On being a Criminal Defense Attorney.
Posted by: Ed Chernoff
May 01, 2007

LIfe is cruel. You can raise a kid for 17 years, nurturing, caring, teaching and worrying the entire time. You can beam with pride when he gets accepted into a vaunted University, feeling satisfied that all the hours you spent doing homework with him somehow paid off. You can sit back and feel nothing but joy at the prospect of watching him mature into a man and a father. You can look forward to his graduation, his wedding day, your grandchildren, his success, his happiness, the fishing trips, the Thanksgivings. All the sacrifices are forgotten. All that is left are the snap shots in your mind of the little victories and smaller losses that ultimately turned your precious little boy into a beautiful young man. So filled with boundless potential! Life couldn't possibly get any better. Then one day you get a call from the Dean, or the police, telling you that some hate filled alienated student fired a 9mm bullet into his head, killing him, for no reason whatsoever.

I won't speak for all Criminal Lawyers, but I can speak for this one. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, and I see all of it played out in our offices. I deal with so much tragedy in this job, that I get numb. It takes the masacre that occurred at Virgina Tech to jolt me into the reality of how cruel this world can actually be.

I have said before that depression is a rolling theme in this office. I suppose we couldn't be effective lawyers if our client's pain didn't rub off on us in small portions. But after awhile these small portions add up, layering us in the ashes and rubble of despair. The firm appears to be mired in the muck lately. Matt put it well the other day when he said it feels like there is too much gravity in our office. I think we need some Mariachis and Margaritas.

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