Nerves!

So today I have to argue a case in court for the first time ever. Not real court mind you, they won't let me at real clients like that quite yet, but Legal Skills court. Legal Skills is our practicum course at school, it's really pretty silly in many ways, not least of which is that it's a pass/fail class that takes up a huge percentage of your time, but there it is. Anyway, the point is, this afternoon I have my trial and I am really nervous.

Really really super nervous.

It should be ok. We are the defense in a criminal case, and there is no real evidence of any useful of conclusive kind, so all we have to do is not f* it up too badly and we should be ok, but holy crap I am still nervous. My head hurts and I don't wanna go. I have to go cross examination and closing arguments, both of which I seem to be better at than direct and opening, I think because you have to think on the fly and respond to what the other side has done more, but that's not saying a whole lot really. I know in my head this is all good practice and it will be good to have my "first" court appearance over with before I get out into practice, but the whole skills program is so contrived and so poorly executed that I don't think it really has the desired effect. Seriously, they give us dreadful cases and no evidence to work with and it's all quite absurd and in real life the cases would never get to court. But we have to argue it anyway. blegh.

It's a stressful start to a rather long weekend. Today is my trial, then I am off to the LYM's. Tomorrow we are going to my neighbors 30th birthday party, then Sunday there's an all day self-defense clinic. Somewhere in there I have to read for next week. Gah. Good luck with that. I am sorely tempted to just say to hell with it and really take the weekend off, but I sort of feel like I've been slacking as it is. Of course, I am a little behind, but only in one class, and once this trial is over my schedule will go back to something passably normal, so probably I am due a little bit of a break. We'll see I guess. Right now I just want to crawl under a rock and hide until this is over.

Hmm. Just realized, tonight will be the first time the LYM has seen me in full lawyer-drag. It's been nearly a year that we've been doing whatever it is we're doing and in all that time he's never seen me in a suit. Funny.