New Baby Girl...

I just got a message from Jim and Ami.

Ami gave birth to a beautiful baby girl a couple of days ago. I am so happy! Seriously, there is nothing that can ruin my mood right now. I would post a picture, but I think that the parents should be the first to introduce the child into the interwebs.

Anyways, here are the happy details . Lucy Renée Heffron, born on January 30th, 2008 at 4:40pm PST. Weighing 8 lbs, 14 oz. and measuring 21 inches.

Welcome to the world Lucy! Congratulations again guys.

= )


-Updated to show correct weight and name. The excitement made me make typos.

Interesting Week ...

This week I got some bad news, which I won't go into. A job offer, which I will probably reject. An interview, for a job that I really, really want. Gave blood and a few hours later went drinking (not recommended). Got pulled over because there was a warrant for my arrest, the officer eventually realized that he made a mistake and let me go with his apologies (this was scary). Slept in when I wasn't supposed to. What a week!

Now it's Friday night and I am doing homework for my Saturday class. Tomorrow I got a busy day with class and my official training with the NLS.

Superbowl weekend and no plans (how lame is that). Hope next week proves to be interesting too.

Edwards ....

John Edwards dropped from the presidential race yesterday. I supported him for president because of his strong views on ending poverty. I could forgive the $500 haircuts. I still felt he was genuine. I was hoping that he would stick around for Super Tuesday and maybe a last minute nomination win at the convention.

Now that he is out of the race I have to decide between Clinton and Obama. Not really sure at this point. I feel that Hillary Clinton is too much of a polarizing figure, and that Barrack Obama does not have the experience to be president. I'll be playing close attention to the democratic debate tonight.

Now I gotta go give blood .... not kidding.

Legal observing ...

After being trained by the NLG over a year ago, I should be really embarrassed that I never participated as a legal observer. I finally did this last weekend.

As a legal observer, it's my job to monitor the police to ensure that they are not violating any constitutional rights and obtain evidence that might help protesters. A guide to being a legal observer can be found here.

I went to Anaheim to observe a community protest recent city development plans. Basically they want assurances that a recent land deal with include low-income housing, child-care facilities, and input from the community. About 150 people attended the march, and they made the local news.

There was only another NLG observer with me, an older attorney from Irvine. So my first observing experience was not usual. You can find pictures here.

As a side note, the Orange County Register I linked to above is filled with ignorant comments, bordering on racist. For example:

we want this new development to look nice and not ghetto. majority, but not all of low income families will turn this place into a dirty crime infested area.

Better yet ....

The laziest protest is right-these people are too lazy to use proper birth control.

Aarrggg.....

Much respect for community organizations that help low income families. Not so much for dumb ass people who don't understand the real causes of crime and poverty.

Volunteering ....

Since I am not really involved with too many on campus groups and have some free time, I decided that I need to volunteer more. I am not counting being a mentor to 1L's at school or a community mentor with the Puente Project since those don't really take more than a couple of hours per month.

I decided to volunteer a few hours per week at the Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County. This organization provides free legal clinics for individuals with wage claims or criminal record expungement request. Basically, I will do intake for individuals and advise them on how to legally move forward with their problems. This is of course all supervised by an attorney so that I don't give them bad advice. I get my training this weekend, but I was able to shadow another volunteer last Wednesday.

We only saw two people. The first one was a lady who from her account had been discriminated at her job because of her age. She works for the company that hires the people who do the free samples at stores like Costco (the sample people don't work for Costo, I did not know that). Basically, her blood pressure pills force her to go to the bathroom frequently, but she is not allowed to leave her sample table. After trying to explain that her medication was the problem she was suspended. The supervisors at this place were very rude and said horrible things which I will not repeat. Legally, there was not much that we could do for her. It was sad to tell her this. She did not want her job back, just somebody to tell her that she was right and force her boss to be nice. There are no laws for people being jerks. This was close to discrimination, but not quite. Also, we don't do discrimination suits so she would have to hire her own attorney at great cost.

The second guy that came to see us had several complains. Sexual harassment (from her lesbian boss, I am not making his up!), discrimination, IRS wage garnishing errors, wage claims dealing with lack of overtime, work off-clock, and incorrect wage calculations. He has a lawyer who is dealing with the sexual harassment and discriminations suits, but refused to take any of the wage claims. You will soon find out why.

He alleges that for a period of two years while he was working at this place the computer kept recording incorrect punch-in and punch-out times. He would come in at 4am but the computer would show 7am, he would leave at 9pm, and the computer would show 6pm. He was also living in an a room at the place he was working (yup, living at work, cough:might be illegal:: cough) and was often force to work when he was supposed to be resting "at home". He also claims that the company garnished his wages illegally, claiming it was for the IRS. Oh yeah, and all of this is from his memory and he has no record of his actual hours working. Figuring out how much money he is owed is going to be a logistical nightmare. He is coming back next wednesday with a calendar showing (from memory) how much he worked each day for the last two years and we are going to calculate how much money he is owed. This is going to be complicated, no wonder the other lawyer did not want to deal with it. This is case where are probably going to end up representing him.

At the end of the night, I also heard stories from the other volunteers and the people they saw. Including a family who works at a car wash who gets paid less than minimum wage, no over time, no worker's compensation (for job injuries), and forced to buy their own supplies (like Windex!). This made me sick. Makes me not want to ever take my car to a carwash. Apparently this happens frequently in this industry. If you use these places, give your washers a good tip, sometimes that is all they get.

People suck.