Freshly minted from university ... Associateship beckons ... Interim job bailing water out of the leaky parole boat ... Delays and judicial reviews ... Barely Legal finds out about stuff never taught at university
If the first six months of life after university have flown by, I must have been having fun, surely?
The English language is replete with descriptors, so there must be a better word I can use to describe how I feel.
Context: I graduated in December 2020, 10 letters more qualified and two degrees [LLB (Hons), BSc] warmer. I gleefully tossed my mortarboard at my COVID-safe ceremony and grinned in photos behind a bunch of flowers the size of a toddler.
Having secured an Associateship over a year prior, due to commence a leisurely seven months after graduating in July 2021, my situation was looking comfy.
A number of people (including my own mother) advised me to make the most of this not-quite-gap-year and relax. "Don't rush into work, you'll be doing it until the day you die," they warned.
Enter stage left - Type A brain: There's no more faith in thee to take advice to rest than recommendations from a stewed prune.
After a month-long stint in Darwin interning at a community legal organisation, I found myself taking on a paralegal role in the organisation at the centre of a small crisis in Queensland: the Parole Board.
In Queensland, the board has either 120 or 150 days to make a decision on a new application. There is no specified timeframe for deciding on suspensions.
As at March 24, 2021, there were an estimated 2,100 undecided new parole applications. That excludes deferred or preliminary refused applications, and suspensions.
From the inside, it's been likened to bailing water out of a leaky boat - except more holes keep appearing and we're not getting more buckets or manpower anytime soon.
The delay problem is another story, plenty has been written about it and I'm not here to wax lyrical about human rights or what needs to be done to fix it.
What I can say is that this graduate is not lacking in "real world" experience or hands-on time.
With all these delays, judicial review applications for "failure to decide" are flying left, right and centre, followed by multiple emails with the subject line: "MATTERS FOR URGENT SCHEDULING".
(Food for thought: if everything is urgent, does that make nothing urgent?)
Arrive to work, prepare for court, go to court, back to work, see what's listed for tomorrow, repeat. Emails, spreadsheets, EMAILS. This never came up in an exam question.
I've also learnt that not all judges are created equal. There are some that you'd rather have on the applications list that week, and some you'd rather not.
One judge, who will remain unnamed, has taken particular umbrage at the delay situation.
HH chided the board for "playing coy" by granting parole "subject to" when a prisoner deserved to be released, but may not have had post-release accommodation approved just yet (a common issue).
My administrative law course didn't prepare me for judicial review applications run by self-represented prisoners (or in some cases, ex-prisoners who now masquerade as lawyers), nor did civil procedure teach me about the vicissitudes of the judiciary.
Being a temporary role, my training was learn-as-you-go and the issues we deal with aren't exactly warm and fuzzy. It's kiddy-fiddlers, DV and drug traffickers galore. I did, however, receive vicarious trauma training within a week of starting, so rest assured the PBQ is not careless.
But I knew that's exactly how it would be and my brain thrives off sticky problems and a go-go-go schedule.
The hard work and confronting matters are also coupled with a warm camaraderie amongst the legal unit and beyond.
There's a morbid humour in the discovery that most offenders visually match the type of crime they committed, and preparing for and sitting in on a "No Body, No Parole" hearing trumps any true crime podcast. See here for the latest "no body" parole application.
I've also observed many a Good and Honest lawyer and barrister, working tirelessly despite the manifest lack of glamour in these matters. I hope to be as generous with my time and attention as they are, as I grow into the profession.
It's also all a bit terrifying, standing at square one and wondering how I'll get there (wherever "there" is, for me).
I'm glad that I'll have a judge's hand to hold for the next year and a half.