Thursday, November 3, 2011

Day in the Life of an ADA (Vacation Edition)

After some fun in the sun, I'm back and ready to roll. Hope you enjoyed some of the recommended reading. I know I need to catch up on a lot of it.

This is another installment in the day of an ADA series. Today we look at an ADA returning on his first day from vacation. Similarities to any ADA are entirely coincidental.

To do so, we must look at the days leading up to vacation though. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of last week finds our fictional ADA in the office from about 7:30 a.m. through 7:30 p.m. preparing files, sending out letters to witnesses, organizing meetings, and doing his best to avoid explosions of case bombs in his absence. He'd like to thank some wonderful ADA's who agreed to cover some cases in his absence!

Now for the return to the office:

Voicemails waiting - 13 (much less than expected)
Emails waiting - 80 (much more than expected)
New files waiting - 6 (about what I expected)
Number of witnesses arrested - 1
Number of current defendants who picked up new cases - 3

The ADA arrives early and checks the schedule for the day. He usually prepares the day before, but was unable to. Three cases on the morning calendar and a pre-trial hearing at 11:00. The stack of mail, messages, and new files must wait.

Court from 9:30. One defendant did not arrive - bench warrant. One did and pled guilty. Officers arrived at 10:30 for a 10:00 meeting. They are here for the hearing at 11:00, which was called at 12:15. The defendant in that case agrees to plead guilty. Not a bad morning.

No lunch to speak of due to the amount of work waiting and that there is a case in court at 1:45. 1:45 case is called at 2:30 and gets adjourned.

Back to the office to check nine more messages and ten more emails that came in today. Add them to the list. Field phone calls from various officers and witnesses while trying to clean off the desk proves to be an impossible task.

How did 5:00 arrive so soon? 5:30 follows and his brain is still on vacation. He'll try again tomorrow.

3 comments:

  1. Seriously. Don't know how you guys do it!

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  2. Nothing substantive to add except that I really love and appreciate your insights on "a day in the life of an ADA!"

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  3. However this ADA did come back to find that his favorite defendant filed his pro-se brief. Welcome back!

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