Call of the Criminal Law

When I first came to Brooklyn, the idea of working as a criminal lawyer a la The Practice fit somewhere near tax and insurance law in the heirarchy of what I might be interested in. Man, it's sure starting to look cool.

Yesterday, I went to a short seminar on the role of the media in high-profile criminal cases. It was put together by Brooklyn faculty member and alum Gerald Shargel, who has made a career out of taking high profile cases and now in his spare time teaches criminal procedure and evidence as an adjunct. His panel guests included ABC's Cynthia McFadden; Greg Smith, a cool, gruff, James Elroyesque reporter for the NY Daily News; and, to make me feel old and unaccomplished, Patrick O’Gilfoil Healy, a New York Times reporter who is, wait for it, only 23 years old. Listening to these people describe the cases they've worked on and covered; what makes a case catch the public's imagination, the perils of a client who won't stop talking, the merits of television cameras in the court room. Well, it just sounded cool. And I'm not just saying that because "D.A." has a cool, Elliot Ness tough-guy kind of cachet to it.

Nah, that's it. "D.A." just sounds, really, really cool.