Typical Day

Typical Day

Attorney Kara Featherstone is up at 6:15AM. She showers, shaves her legs (she's in court today), eats breakfast, and is into her professional pantsuit before you can snap your fingers. She arrives at work—an eight-attorney small private office specializing in criminal defense litigation—at 7:00AM sharp.

At 7:15AM, she starts poring over a client's file with her paralegal. The two of them investigate former legal decisions that may have a bearing on this case and review the evidence in preparation of the court appearance. This is a case that goes to trial in a couple of hours. Kara's client has been accused of dealing drugs, and he's pleading not guilty...but he is so guilty. Kara often has a bit of trouble sleeping at night over stuff like this, but her job is to win cases for her clients.

This particular client's defense is that his ex-girlfriend, trying to get him in trouble, planted the drugs that were found on his person inside the pocket of his jeans. (The reason he's accused of dealing and not just possession is that there were a lot of drugs on this guy.)

It's a weak line and the jury isn't likely to buy it (unless she gets lucky and was able to finagle a really gullible one), but it's up to her to make it fly as much as possible, and to introduce some element of doubt in the minds of those responsible for determining her client's fate.

Fortunately, the client's ex claims she was home alone the entire day preceding the arrest, which helps Kara out, as the girl doesn’t have an alibi and easily could have planted the drugs. She'll have to play up that angle. The ex is also incredibly strung-out, which lends credence to their story. This is going to be a tough one, but she's weaseled her way out of trickier ones.

Sneaky devil.

At 9:00AM, Kara goes to court. She and the prosecution give their opening statements and the facts of the case are presented. Things wrap up after about an hour, and they will reconvene the following day so Kara and the prosecution can begin making their respective cases.

Kara then heads back to the office for an 11:00AM deposition. A man who is out on bail after breaking his parole comes in with his own lawyer, and the three of them retire to the conference room so that the man can be deposed. (Not "disposed.") After the deposition is completed at around noon, Kara goes to lunch with two of her fellow attorneys, where they discuss their current trial cases over plates of moo shu pork.

Before returning to the office, Kara stops at the District Court to file an Order for Appeal for another of her cases. She pops into her office briefly to check her emails and messages, go through some of her live files, and do about fifteen minutes of letter dictation (which she drops off with her paralegal to be typed up and mailed) before heading to court for an arraignment scheduled for 3:00PM.

Once that's over, it's back to the office for more file review, more dictation, and more emails, until finally at around 7:30PM she packs it in and heads home. Her Abercrombie model boyfriend is waiting for her when she gets there.