On being a public defender: Taking a punch and getting back up again

From public defender blogger Woman of the Law:

I tried to read but couldn’t.  I couldn’t talk.  I was relentlessly thirsty.  My nerves were shredded.  Everyone else had left for the day some time ago.  I sat there, alone, on the wooden courthouse bench in the institutionally lit hallway.  I sat in the quiet courthouse, hearing the occasional echo of footsteps at the other end, nervous but confident that we would prevail.  There could be no other way.  Silence.  Anxiety.  Pacing.  More water.

And when the news finally came, that things didn’t go our way, that justice would not be done, I was there, alone, in silence.

I fled the deafening silence, reentering the rest of the world, the world I had forgotten existed because I had been so consumed by this.  I called the boss to report the defeat and confessed that my next move would be to curl up in a ball and weep softly.

Satisfied that I had done something, but still achingly disappointed, I joined my fellow PDs at the bar, where they circled their wagons around me.  They helped break that lonely, agonizing silence of the courthouse hallway by cracking open a few $2 PBRs, by aiming goldfish crackers across the table into mouths, and by offering that incredible support of people who know just the right way to help you move on.

Read the entire post