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Abstract

This paper is the story of a failure. It is about how I tried, and failed, to be be sold on doing the work of a public defender. "Why did you try to do such a thing?" I can hear you asking. I wonder about that myself. Looking back on my decision to enroll in Introduction to Advocacy: The Criminal Defense Perspective in the spring of 1993, I can't say that I thought about it that much. I generally prefer to try new things and this was in the spirit of my overall course selection. Basically, I like to sample new intellectual experiences and have therefore gorged myself at the intellectual smorgasbord available at a liberal arts university. There was no sense of a "broken contract" that impelled me to seek out clinical courses to fill some void in my intellectual or spiritual life at law school. Unlike many students who take clinicals, I had no real ax to grind about the law school experience. Indeed, I was more than satisfied with my legal education to that point. In fact, my years at law school have been the best of my life which may be more a statement about me than the quality of life at the institution. And, while many students complain that you don't receive an education in law practice at Harvard, I had never expected to learn how to practice law while at school. My dabblings in the "sociology of education" had taught me that most learning comes by trial and error in the actual context of the activity. That is, most people learn by doing. Moreover, I've always thought that, after I graduate, I'll get forty years of experience. Why rush things? So, the failure of law school to teach me how to "do law" was not a great disappointment to me. I was "merely" interested in what I might learn from a criminal clinical experience.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

1

Issue

2

First Page

299

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