Over the course of summer 2016, I will complete an internship with the City Attorney’s office in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. This internship has me working for twelve hours each week on Monday-Wednesday. I will primarily be working under the city attorney, Kathleen McDaniel, and the city’s staff attorney, Liz Majerus. The job of the city attorney is to serve as legal representation for the city of Manitowoc and prosecute in municipal court trials. With this internship, I will observe the preparation process for courtroom trials and observe the trials each week, along with office tasks such as digitizing documents. During the week of May 16-May 19 I began my internship with the office, and already I have learned much more than I had expected to in
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After showing me around the office, Liz and I got right to work to prepare for her pre-trial meetings and trials that were to occur on Tuesday. As most cases that occur within the city of Manitowoc are civil cases, a pre-trial meeting is essentially a meeting with the defendant to negotiate their forfeitures and whether they want to proceed with a trial or not. To get an idea of how she will negotiate with the defendants on Tuesday, Liz explained that it is important to read over the details of the case as well as get an idea of the defendant's’ history with law enforcement. During this process, Liz taught me how to understand the case documents and how to interpret the details of the case. This included learning how to research local and state statutes and how the defendants might have violated them. After looking over the case information, Liz began to develop some ideas of how the defendants might behave during the Tuesday meetings and how she will negotiate with them. Along with pre-trial meetings on Tuesday, May 17, Liz also had a scheduled trial later in the afternoon. For this case, Liz already had the pre-trial meeting with the defendant and she had decided to go forward with a trial. Liz explained that this trial would consist of numerous direct and cross examinations of those involved in the case. After learning this, I explained to Liz that I participate in the University of …show more content…
This chapter discusses the profession of law in the United States through an piece by French lawyer, Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited and observed the United States in 1831. One major point that Tocqueville pointed out is that lawyers have a high place in society. I was able to observe this occur in my internship when I saw that Liz has to power to completely dismiss a defendant’s forfeiture or not even offer dismissal as an option, depending on how she feels about the defendant. For example, she was more likely to dismiss those of people if they had no record of previous crimes than those with extensive records. Along with this, Tocqueville wrote that, “the people in democratic states do not mistrust the members of the legal profession, because it is known that they are interested to serve the popular case” (300). In other words, people often trust lawyers as they are public servants. Tocqueville also made the point that people should trust lawyers as they more often follow precedent of previous rulings than the passion of their own opinions. I was able to see this when Liz made offers to the defendants and they rarely put up a fight. In my opinion, Liz was fair with her offers and was not seeking to make the defendants’ lives more difficult, and for this reason, the defendants felt they could trust her
After showing me around the office, Liz and I got right to work to prepare for her pre-trial meetings and trials that were to occur on Tuesday. As most cases that occur within the city of Manitowoc are civil cases, a pre-trial meeting is essentially a meeting with the defendant to negotiate their forfeitures and whether they want to proceed with a trial or not. To get an idea of how she will negotiate with the defendants on Tuesday, Liz explained that it is important to read over the details of the case as well as get an idea of the defendant's’ history with law enforcement. During this process, Liz taught me how to understand the case documents and how to interpret the details of the case. This included learning how to research local and state statutes and how the defendants might have violated them. After looking over the case information, Liz began to develop some ideas of how the defendants might behave during the Tuesday meetings and how she will negotiate with them. Along with pre-trial meetings on Tuesday, May 17, Liz also had a scheduled trial later in the afternoon. For this case, Liz already had the pre-trial meeting with the defendant and she had decided to go forward with a trial. Liz explained that this trial would consist of numerous direct and cross examinations of those involved in the case. After learning this, I explained to Liz that I participate in the University of …show more content…
This chapter discusses the profession of law in the United States through an piece by French lawyer, Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited and observed the United States in 1831. One major point that Tocqueville pointed out is that lawyers have a high place in society. I was able to observe this occur in my internship when I saw that Liz has to power to completely dismiss a defendant’s forfeiture or not even offer dismissal as an option, depending on how she feels about the defendant. For example, she was more likely to dismiss those of people if they had no record of previous crimes than those with extensive records. Along with this, Tocqueville wrote that, “the people in democratic states do not mistrust the members of the legal profession, because it is known that they are interested to serve the popular case” (300). In other words, people often trust lawyers as they are public servants. Tocqueville also made the point that people should trust lawyers as they more often follow precedent of previous rulings than the passion of their own opinions. I was able to see this when Liz made offers to the defendants and they rarely put up a fight. In my opinion, Liz was fair with her offers and was not seeking to make the defendants’ lives more difficult, and for this reason, the defendants felt they could trust her