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Michael Reyes was interested in law. So as a high school student, he shadowed lawyers to find out more about the field. Now, Reyes allows interested students to shadow him during a day on the job. Reyes is a clerk for a judge in a New York State appellate court, called the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
As a law clerk, he writes opinions for the judge. When a case is initially brought to court, lawyers prepare arguments and present their evidence, kind of like what we see on TV court dramas. Sometimes, one judge hears the case. Sometimes, judges discuss the case and make the final decision together. When a decision is reached, judges release their opinions, which are written statements about the case.
When a case is initially brought to court, lawyers prepare arguments and present their evidence during trial, kind of like what we see on TV court dramas. At the trial level, only one judge will preside over a case. It is the judge’s job to decide legal and evidentiary questions.
The jury, on the other hand, decides factual questions. The party that loses the trial may appeal the judge’s decision to an appellate court, the type of court where Reyes works.
At the appellate level, a case is heard by at least three judges, depending on the court. Before deciding the outcome of a case, appellate judges will review the record of what happened, as well as written arguments submitted by the lawyers. In addition, appellate judges hold oral arguments during which lawyers are given several minutes to convince the judges. After oral arguments, appellate judges meet together to decide the outcome of all the cases they heard during the day.
Each judge is assigned a certain number of opinions that he or she must write. Some of the opinions are lengthy because they require a lot of analysis of previous cases. In such cases and in other situations, the judge will write the opinion, often with the assistance of the law clerk. Other opinions are brief because they involve the straight-forward application of well-settled law to undisputed facts. In such cases and other situations, the clerk will write the opinion, which is called a memorandum opinion. In both cases, however, a majority of judges must agree for it to be the controlling law. If one judge does not agree, he or she will write a dissenting opinion.
When researching the field of law as a high school student, Reyes saw that most who entered law school earned undergraduate degrees in political science. So Reyes, too, graduated with a political science degree from Hunter College (http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/) in 1996.
“Once I got into law school, I realized it doesn’t really matter what major you are as long as it gives you a good background for understanding complicated things,” he says.
In 1999, Reyes graduated from Columbia University’s law school. Now, he works in the appellate litigation branch of law. “There are different kinds of lawyers,” Reyes says. “A lot of people with a law degree go into corporate work.
The other big division in law is litigation.” Litigators are the people who work for the government, in courtrooms or in politics. Even within the litigation branch, there are divisions. Trial litigators are those lawyers we often see on TV, spending their days in court. On the other hand, appellate litigators, Reyes says, “mostly just sit in front of the computer all day, writing. There’s no going to court and arguing.”
Those who work for law firms and corporate legal departments go to court and file motions during oral arguments. But it’s at the appellate level where more contemplative law is practiced, Reyes says.
Courtrooms are full of cutting questions and eloquent arguments. At the appellate level, “people can look at it without the emotional attachment, in retrospective mode. That makes it easier to decide, when you’re not making on-the-spot decisions.”
Reyes did internships as a college student—with the U.S. Department of Education, with the Bronx Supreme Court, shadowing those lawyers who aspired him to go to law school. He recommends that you do the same.
“People in high school should meet with professionals and they can serve as aspirations for their goals,” he says. “It definitely gives people an idea what they could be doing when they reach that age.”
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