Law Life: A job this lawyer doesn't want to lose

By Craig Napier The Daily Record Newswire As a public defender, I don't tend to worry about getting fired from a case, as getting fired generally means someone has come up with enough money to hire a private attorney. Even the cases that looked interesting or desirable professionally that have found their way off my docket are not heartbreakers or anything to which I give a second thought. They are closed files. And in my world that is a positive thing. The job I won't -- and don't -- want to be fired from is coaching pre-K soccer at the Y. Coaching pre-K soccer is kind of like herding cats -- cat with soccer balls and shin guards. It is recreational soccer. Our coaches' meeting reminded me that we do not live in a recreational world, but 4- and 5-year-olds should always live in a recreational world. Criminal defense attorneys do not normally enjoy anything recreational in their jobs. There are various mottos and slogans in the literature and rules that Y coaches get on coaches' night, and, while I believe in them wholeheartedly for the pre-K set, they are not reality. Really, many of the ways we deal with our children are contrary to our dog-eat-dog capitalistic world. It's tough. I'm not saying I want to throw my 5 year-old into the fray with high-pressure soccer. I'm just saying the message is mixed. Maybe when they're in adolescence we throw kids to the wolves, so to speak, with competition, and they figure out by survival of the fittest who is dominant in sports, smarts and society. Of course I am using the conventional meaning of the phrase "survival of the fittest." It's funny, though, because as I serve as a public defender, my pay is not predicated on the number of cases I maintain or win. It is predicated on my seniority and the availability of funding. In my job competing for more cases is simply a non sequitur. Cases come and they go, just like goals in a pre-K soccer game. Much like a 5-year-old is elated by scoring a goal, I get invested in each case and suffer a pang of remorse when it goes away. As a private lawyer, the pang of remorse has an emotional component and a financial one, too, and that makes losing a case different from when there are another hundred or so waiting to fill its place. This is the rub found in our recreational soccer ethos. Life should be about playing the game (read "doing your job") in a way that leaves it out on the field just like recreational pre-K soccer. I guess it's completely naive, but if we all pursued our endeavors with the zeal and commitment of a 4- or 5-year-old, then we would definitely be more successful and have a better chance at enjoying the process. Some would say this is contrary to our capitalistic system in some ways, others would say its hippy crap, and still more would indicate that this is the fundamental problem with government services across the board. In the end, I think this Darwinian reality is something I find beneficial in my job, and I hope that those I work with see that I undertake my obligations with the same zeal I spoke of earlier. I hope it's the same zeal, but perhaps with a different method of delivery than a 5-year-old soccer player's. Games appear to be a sweaty mob of children chasing a little ball around the field with a big sweaty dad or mom out there trying to make sure they don't kill each other. I'm sure I have days that feel like a sweaty mob of children chasing a little ball. But in the end it's the joy of filling the net that makes it all worth it in the end. Just like it does for the kids. Craig Napier is an attorney in the Kirksville office of the Missouri State Public Defender System. He can be reached at ncnapier@gmail.com. Published: Wed, Apr 6, 2011