One Way To Find A Job Right Out Of Law School

Great. Twelve years of practice and I'm resigned to the fact that my own political views and lack of religious belief have condemned me to never take a seat on the bench. A price I'm willing to pay to be true to myself, but still, I'd like being a judge if I could be one. So I think I can be forgiven for being just a bit bitter and envious to run across an article about a guy who is exactly my age who gets a black robe despite being out of law school for less than a year.

I mean, yes, congratulations to Judge Miller and I'm sure he'll do a fine job.

And yes, I know that this little puff piece from his law school isn't telling us the whole story. Maybe the guy is hard-wired into his Governor's machinery and spent his pre-law career raising money for Governor Blunt. It doesn't escape my notice that he got appointed after winning the Republican primary -- he hasn't yet won election outright but it's a good bet that the GOP nomination is effectively the election, particularly in a rural district. So he's connected in ways I'm not and likely will never be, and so he gets the kind of work I'd like very much to do but never will.

That may well make him immensely more qualified for the job than I would be. Like I say, I know what the real qualifications for a job like that are, and I don't have them. I haven't made friends in Governor Schwarzenegger's office and I suppose I might have had a chance to have done that back in 2003. Leaving for two years to another state does not exactly demonstrate my commitment to California and its Republican leadership, either. Then there's all the things I've said critical of party leaders. (I've said plenty of things critical of Democrats, too.) No, I know I'm too unreliable, too unpredictable, too much of a wild card, and I don't have "Deputy District Attorney" on my resume. So I'll never get that job.