So You Want to Be a Prosecutor? The Good
I get asked, not infrequently, what it was like being a prosecutor. Typically, I’m asked by a fan of Law & Order or some other procedural legal drama. Fans of those shows can sometimes be beguiled into thinking that a love for an artist’s depiction of trial work gives them an inherent aptitude and passion for trial work. Maybe this is true. Maybe it’s not. The reality is that procedural legal dramas do not give the whole picture, but a somewhat distorted and myopic one. Most people are keenly aware of this, but this does not stop people from asking me, with bated breath, what it was like to be a deputy district attorney. Because those shows are so popular, they have lent to the profession a certain mystique, and everyone, deep down, wants the real thing to live up to the hype. In some ways it does I suppose. But, in many ways it does not. There are many positives to being a prosecutor. But there are also a multitude of negatives. Positives first.
Future Career Trajectory
Success as a prosecutor opens up a virtually endless horizon of future career and business opportunities. A successful (honestly even a middling) prosecutorial career can be leveraged into a judgeship, future political office, or a highly lucrative career as a defense attorney.
Additionally, because you get such extensive trial experience as a deputy district attorney you can easily get employment in the litigation department of virtually any private law firm assuming a sterling conviction record. Lawyers who go to work at a private law firm straight out of law school may not see a jury trial for years, perhaps even decades. As a prosecutor, you’re in trial almost nonstop from day one. Consequently, you learn a lot and you learn it very quickly. The truth is you have to. You’re thrust into trials early and often and you pick up certain skills and tricks of the trade that are unavailable to the uninitiated. Trial skills cannot be learned academically. They’re learned in a courtroom, in front of a judge and a jury, within the beating heart of a judicial system that sincerely believes that truth is best distilled within the crucible of zealous advocacy that is adversarial at best, hostile and nasty at worst. The antagonism intrinsic to such a system is a splash of cold water in the face of any who come into the endeavor expecting genteel disagreement.
And the intensity of this adversarial system cannot be replicated when the stakes are artificial. No amount of mock trial experience ever prepares a person for the real thing. The only way to gain real world trial experience is to do it with live ammunition. Trial attorneys know this all too well. The supervisors in prosecutorial offices do as well. This is why they throw baby DA’s into the deep end of the pool on their first day. This may sound harsh, even negligent, but this is the only way to do it and eventually the real world trial experience you gain during your tenure as a prosecutor puts you in good stead for whatever you want to do next.
No Existential Angst
I have had many jobs in my life that I considered meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I once worked at Subway as a sandwich artist. Trying to find greater purpose in that job was nigh impossible. I worked for a week as a machinist at a sheet metal fabrication company. My job consisted of me putting a piece of sheet metal onto a machine, locking it in place so that it was square with the bottom edge, and then pushing a button. I then took the newly hole punched piece of sheet metal and put the finished product onto a pile. Rinse and repeat. I did that for eight mind numbing hours. Every single day. For a week. I worked with five other men with nine and a half fingers total. I used to wonder how they could be so careless. At the end of the week, I no longer wondered that. Do that job for eight hours and you quickly realize that your brain stops functioning properly. You start resting your hand and putting your fingers any old place. With menial jobs I used to have a hard time sleeping at night. The existential angst was difficult to sleep with.
As a prosecutor, you never really question your place in life. You never really wonder whether or not you’re making any sort of difference. You are. You see it almost every day. There are poignant moments when you genuinely believe that you are playing an integral part in justice being done. Moreover, knowing that you’re working for the public’s safety gives you a warm feeling that makes the hard days a little bit easier.
There’s a quote I love from The Practice. Richard Bay and Helen Gamble – both prosecutors – are having dinner after one of those days as assistant district attorneys when nothing seemed to go right, when justice seemed so unbearably elusive. Helen Gamble begs Richard Bay to give her the speech. He reluctantly does and he says this, “There are heroes in this world. They're called district attorneys. They don't get to have clients – people who smile at them at the end of the trial; who look them in the eye and say, ‘Thank you.’ Nobody's there to appreciate the district attorney because we work for the state. And our gratitude comes only from knowing there's a tide out there. A tide the size of a tsunami coming out of a bottomless cesspool. A tide called crime which if left unchecked will rob every American of his freedom. A tide which strips individuals of the privilege of being able to walk down a dark street or to take $20 out of an ATM machine without fear of being mugged. All Congress does is talk. It's the district attorney who grabs his sword, who digs into the trenches and fights the fight; who dogs justice day after day after day without thanks; without so much as a simple pat on the back. But we do it. We do it. We do it because we are the crusaders. The last frontier of American justice. Knowing that if a man cannot feel safe, he can never, never, feel free."
