I Hope This All Works Out

My internship at the Dept. of Natural Resources started this week. When I signed up for it during the spring I was hoping to have a better experience than with my Court Internship I had that spring semester. Don't get me wrong, I did learn many things from my Court Internship, but trying to fit in the 120 hours of work while having classes six days a week was nothing but a huge pain. Because of the placement of my classes I was never able to get in more than three or three and a half hours at a time.

With this semester I have two full days of classes, but I have three empty days to meet the working requirements of my DNR internship. I can spend an entire day or two getting work done and learning things. It is only 2 blocks from school so the walk will be short and pleasant.

The biggest reason for this internship is that I see myself going into some government work when I graduate. I find the concept of the billable hour annoying along with the minimum hours requirement. While many BigLaw Firms expose the virtues of a balanced work/life experience I've heard too many stories of 60, 70, 80 hour work weeks just to get the work done. I'm too old for that whacked out priority system now. Besides I would never be able to get a first job at BigLaw Firm due to my lack of grades. Just see the requirements of interviewing with BigLaw Firm for the On-Campus Interviews. That's okay as BigLaw salary isn't everything. I'll just have to struggle to pay back my student loans just like most of my other classmates. While the pay of a government lawyer isn't that high you do get many fringe benefits such as lots of holidays and something that would approach a 8am to 5pm schedule. Besides as a political junkie governmental functions and work fascinates me.

I should talk about the job itself if you've kept up with me this far. I actually have a small office! It holds my desk, a cabinet full of books, two file cabinets, and two chairs. I know many summer interns were shoved 2 to an office in a space not much bigger than mine! I thought I would be in cubeville as I would be a peon first class, but all the lawyers have their own small office, and several were available. I freaked out some of the attorneys by showing them how the ergonomic keyboard holder would tilt and lift (showin' off my tech support skills is cool). My computer is slow to log onto the network, but once booted up it's decent enough. Their I.T. guruette even had the software licensed to me. That means the PC was freshly reimaged instead of just laying around forever.

It was funny that I was lost for a bit. I simply waited patiently in the receptionists office as one person thought I would be in the office area and another person thought I was in the receptionists office. After 45 minutes someone figured out where I was and apologized profusely. A new attorney was showed up Monday and I arrived on Tuesday so we had a potluck lunch there to celebrate. I had that nice warm fuzzy feeling. After lunch I was given an assignment. It involved looking through the Indiana code that created the D.N.R. and a chapter in the D.N.R.'s administrative code, but after 2 hours mind numbing code searching I actually found an answer! As I had 30 minutes left they asked me to write something cohesive and I produced a mini-memo about 4 paragraphs long. I did something useful my first day :-)

Now I'm working on a Fourth Amendment search and seizure issue because we have 250 armed Conservation Officers with full police powers. This could be interesting and I hope this all works out.