The Facist & The Sleazy Defense Attorney

My roommate and I sit on opposite sides of the kitchen table every night working on our assignments. Fittingly, we are now representing opposite sides in our final Legal Rhetoric brief (though we aren't paired to argue against each other because we're in different classes).

She is the sleazy defense attorney representing the Kirk "I am a cocaine-dealer with thirty outstanding violations" Neison. I am a facist representing the Commonwealth "We won't bother to get a warrant to do a search because we'll just bully the little people" Massachusetts.

Perhaps these are slight exaggerations of the two sides but sometimes that's how you feel as you're writing advocacy arguments. Sometimes it's hard to find that middle ground between zealously advocating for your client without demonizing the other side (or yourself). In class we call this walking the balance beam.

As much as I hate the fact patterns that they give us where there seems to be just as many cases against you as for you, if not more (and you always feel like the only cases you can find go against you), it's practice for life I guess.

In the same way that we usually read controversial cases in class, we don't get "slam dunk" cases to write about where one side is clearly guilty. Nor do we get cases where we find one previous court case clearly gives us an answer. If these were what we got in law school, there nothing to argue about and consequently nothing to grade us on.

Without the hard cases, there would be no learning. Without the hard cases, lawyers wouldn't make so much money.