April, 2: 8 Hours

This was my first day in the court house, I met with my mother's friend Ruth, and was told that I would be following her around today. She is a defense attorney, who often spends entire days in the court house, both meeting with clients and scheduling trials. For this day I followed her around, being filled in on her cases and watching her in trials. For legal reasons, I wasn't able to  be told too much or do much hands on work, but the experience was still nice. I learned on this day, that even for lawyers in a trial, the majority of the time spent by anyone in a courtroom is spent waiting. 

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April, 4: 8 Hours

This was my second day in the San Francisco court house. I met with another lawyer today, a man by the name of Tony. Like Ruth, he was also a defense lawyer who spends most of his time in trails. Unlike with Ruth, I didn't end up following him around the whole day. He instead had me at one point had me sit in on a trail in a different courtroom, so that I could watch a famous lawyer in action (unfortunately said lawyer's name escapes me). Something that I frequently noticed this lawyer doing was making a special effort to relate/get on to the same level as the jury to make them more likely to agree with him. I found this interesting. 

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April, 7: 8 Hours

For my final day in the courthouse, I met with my mom's good friend Betsy. Who was apparently, more important than the past two lawyers I met with. While with her, I was able to meet with judges and district attorneys. Even with her, the majority of time spent in the courthouse was waiting. The most interesting thing she did, was to delay the pretrial for one of her cases by over a year. This was too allow her team more time to collect evidence and come up with arguments.