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"I've been working in the Court House..."
Mar. 13th, 2001 05:42 pmBack to work today, after a four day weekend. Wah. This whole part-time thing is something I could get used to - excapt for the reduced wages, of course. Not the best day in court today. It seems like Murphy was well and truly with us; we had a civil contest (what an oxymoron that is!) which was part heard before Mr O'Day and which had to get on. Only we had the Children's Court list to get through first: twenty-four cases, expect maybe half to three-quarters to show. Easy.
Famous last words.
Just about all of the little buggers turned up. And wanted to plead guilty. And wanted to see the duty solicitor, who was Dusan Jovetic today. Lovely bloke, very thorough. Too thorough. We got to 11 am and he'd only seen three of the ten or so wanting to see him. And Mr O'Day is a wonderful magistrate - he was the first magistrate I ever clerked for, in Heidelberg - but he is also very thorough. Baaaad combination.
By 11.30 we'd polished off half of Greg Duncan's matters (the hardest working solicitor in town!), and the odds and ends, and had only Dusan's stuff, and two custody matters to go. Unfortuately, that grew to three custody matters by lunchtime. I'm sitting there willing time to stop, or the solicitors to hurry up. No such luck. I finally called the contest at 12.45, hoping to get a start before lunch at one, only to have Peter tell me he's told them to come back at two. Arrgghh!
So it's been a very long, very frustrating day. Still, once we did finally get the contest on (and we've cleared half of the list for tomorrow to make way for the conclusion of it), I got some work done, adding charges to the police-ramming case (a couple from NSW did a runner in a stolen car last week and rammed the police divisional van (divvy van) in an effort to escape. 61 charges in all for the bloke driving. Although the six charges of failing to drive on the left hand side of the dividing line could be considered petty, especially after the dangerous driving and conduct endangering life charges at the start. That one's back on tomorrow - it'll be interesting to hear the summary of the caase.
And I got a chance to do a bit of writing, although I had to bury the bit of paper under a pile of files when Peter came in to talk to me. A birthday fic for Yasmin - I think she'll like it, if I get it finished this week. ;) No, I'm not telling. So there. ;P
Gee I'm tired now. God knows what I'll be like next week, when I go back to full time while Peter's away for four weeks. Esepcially with the spectre of Maurice Gurvich on the horizon - the most disliked magistrate in the state. He's rude, he's sexist and he's arrogant; the last time I clerked for him was two years ago in Preston, and I'm hoping I can keep my temper enough to not tell him to shove his attitude where the sun doesn't shine. He seems to delight in putting down his female clerks - I remember he made Jacinta cry in Preston, calling her an idiot in front of the whole court. Bastard. Well, if I can deal with defendants threatening me with physical violence, I can tell with a petty-minded prick like Gurvich.
Oh yeah, big "DUH" to me. Seems that Indipen thing is a spam scam. Oh well, you can't win them all... I'll stick to my research and to asking Sean when I'm ready to start sending stuff off - it's handy knowing a real-life sci-fi author, even if he is Sean McMullen. *giggle* I still have gigglefits reading his biographies in the short-story collections and his books. "Winner of several karate tournaments..." Well, if you count the old club-only kata comps, then yeah, I guess you could say that. ;)
Famous last words.
Just about all of the little buggers turned up. And wanted to plead guilty. And wanted to see the duty solicitor, who was Dusan Jovetic today. Lovely bloke, very thorough. Too thorough. We got to 11 am and he'd only seen three of the ten or so wanting to see him. And Mr O'Day is a wonderful magistrate - he was the first magistrate I ever clerked for, in Heidelberg - but he is also very thorough. Baaaad combination.
By 11.30 we'd polished off half of Greg Duncan's matters (the hardest working solicitor in town!), and the odds and ends, and had only Dusan's stuff, and two custody matters to go. Unfortuately, that grew to three custody matters by lunchtime. I'm sitting there willing time to stop, or the solicitors to hurry up. No such luck. I finally called the contest at 12.45, hoping to get a start before lunch at one, only to have Peter tell me he's told them to come back at two. Arrgghh!
So it's been a very long, very frustrating day. Still, once we did finally get the contest on (and we've cleared half of the list for tomorrow to make way for the conclusion of it), I got some work done, adding charges to the police-ramming case (a couple from NSW did a runner in a stolen car last week and rammed the police divisional van (divvy van) in an effort to escape. 61 charges in all for the bloke driving. Although the six charges of failing to drive on the left hand side of the dividing line could be considered petty, especially after the dangerous driving and conduct endangering life charges at the start. That one's back on tomorrow - it'll be interesting to hear the summary of the caase.
And I got a chance to do a bit of writing, although I had to bury the bit of paper under a pile of files when Peter came in to talk to me. A birthday fic for Yasmin - I think she'll like it, if I get it finished this week. ;) No, I'm not telling. So there. ;P
Gee I'm tired now. God knows what I'll be like next week, when I go back to full time while Peter's away for four weeks. Esepcially with the spectre of Maurice Gurvich on the horizon - the most disliked magistrate in the state. He's rude, he's sexist and he's arrogant; the last time I clerked for him was two years ago in Preston, and I'm hoping I can keep my temper enough to not tell him to shove his attitude where the sun doesn't shine. He seems to delight in putting down his female clerks - I remember he made Jacinta cry in Preston, calling her an idiot in front of the whole court. Bastard. Well, if I can deal with defendants threatening me with physical violence, I can tell with a petty-minded prick like Gurvich.
Oh yeah, big "DUH" to me. Seems that Indipen thing is a spam scam. Oh well, you can't win them all... I'll stick to my research and to asking Sean when I'm ready to start sending stuff off - it's handy knowing a real-life sci-fi author, even if he is Sean McMullen. *giggle* I still have gigglefits reading his biographies in the short-story collections and his books. "Winner of several karate tournaments..." Well, if you count the old club-only kata comps, then yeah, I guess you could say that. ;)
