Lawyers?

Editing means I have to deal with all these pesky things called "facts," which are apparently "important" or something. Geez..

So, my MCs all work for the city attorney's office in a midsize city on the eastern seaboard of the U.S, and I want to get a feel for what the job would exactly be like so I'm not bs-ing everything about law and their jobs. It doesn't even have to be that specific, any insight on experiences being a lawyer/in law in general is appreciated.

Of special help would be info on what it's like to be a paralegal, and what it's like to handle land disputes and other non-criminal law.

Please and thank you~ :)

Which side of the hours? Criminal or Civil?

Civil.

i interned in our City Law Department one summer in law school, on the civil side.

A lot of times they do handle things like land dispute4s witht he city, complaints about noise and other ordinances, and sometimes just basic intepretation of some of the local ordinances in the civil area.

I don't remember a lot of specifics since it was 20 years ago, but it was a 9-5 job, there was a lot of memo writing and research to be done, so i spent some tme at the law library, too, looking up cases. I also called a few witnesses to tell them when a case was being heard; as an intern I got the ones who were definitely going to appear and the attorney handled the ones who weren't sure or who were hostile about appearing. Let's see, I know I sat in ona deposition or two as well.

Funny thing, my main specific memory isn't of any of those things, which probably shows why i went into wills and estate planning and my main concern is volunteering in my church along with my print on demand publishing, etc.. I remember a few lawyers discussing a family law issue (probably over lunch as I don't know why it would have been an issue here). I don't remember the situation, or the context, but I noted that in Ephesians 6:4, in the original Textus Receptus KJV, the Bible commands fathers to raise their children int he nurture and admonition of the Lord. And I noted how in Greek, the first in a series is most important, and thus God was saying nurture was more important, and that it showed fathers were commanded to provide that foremost. And, this attorney beside me suddenly dropped what she was doing and began writing that down.

I thought, "Wow, that's neat that God used me for that." Never found out why it was needed, but I thought it'd be a fun tidbit that maybe you could use. Otherwise, I would say just generally have them writing memos, doing legal research, calling witnesses, that sort of thing.

I worked as the morning receptionist at a law firm a few years ago. There was me, a law clerk, two paralegals, the two name partners, and an accountant who came in twice a week--and a lot of office drama I did my best to stay out of.

if you do a search, there are lots of other threads here that also have information about lawyers and law offices.