A Day in the Life of a Judicial Law Clerk

Welcome to an average day...

I come in and say hi to the secretary who usually sits here:

Then I go say hi to my boss who sits here:

And I pick up one of the files that is either sitting on his desk (see above) or is stacked on this shelf:

And then I usually go set up shop here:

This is one of the hearing rooms used by either of the two court commissioners. 

The rest of the room looks like this:

Generally, the court commissioner's schedules don't overlap, so I can stay in this room all day. However, on this day, I had to move to a jury room, which looks like this:

And on this day, I had the honor of working on this gigantic file:

Lucky me, right? This is one of the larger files I've worked so far.

A word of advice to any of my attorney friends who may read this- don't let a court file get this big! The judge's crabbiness tends to increase with the size of the file. This particular case is only at the summary judgment phase...imagine what it will look like if it goes to trial!

This brief in support of summary judgment is 42 pages long.

Not sure if the judge read it or not...but I did! 

Sometimes, I get to sit in on court proceedings...but I didn't have a chance on this particular day...too much reading!

No More!

No more mouse hair, that is! 

I showed a co-worker friend of mine the hair that came out of the little set of drawers I'm redoing and she was fairly certain it was mouse hair. I'm so glad I didn't think it was mouse hair when I first found it...I would have been even more grossed out. 

Yep...that's mouse hair I cleaned out of there. 

But before I could take on the eradication project, I wanted to finish sanding everything.

I told my Dad I was having a hard time getting the icky finish off and he suggested trying a different grit of sandpaper. It made ALL the difference. The finish came off so much easier and faster after I took his suggestion.Thanks, Dad!

On the left is a paper similar to what I used the first time I sanded...and on the right is the one I changed to. Big difference! 

I got to the bottom of the piece and had to deal with sanding around these little knobs. I thought that was relatively difficult.

But then I had to do the drawers...

 

...and they were WAY more difficult than those little knobs. 

But they ended up looking like this...

...so I guess it was worth the fight I had with them. I'm sure my neighbors were having a good laugh as I fought to keep the drawer upright while sanding it by holding it with my knees so I could use two hands on the sander. 

The corners were especially tricky, so I finally gave up and sanded them all down.

Maybe it'll help give the piece a little softer look? 

After I got everything sanded down, I sprayed all the pieces down with a hose and then scrubbed them out. I was determined that there be no more mouse hair! 

And I made sure to protect my hands this time around...

Then I let everything sit out in the sun for a while to dry out.

Yep, these are all the pieces soaking wet. 

Next up...staining the inside and painting the outside. Stay tuned!