I’ve never told anyone the full extent of what I handled.  Only a student, who fought in Afghanistan, has ever directly asked me.  I didn’t even tell my criminal law students even if it would illustrate concepts.  I used Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, my pet turtles more in scenarios.  I’ve never pinpointed the reason and I’m not going to think too hard on it.

In Philadelphia, my office was spotless.  I had few case files lying around.  Some people thought I was barely working.  The opposite was true.  I was brutally efficient, completing double the cases of others, at least in my peer group (no slouches there in terms of law schools – Harvard, Emory, UVA, Villanova, Temple).  My office was clean because I sent the files back to storage.  All while starting and leading an Asian immigrant outreach program.

Few noticed.  My supervisors only realized this my last month when I stopped working.  I let the boxes stack up and refused reassigned cases.  I enjoyed my daily pretzel (Philly ones are the best).  I played hooky with a colleague to watch Revenge of the Sith.  A little balance in the universe isn’t the worst thing.

I’ve very selectively told some friends the most heinous ones.  They are nightmares.  If you think evil is a joke, it isn’t.

One of the cases that I will write about was as a student attorney.  I wrote significant portions of the brief (we lost).  Some knuckleheads decide to form a protection racket.  In order to drum up business, they decide to cause havoc in the neighborhood.  They shoot a 15 year old boy riding his bicycle with a hollow point bullet.  With a gun that cost $50.  Hollow points explode and disintegrate on impact.  The bullet shatters his internal organs and he bleeds out not far from his parents’ house.  The killers almost get away with it.  Unsolved for weeks, they brag at a party and that’s how they got caught.

I told no one except for an ER physician at church and the girl I lit the candles for.  That kid would have been 40 today.