A GRGB attorney was recently the alumni blogger for the MU Law School Faculty Blog. Here is what she had to say in her first blog:
As a new lawyer, I struggled to come up with blog topics. Being only two years out of law school, I don't pretend to have near the amount of knowledge or experience as the frequent contributors and readers of this blog. I contemplated a post about the recent United States Supreme Court decision inMissouri v. McNeely, but Dean O'Hear would cover that topic in a much more eloquent and researched fashion. I then contemplated a post about the privacy implications regarding the recent news on the NSA collecting phone records (or even more recently-the criminal defendants demanding the records as exculpatory evidence). However, as a past student of Professor Boyden's Law of Privacy class, I'm inclined to believe his post on that issue would make a much more interesting read. I finally decided on a topic that has monopolized my attention this Spring and Summer: jury trials. While a post on jury trials authored by Professor Blinka would likely be deemed so sage as to be cited by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I'll tackle the area from what I've learned as a new lawyer.
Jury trials are on my mind because I had a two-week medical malpractice trial in May (more on that in a later post), and I am currently preparing for a week-long criminal trial that will start on Monday. I am nowhere near an expert on jury trials, but my recent experience has caused me to re-examine the benefits of jury trial participation for young lawyers. The skills used and learned at trial are transferrable to almost any other area of practice. The confidence and reputation gained from trying cases is paramount to becoming a strong negotiator, and I have learned the value of all of the pre-trial litigation and preparation that goes into any case.
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