I had the privilege of being a student at CSU’s pretrial clinic. We were required to write a reflection at the end. I wanted to share it because it’s a great summary of my experience. It was a wild ride. There are many things I did not include because my professor already knew them. Things like meeting one of my first clients and he was in a wheelchair because he had been shot 19 times. Being in the jail to visit a client and getting a call on my cell phone that there would be a delay for me to see my client and was I ok? As I was saying I was completely fine, I watched on the other side of the glass wall as guards in full riot gear paraded past. My one Friday night in East Cleveland at the jail because they messed with my client and I was having none of it. That’s an entire story on it’s own. The most important pieces of my time are my clients. Some I saw briefly and others have become friends. Some are now in our mentor program with our non-profit. All of them were people with stories, just like me.
Hello Professor,
There is a lot to reflect on. I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a teen. I just turned 46. I didn’t believe I could do it for many reasons. I’m now older and wiser, but just enough to push myself to do things anyway but not enough to not have self-doubts. I’ve been in a courtroom for all the wrong reasons, which might have added to the intimidation for me, but also added to my power in the end. I was always so nervous to be in the Justice Center building. What if I said or did the wrong thing? What if I looked stupid? I felt so ill-equipped to do anything in the legal realm and I expected to sit on the sidelines and watch everyone else. I would support where possible, but I thought I would ride the bench in this arena. That was not going to be my place at all.
I already knew to expect disappointment with our justice system, so the things I saw from that aspect were not surprising but still saddening. It’s painful to have such a front-row view that people are not presumed innocent and are treated as guilty before even an arrest and then carried through to the trial. It did feel surreal a lot of the time and I kept telling my friends and family that I felt like I was living in a T.V. show – validated by the several times my clients were part of the evening news and/or cameras were in the courtroom when I was there.
Books and classrooms can only teach you so much. The Pretrial Clinic allows you the opportunity to be on the sidelines or, should you choose, to actively engage in the game. Even though I was terrified, I jumped into the game, and not only do I believe that I have made a difference for some clients, but it changed me. Having the opportunity to stand before a judge and represent clients, but also the background work of advocacy gave me the confidence to know that not only could I be a lawyer, but I will be a damn great one.
I applied for my intern certificate right away so that I had all the opportunities available to me for assisting clients in or out of court. The first opportunity came on the 12th floor. The judge asked Keenan (who works for the PD’s office) what year of law school he was in, and he said he wasn’t in law school yet. So, the judge looked at me at the defence table next to him and asked me if I was in law school and I replied yes. He called me to the podium and asked me to represent the defendant. There is a script that is spoken for every client, and I did not know it, so the Public Defender helped me. The client was then given a personal bond. We did the same for the next client and then a few defendants later my client was called (who I had met in 3D and why I was in the room that day to see what bond he would be given) and the public defender asked if I wanted to represent him. I did and he was also given a personal bond.
I believe this judge called me up to give practice for a law student when he saw that personal bonds were recommended by the bond commissioner, but he never said that. Even if that was the case, I did not know that, and it was a thrilling and terrifying experience. In some ways, it was helpful to not be prepared because you just had to do it, and I didn’t have time to stress or worry about what was to come. I felt so uncapable and inside I was dying of imposter syndrome but on the outside, I was as calm as a fully trained, professional lawyer (acting classes from high school helped). I put my mind on autopilot to shut out my feelings and seize the opportunity that was in front of me.
The second opportunity came on the 3rd floor. I had been working with Ashley (PD’s office) for a few weeks and she offered me the chance to represent whichever clients I chose. I chose two that I was certain would get personal bonds and one that I knew I would have to fight to get as low of bond as possible, but I felt I knew enough talking points to do this. Jose was the felony prosecutor that day and that helped because I knew him from court and class. When he saw that I was going to represent clients he let me know that he would not oppose personal bonds on the next two clients, and I teased him that he should not go easy on me just because it was my first time. He said he would then request 100k bonds and laughed. The first two clients got their personal bonds but then I turned to him, smiled, and said – I am not done! We each presented arguments over the next client and the bond was set at a reasonable amount.
Having had experience standing before a judge once already made the 3D experience easier. It also helped to have a camaraderie with the prosecutor, and the judge that day was a friendly judge. I also had an opportunity to argue before another judge to fix a judge’s error on some paperwork for a client that prevented him from being able to post his bond. I had met him the week before in 3D and from a brief jail interview, so I knew his case. The judge was unclear why she needed to “re-do” another judge’s bond, but I was able to explain what the other judge had done wrong and that she was just correcting a one -word mistake and I could explain how I knew it was a mistake based on the defendants’ co-defendants and the entire situation of the case. I have been assisting that client since he was released with court dates and his questions about the process.
I connected with some of my clients more than others. For all of them, I did my best to show them that someone, even if it was a random Canadian law school student, cared about them and their situation. Some people were caught up in terrible situations and some made terrible choices. All of them were still people. I used my professional capacity to try and deal with their legal needs to the best of my abilities. I used my empathy to see their humanity.
Sometimes the situation took a toll on me. Hearing case details where children were harmed, sexually and to the point of death, impacted me. The way we harm each other through individual choices, or through a dehumanizing system that we call justice, weighed heavily on me. I don’t think the weight of that changed at any point, but how I carried it did. The more I learned, the better equipped I was to help in the ways that I could. The feeling of making a difference, no matter how small helps shift the weight. I was so grateful for my classmates, and I used them as a resource to ask questions and share my feelings of joy, anguish and astonishment. Sometimes we had to laugh at the absurdities of it all. Doing all of that together made the experience better.
For you, my professor. You made all this happen. You have been a lawyer, judge, mayoral candidate and SO MANY other things. Through all of it, you have not lost your empathy for people. I have seen so many who are part of the system become desensitized to it. Your passion for change and willingness to challenge processes and, if necessary, people, is emboldening. You are the right person to run this clinic. Even the students who do not go on to practice in the area of criminal law will now join as an advocate for the change that is needed.
I am not sure exactly what my future will hold as far as job titles, but I now have absolute confirmation that this is what I was born to do. You gave me that opportunity to find myself here. For someone who has always been unsure of exactly where I belonged you unknowingly handed me the roadmap home. You did that just by being authentically you. We won’t always know the impact we have when we do that, but you can know for certain you have made a lifelong impact on me. I hope to have done the same for the clients you gave me the opportunity to know. The ripple effect is a magnificent thing.
Thank you isn’t enough.
Amanda Carrasco
Amanda Carrasco 
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