Today is my 5 year PDversary. I may be in a big city now, but my love of PD work was born in some of the smallest courthouses in the country. I'm passionate about the need to improve rural PDs and after @fodderyfodder thread, I wanted to share some of my experiences.

I never intended on being a litigator. When I started law school I still had 1.5" gauges and a nonzero number of facial piercings. But the chance to intern at the Hopi PD office changed my life. I fell in love with the work about 15 minutes into the first day.

I spent the summer living on the rez, learning about the community I advocated for, and tried to help people when there where no resources. At the time I was there we had one prosecutor and one PD. Many of our clients were jailed 9 hours away. Conflict counsel was 2 hours away.

No investigators, no social workers, no real drug/alcohol treatment, minimal mental health support. I learned how to be creative. How to be outside a community and advocate for it without paternalism. How to be an accomplice rather than an ally.

I was blessed to have multiple professors who encouraged, supported, and mentored my goals. I got surgery to close my ears and took piercings out. I graduated and through @Gideons_Promise I took job in a small North Carolina town that had a large American Indian population.

I was just starting to come to grips with my gender identity and expression. Outside of my summer on the rez I'd never lived in a small town but I knew enough to know I need to put myself back in the closet. For my safety and in the interests of my clients.

Both in and out of court it was a giant culture shock. Clients were regularly manipulated into waiving their right to counsel or were never offered counsel. Judges openly threatened people with prison rape. Police routinely ignored subpoenas with full support of the court.

Outside of court, I faced verbal and physical assault for my appearance. This was NC under HB2. I was forcefully removed from a bathroom at a store. Police were called. I was too terrified to stand up for myself in fear it could out me at work. I still wrestle with the shame.

There was one gaming store in town. I brought in my pathfinder character for a pick up game. I ended up not being allowed back because of an argument where the GM refused to recognize my character as male. I had zero social outlet and no friends closer than 3 hours away.

Notes were left on my door telling me I to find Jesus. I was called slurs in court. Dating was unsafe and out of the picture. I couldn't do anything because it could out me. When given the choice between personal happiness and my work, I chose the work. I put my clients first.

It is hard enough to do this work when you have a great support network. It is even harder when you have to spend every waking moment pretending to not be yourself.

I started riding the circuit to the "outlying courts." Small rooms general attached to a police station in even smaller towns. Each town once a week. Basically a collection of folding chairs and some desks. Nothing is recorded. Warrants are issued without written probable cause.

I shadowed another attorney for a week and then I was out on my own. A baby PD with no one to ask advice. My cell didnt even work in a few of these places. Literally everything was a trial by fire. All I knew was how deeply I cared for my clients. How much they needed me.

Although many of my colleagues came around, the first year was incredibly isolating. I had job applications for other positions left on my desk. I was mocked for caring. Asked constantly why I was even there. Weird questions about being Jewish (again, the only one).

I'd go into court and have judges do whatever they felt like. I tried to invoke the rule on witnesses, to have a witness not in the room when another one was testifying, only for the judge to refuse, convict my client, then tell him to appeal bc he wasnt sure about his verdict.

When I complained to a colleague he said the judge was messing with me because I was new. My colleague did see why that would be a problem.

As hard as it was, I am still beyond proud of the work I did there. Two unconstitutional statutes overturned, a debtor prison stopped, no children handcuffed in court. But I am not some legal genius who was super innovative.

Because almost no one there was actually trying, in many ways it was easy to push the envelope. I had a judge tell me in 20 years I was the first attorney to file a bill of particulars in district court. Just asking the prosecutors to do the bare minimum was teansformatory.

PD offices are changing for the better. The training is better than ever. The talent the field is attracting is better than ever. But so little of it is going to rural offices. Offices where you cant commute from the nearby major city. Offices that dont get press attention.

Offices that civil rights groups overlook for impact litigation. Offices where big city reforms from decades ago have yet to trickle down. Offices where there is the most work to be done.

I eventually left the small town. I just couldn't live in the closet anymore. Leaving PD work was never an option. But I refuse to leave the needs of rural areas behind. I was able to train a few PDs before I moved on and there are no words for how proud they make me.

When I see the work they do, it makes me think about how much more I could have done if I didn't live in constant fear because of my gender identity. How much harder I could have gone after the cops. How many times I pulled back bc if something happened to me there was no one.

There are a lot of stories I want to tell, but even years later it still doesn't feel safe to do so. The people involved are still working and still powerful.

To all the law students considering PD work, please go to these small towns that aren't on maps.

They won't be at your recruitment fairs. You'll need to look for them. But the impact you will have there will be so much greater. The people there will need you so much more. The big city offices will be there down the road. Go where you are needed most.

Knowing how much I suffered, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. The work is too important. The love of the people I was privileged to represent has and will always sustain me.

Here's to the next five years. And the five after that. And so on until everyone is free.