u/InterestingClass3829

With a little luck, I’ll get an offer to join a certain DA’s Office before too long. If so, I’ll happily accept.

Although I’ll happily accept, I also don’t want to prosecute the trivial cases (dwi first, negligent operation, etc.) forever and would like to prosecute more serious cases, of the sort dealt with in superior court, quickly.

Is there anything I can do to fast track getting to superior court? I know to some extent it is out of my control, for example dependent on vacancies at superior court that may not occur for a while. And of course I know that I should just do as good a job on my cases in district court as possible, for its own sake and because that might grab the attention of people in charge of promotion or whatever.

But outside of just being as good an ada as possible, is there something else that can be done? How often do adas transfer in state to different counties to get a superior court position that has emerged?

Rising 3L intern at DA’s office.

Overall, I would say my internship has been very positive. All of my coworkers are nice and supportive to a person, and I would say that the internship, and I think the office itself, is very professionally run. Also, I have gotten quite a few opportunities to stand up in court on substantive matters (trials and motions, basically).

I am planning on applying to work here as an ada after graduation, but I would be lying if I said that I weren’t curious about what it might be like at other da’s offices in the state and elsewhere in the country. And there are certain things about this da’s office, or at least this particular office/court location within the larger county, that I don’t love—for example,

(1) judges who are defense-friendly to a degree that is eyebrow-raising; (2) adas in my office routinely talk about how certain judges who are regulars in the court are awful, don’t follow the law, etc. (I don’t know that I would agree that they are awful, but they do often make seemingly inexplicable rulings on bench trials, etc.); (3) being promoted at this particular da’s office seems like it takes much longer than at others

Then there is the fact that (4) this da’s office is in a cold climate with a high coa

I have another post about some of these issues, but what’s new here is that I was recently offered an interview for a post grad job at this place.

And the truth is, while I do like a lot about it, I have mixed feelings, feel ambivalent.

I’m a little bit worried that if I have the interview soon and am offered a position, I will have to accept it before exploring other options. Are people generally given a certain amount of time at da’s offices before accepting or rejecting an offer? Is rejecting an offer considered verboten the way rejecting a clerkship offer is?

I just feel it’s a pity that, though there is much to be said for this office and I could certainly do way, way worse, I may not have an opportunity to cast a wide—statewide or nationwide—net when thinking about where I want to start as an ada

Sorry for the rather repetitive post, but any thoughts would be appreciated.

Rising 3L interning at DA’s office.

I quite like the state I’m interning in, which is also the state in which I go to law school and have lived for a decent number of years.

Very likely, I’ll just start my legal career in this state, ideally at the da’s office I’m interning at.

That said, I do sometimes wonder if there are other states where it would be nicer to be an ada.

Factors are the standard ones: cost of living, weather, priorities of the office, opportunities for promotion, training versus “throw you to the wolves,” interesting cases faster, etc., etc.

Curious what people think. I’m also just kind of tired of where I live in part because of how cold it is for much of the year. Not the strongest reason to want to go somewhere else, but not completely trivial, if you ask me.

EDIT: best states or, if you like, more narrowly, best offices within states. Either one.

Rising 3L intern in DA’s office.

I’ve noticed that in the court that my internship is associated with quite a few of our cases get dismissed, sometimes on the eve of trial and sometimes moments before trial was set to begin, because we learn that a necessary witness is unavailable, whether a law enforcement witness or a civilian.

I find this odd. Are we just powerless to bring people to court? We just have to hope that an officer is free to testify six months or nine months after the incident on some random day or that a civilian witness who lives halfway across the country can get on a plane in the middle of the week and fly to make it?

I would have thought we would have a bit more “control” of our prospective witnesses’ availability.

I’m a rising 3L and interning in a DA’s office this summer. I should soon be able to appear in court, but this far I have been basically managing discovery for some cases than have been assigned to me, observing a lot, and doing the very occasional mini research assignment.

I like it so far, but it feels like I’m not doing much that’s substantive.

Which brings me to my question. Given that the vast majority of what I’ve been doing outside of observing is “managing” discovery, I’d like to know how I can do this better, best practices, ways to be more efficient.

I will say this is a pretty tedious part of the job and appears to require no substantive legal reasoning and is virtually entirely administrative, but I understand it’s important.

I fill out a discovery request form and give it to our paralegal to reach out to the police prosecutor or other entity (eg the DMV) for the discovery I’ve checked off on the discovery request form. Over time, the discovery starts coming in electronically or physically. I scan and upload the physical discovery. I then share the discovery with the defense attorney on the case.

The main frustration is that discovery does not come in promptly and almost always I will have to follow up by reaching out to the police prosecutor myself to ask again for what we previously requested. Then sometimes what we get is not what we asked for or it is unclear if it is what we asked for, requiring further follow up.

I don’t mind doing this, of course. I just feel like I’m doing it inefficiently. I also have a tendency to reread the police reports for cases I have to make sure I haven’t missed anything, which also takes time and is inefficient when almost always I haven’t missed something.

I realize I’m sort of rambling here. But does anyone have any tips for how to manage discovery efficiently and to not let it dominate one’s entire day if it doesn’t need to?