Well, that was fast! Slightly less than 4 full weeks into law school, and I'm already making a court appearance! Today, as part of the Domestic Violence Action Center program I'm involved in, I went to Brooklyn Family Court with a law school friend. We spent early part of the morning introducing ourselves to people in the waiting area, offering our services as student advocates. After helping a couple people fill out their preliminary paperwork, we found somebody that we might be able to help. She was a lovely elderly woman who wanted custody of her grandson and an order of protection against the mother of her grandson after her son passed away, and the mother of his child became abusive of the grandmother. We sat down with the grandmother, interviewed her about the incidents that led her to court today, and wrote an official petition to the court for an order of protection. After submitting the petition, we waited to be called by the judge. Once called, we stood in the courtroom, and took questions from the judge. After the questioning, the judge ACTUALLY GRANTED EVERYTHING WE REQUESTED! You read that right: our petition and oral presentation went well enough to convince a judge not only to grant a temporary order of protection to our client, but to grant custody of a 6 month old infant to an 81 year old woman!
Anyway, back to my regular life of classes and the like tomorrow, but for tonight, I'm savoring my victory.
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