Law

Remember that the interview must be done either in person (face-to-face, which is the preferred method) or by phone (including Skype or similar programs). You may not do this interview by email, texting, or other written e-communication means (contact me in Conversations/Inbox if this is a problem, especially for anyone currently in a foreign country). For your interview, make sure you obtain at least the following information from the person you interview (the “interviewee”) (and when I use the word “lawyer”, please understand that to also include “judge” and “paralegal”—just change “lawyer” to the applicable “judge” or “paralegal” when you see “lawyer” below, to make the directions work for your choice of interviewee):

1) full name

2) office where currently working--firm/military/other government work/corporation or other business organization?

3) what drove the interviewee to become a lawyer

4) how long the person has been a lawyer, area of law in which the person is currently working (family law, personal injury, estates, bankruptcy, government, etc., for lawyers/paralegals; which court for judge), and whether the person has switched areas of law in which the person worked

5) what the person likes best about practicing law [or working as a judge or paralegal]

6) what the person likes least about practicing law [or working as a judge or paralegal]

7) what was the lawyer's favorite case to work on? (and maybe also ask about least favorite?)

8) is the lawyer still happy being a lawyer?

9) your impressions about the law and the legal profession before and after interviewing the lawyer

10) any advice the lawyer would give you about college, the law, or the legal profession concerning your future  

and then

11) any/all of the things you would like to ask (about which you are curious) that the interviewee is willing to answer, and will help you complete two full pages of memorandum!

Your report must be two full pages (not one and one-half pages), double-spaced, and must be in memorandum (“memo”) form.  Please do not exceed two pages, and please do not use spacing methods or font size to cram three or four pages of material into two pages (you will lose points, if you do), or to make your memorandum look lengthier than it is. Smallest font size allowed would be the equivalent of Calibri or Arial 11. Largest font size allowed would be the equivalent of Calibri or Arial 12. (This is memo form:  At the top of the page, the following four items on the left top side of the page, one item per line, so it looks like this (and this one part of the memo needs to be single-spaced, not double-spaced):  

To: MSM [these are the instructor’s initials]

From: [put your name in this space]

Re: Interview of [put the name of the person interviewed here]

Date:____________

Then, underneath that heading, the body of the memo is your two-page report).    Do not include any other information at the top of the page (for example, title of the course; name of assignment; any headers), besides the four items shown above.

The body of the memo must be in prose (the body of the report must be in conventional paragraph form, without headings, and paragraphs are not to be numbered). Do not write your memo so that it looks like a straight “question and answer” interview. Do not just put, for example, the text of item 1 from the assignment directions, and quote or paraphrase the interviewee’s answer to item 1.

Also, do not just make your paragraphs a series of quotes from the interviewee—this is your paper, and therefore should include your words, not the interviewee’s words. You may paraphrase your interviewee’s words, for the memo, but please do not include more than four brief (one sentence) quotes. When you save and name your document, please be sure to include your name in the document name, so I do not have to open the file to find out whose memo it is. For example, if Kate chooses Option 1, and is getting ready to submit her memo of her interview of an attorney, she would name her document (when she saves it) as: Kate-OnManPoonIntervMemoW19

(The “W19” is the quarter; she puts the first name by which she is known in the course first, followed by her official roster name, since that is different. If you do not go by a different name than your roster name, in the course, just use your regular roster name.) Also, please save your document as a Word document, so I will be able to open it.  (If I cannot open it, I cannot give you a grade.) If you need/wish to choose this option, because you cannot make it to a courthouse, please do not wait until the last minute to try to find someone to interview.

8