Critiqued by High Schoolers

A while back I had a hearing while a class of high-school students watched (see Wednesday here). Afterward I stayed to talk with the class along with the prosecutor, the judge, and a couple other defense attorneys.

Yesterday I got a stack of letters in the mail from the class. Most of them were the type of generic letters you get when a teacher forces students to write a letter. However, some had comments in them which showed that the student was actually paying attention. The first was pretty innocuous:

I also like listening to you discuss your client’s responsibility to his family and his financial situation.

The next was impressed by my client control skills:

I also really liked how you nudged your client to keep him from talking while the judge was speaking.

The last really was not impressed by my client:

I think the defendant you were defending, case was interesting because I don’t understand why he did what he did. I also think he got a break because he should have been doing his job and not distributing drugs. However, you did a good job defending your defendant.

It always feels good to be appreciated.