to complete.

And that was not far off. Preparing the 219 hearings for tomorrow took from 2:00 to 5:00. And yes, I’m thinking the same thing you might be- if hearings start at 1:30 and the Courthouse closes at 4:30, that’s a total of 3 hours to do 219 hearings. Assuming all of them show up (which they never do), that is 219 hearings in 180 minutes. That’s… more hearings than minutes available!! Now, to couch the TRUE insanity of it, 219 hearings doesn’t mean 219 defendants. So, that makes it a little easier if 1 Defendant has multiple hearings; just do ALL of those hearings at once. That said? There are still 122 individual Defendants. So… I still need to be aiming for a turnover rate of more than 1 every 2 minutes. Which.... is asking a fucking lot especially from 1 person. That said? This program used to have 4 people doing it. Until I was hired. SOOooo… more of that, “Chris has experience, he’ll be fine” thought process that has screwed me often in this role.

But as I said… I worked til 5 just on Prep for tomorrow. I have 22 back e-mails and 3 back phone calls; plus additional subpoenas for a CIVIL case (because even though I am CRIMINAL law, the County makes me work on Civil Cases periodically); and a ridiculous Brief on Miranda still to do. I was originally going to do them today. But all told in the last 7 days, I’ve worked 6 hours of unpaid overtime. And I am almost certainly going to have some additional After Hours Unpaid work on Tuesday and Wednesday. AND… literally ONE THIRD of our office is out on vacation taking advantage of Spring Break? So they can get fucked. I’m not staying past 5:30 today!

So, decidedly DONE with work, I got into my car, headed home, grabbed Nala and did 90 minutes at the dog park.

Afterwards, it was home to get some things done. And then, when I went to start washing the dishes- I realized I was out of Dish Soap. Shit. So, what’s next on my list. TikTok Video Politics Corner Editorial. Okay. Filmed it. Then started editing the Closed Captioning when I got a strange call. I decided to answer it. It was the Local Democratic Party inviting me to be on their Communications Team. I said yes; but the schedule is a problem. You see, the entire team… most of those active in politics around here… are all retired. So, their weekday meetings at 10 just… don’t work for me. But we’ll keep in contact. And they encouraged me to contact the people that look into possible candidates to throw my name in the ring. So… that’s… something that is currently going on. The call was about 30 minutes all told. I then finished putting clean clothes away and… that was my TO DO list for home. But still didn’t get it finished until 9:30 pm because… that’s how life works. Work early, go to Dog Park, there IS no more time in the evening.

I’ll need to come up with a pseudonym for the Anime Enjoying Hinge Girl. Partly because there is another woman I’ve been talking to on Hinge but… it isn’t likely to go anywhere. She’s a Foreign Student working on English but did say she’d be interested in meeting me; but she doesn’t drive. If “her not driving” was an issue for the woman 20 minutes from me… “her not driving” is a huge issue for a woman 2 hours from me. So… I didn’t return the message. I know a braver, kinder person would say “That doesn’t work for me, sorry” and I may yet but… yeah. Like… she’s the one who wanted to meet in person rather than keep texting and she’s the one who can’t drive and… it just doesn’t feel compatible y’know?

OH… oh yeah. As I almost die, I forgot to mention. So… we only have 8 attorneys. So we all know we HAVE to be at work. Except one of the attorneys came to work massively sick. Wearing a mask, coughing, voice was 3 octaves lower… it was bad. SO I think it rather telling and unfortunate that I’ve been absolutely hacking up my own lung for the last 3 hours. Not pleased. As… we only have 8 attorneys. And tomorrow, I will have to have RAPID FIRE conversations with 122 people… not to mention the return phone calls, the pop ins, and all the other Face to Face Human Interaction bullshit expected of me at this job where I am the only attorney covering 5 entire dockets by myself.