When People Ask Why We BirdCagers Stayed Longer At Our Internship Instead Of Finishing With The Other Interns:

My Reaction At The Office When Someone Points Out That Staying Longer Has Left Me With Only 1 Week Of Summer Vacation Before Classes Resume:

My Reaction At Home When It Actually Registers That Staying Longer Has Left Me With Only 1 Week Of Summer Vacation Before Classes Resume:

When A Client Calls Me A Professional Party Pooper For Being Honest About The Obtacles In His Case

Trying To Muster The Initiative To Finish My Caseload For The Summer

When Someone Leaves Baked Goods Out In The Atrium

When You Start An Internship And Think You'll Resolve Every Case By The End Of Summer

When My Co-Worker And I Tag Team A Project For The Win

When My Co-Workers Stare At Me For Eating Dessert For Lunch

How I Feel When The Client I Really Wanted To Help Is A No Show

When I Have 20 Case Files On My Desk

When I Accidently Drink Coffee Without Sugar At The Office

Reading & Trying To Comprehend Virginia Code

When a Co-Worker Says They're Taking Work Home With Them

My Excuse For Binging on Snacks at My Desk

How it Feels to Close a Case

When People Ask Me About the Process of Getting Through Law School

YOLO Birthday!

It's official. Charly is 30, and has squandered away the last remnants of her wayward youth. Thanks to all the LAJC interns for joining in the birthday festivities! It began with a YOLO cupcake themed shindig, complete with trick candles and a "Happy Birthday" serenade from all y'all fine fellow LAJC interns. What a way to start off the work morning! There was also a lovely and laughter-filled birthday lunch at Panera Bread with several Birdcage and Boiler Room interns. YUM. Many Thanks to you all for making this day so special!

When I Can't Explain the Logic Behind a Seemingly Arbitrary Statute

Before Law School...

The Story Of My Life

How Real Lawyers React When I Pretend I Know What I'm Talking About

When I Spill Coffee All Down The Front Of Myself At Work

When My Jam Comes On Pandora At Work

Awesome Law Dog (Dixie) Is Awesome.

How I Feel When the Outcome of a Case is Less Than I'd Hoped:

How I Deal With Failure:

A few early insights

The Birdcagers will be the first to admit that we fell out of the nest a few times while getting our bearings around here a bit. The pursuit of justice takes some learned coordination. And a little helpful advice from the flock. Here are a few insights we've gleaned in the first few weeks:

• Expect a very minimal work product ratio to the extensive amount of time you spend on a specific task.
• A maintenance worker WILL have to use a blowtorch in the boiler room next door. Don't let the blue, incandescent flames alarm you.
• Your words will fail you. Grammar will dump you like you're a codependent, overly attached girlfriend. When writing client letters, briefs, etc., it will become tediously difficult to form cogent sentences that properly convey the subject matter bobbing about aimlessly off the inside walls of your head.You will have the sentence structuring abilities of a two year old. Yoda will sound more eloquent than you. Yoda will sound like freaking Winston Churchill compared to you.
• Don't panic if/when your underwire sets off the court's metal detector. When the bailiff starts to wave the handheld wand thingy over your body, just lie and say it was a zipper.
• At some point, in some small moment of inevitable futility, you will want your mom.
• Occasionally, the need will arise to make a Chipotle run to acquire a burrito the size of your torso.
• Your accumulated law school experiences will culminate in a  result much like PTSD.  You will realize that, upon completing finals, the knowledge derived from these lectures will be completely, inaccessibly blocked out due to incapacitating trauma.
• You will find yourself taking in rain-sopped strangers from the street through the side door. Because you're a good person. And because you're too caught off guard to wonder if they're violent and/or unstable.
• You will emerge depleted from lengthy meetings spent pouring over case files. You will suffer from a condition called Brain Cramp, an affliction known to predominantly target legal professionals. Imagine having a cranial charlie horse. Or even just a hangover worthy of an unforgettable night you'll never remember, without ever having consumed the associated booze. This is when you will call upon Shenandoah Joe's midway through the afternoon. The barista will comment that you look like you just woke up. You will growl at him to hit you with a fix. Now. 
• Due to the convoluted layout of the building, you will frequently chance upon hidden rooms like you're stumbling face first into Narnia.
• You will donate 400 hrs of your beautiful summer and possibly the last remnants of your twenties that you'll never get back. Which is not indentured servitude, mind you. Legally. Technically. Let's be honest, the Virginia DOL is too overextended and underfunded to do anything anyhow. But the experience will be fulfilling, edifying, rewarding, and fully worth it.

When I Try to Research Statutes at 8:30 AM

No Work on a Monday?!?!

How Kiya reacts when Charly tries to start an impromptu office dance party

When a client calls to tell me how I need to handle their case

Er...well...No promises. We'll do our best. Swearsies.

A little inspiration to get your morning going...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/heartwarming-and-beautiful-facts-about-mr-rogers-that-wil

And Big Bird...it's not a nest if it sits on an alley floor. We call that a driftwood pile. Your life is in shambles.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Tweet, Tweet, Chumpsuckahs!

The Birdcage has officially been flung open for the summer, and the 2013 LAJC interns are ready to take off! Prepare to watch the talons of justice descend like stealth bombers upon the Commonwealth. Just consider Kiya, Maddy, and Charly to be birds of prey, where the target is the failures of the legal system.

A little birdie told us that some of the other interns have been chirping smack about the Birdcagers' delay in blog posting. We freely concede that we lack our co-interns' meticulous attention to literary musings. Alas, not all of us have the chance to lackadaisically frolic amok on the interwebs all day. When you find yourself slammed with:     

• ·         literally 20-25 case files on each desk
• ·         shamelessly prostrating and groveling before court clerks for client payment arrangements
• ·         staging clandestine worker gatherings about nefarious non-paying employers
• ·         wringing out the rug / bailing out the office because the side door floods during the slightest rain,

 

A few seemingly less pressing tasks tend to fall through the cage slats, if you will.

However, it's not all slave labor behind these metal bars, mind you. Certainly nothing to get our feathers ruffled. The Birdcage (aka the suite outside Carolyn's office) has some pretty sweet perks to sing about, too. For one thing, the company itself is really something to crow about. Kiya keeps everyone laughing and even devises handy dandy case work charts and diagrams. Maddy makes homemade soap and is a veritable legal research juggernaut. Charly likes to cook fine-eatin' Appalachian vittles and swear like any other proper southern woman. It really is a fine flock.

Also, our cozy little nest tucked away on the far side of the building has its own side door, phone, and private bathroom. We even have a lamp. That works. We may also be the only interns that work at real desks, as well. And when it rains, a huge pond of water (aka The Birdbath) floods the gutters outside the windows and extends all the way from the door to the sidewalk. Why yes, that's right. My workplace officially has a pool. Hey look, Mom! I've finally made it!

Also, we have a dog. An awesome dog. Do you have a dog in your office? No. You don't. Whaddya gonna do about it? That's right. Nothin'.

Until we meet again, keep your head up, fly straight, and avoid careening recklessly out of control