Admittedly, this is a bit much, but some version of this runs through your head on a daily basis as a prosecutor. There are bad days sure, but never wasted ones.
Power and Perks
The District Attorney for whom I worked used to remind us that prosecutors wield an enormous amount of power and that such power must be used wisely and judiciously. He would remind us that with one stroke of the pen, we change lives. One signature on a criminal complaint alters forever the trajectory of not only the defendant’s life, but that of his family and that of the victim and his or her family.
The power of a deputy district attorney manifested itself in a myriad of other ways as well. With one phone call, with one flash of my badge to anyone in virtually any organization or establishment comes with it almost instantaneous cooperation. The hoops people are willing to jump through because of the mystique of the badge and the profession is quite something to behold. I once got a great deal on the purchase of a new car because the salesman knew I was a prosecutor. One prosecutor I knew got a great deal on a vacation package because she kindly reminded the travel agent that it was illegal to advertise a particular vacation package with the only motivation being to get customers into the store for a bait and switch. She of course gave this legal advice by openly discussing her credentials. You can imagine the look on the face of that travel agent. She gave her a great deal at the slightest hint of indictment.
In addition to very real power, the perks of being a prosecutor are fabulous. As a prosecutor, your closest friends are police officers. That, in and of itself, produces more benefits than one would initially expect. You want to get a card to carry a concealed weapon. Just make a phone call. You want to fire some guns at the police shooting range for free. Text a friend. You want to go on a ride along on short notice. No problem. I had the privilege of attending a narcotics seminar specifically designed for police officers and I learned how to manufacture methamphetamine with a few common household items.
Moreover, prosecutors never get traffic tickets. I was pulled over once for doing 65 in a 35-mph zone. The police officer who stopped me recognized me from court and was almost immediately apologetic for having stopped me in the first place. As a prosecutor, I had my license plate number blocked for safety reasons, so that even if the police officer hadn’t immediately recognized me, he would have had he run my plates.
Camaraderie
The esprit de corps of a prosecutorial office generated by a common goal important to everyone really is second to none. The petty jealousies and the office rivalries become trivial and insignificant when the stakes are as high as they are. Nobody wants to see a prosecutor lose a case. That just jeopardizes public safety and career competition takes a back seat to a greater cause. When a prosecutor is in trouble or needs help on a case they are trying, it is all hands on deck. Everyone comes out of the woodwork to help, and everyone pulls on the same side of the rope because nobody wants to see a guilty defendant set free.
Additionally, when a prosecutor is in trial nobody bothers them with anything that cannot absolutely wait. Everyone volunteers to cover their cases while they are in trial. Clerks avoid them unless absolutely necessary. Supervisors steer clear and keep all of the nonessential tasks off of their desk. A prosecutor in trial is treated like a starting pitcher in the dugout on the verge of throwing a perfect game. Nobody goes near them. Nobody talks to them. Nobody even dares to make eye contact. The moment they speak or request help, everyone jumps to do whatever is necessary. Trials are difficult and stressful, but having an entire office at your beck and call makes the experience significantly easier.
What is perhaps the greatest demonstration of camaraderie in the district attorney’s office, however, comes when the trial is over and the verdict is in. Win or lose, the outpouring of support is quite frankly unbelievable. Again, I believe this is a function of just how important the outcomes in these cases are and also, to a lesser degree, because everybody in the office knows how difficult trials can be.
When you win at trial you return to the office a conquering hero. You’re offered the freshest donuts and coffee in all the land. People genuflect when you pass. Supervisors and higher ups pat you on the back. Your victory is heralded throughout the office as though you had just accomplished the impossible.
When you lose at trial you return to an office in mourning. You’re treated as though your dog just died. Everyone is overwhelmingly supportive and kind and just about everyone in the office takes the loss as hard as you do. This genuinely makes you feel as though you’re in this thing together, united as one. Being a prosecutor can be a very lonely experience. When you’re in trial you sit at counsel table alone. You battle alone. You strategize alone. You stay up to all hours of the night alone. But when you lose you realize the office was there with you the entire time and you cannot get that level of loyalty and mutual affection in many other professions. Fox holes bond people together like nothing else.