TELL ME A STORY By: Dillon Zinser Law Office of Joshua S. Reed
A PERSONAL CONNECTION I always wanted to be an attorney growing up, but I realize now that I had no idea of what being an attorney actually entailed. Prior to attending law school, I had an abstract idea of what the practice of law looked like. My view of being an attorney was shaped by what I heard from others, and what I had seen on television. The only thing I truly knew was that I wanted to help people and make the world a better place however I could. My biggest influence in deciding to attend law school was my grandparents: Fernando and Alicia Miranda. My grandparents were born in Cuba in 1912 and 1914. In Cuba, my grandmother was a prosecutor, whereas my grandfather worked in private practice. My grandparents came to the United States with my mom in 1962, following the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro’s rise to power. In coming to the United States, my grandparents gave up their legal careers and the lives they had built so that my mom (also named Alicia Miranda) would have a chance at a better life. Both my grandparents passed away when I was young, so they never got to see me become an attorney. There are so many questions I was never able to ask them about their legal careers or the practice of law. All the same, my grandparents inspired me to follow in their footsteps and taught me that the law was a means of helping others. When I first began classes at the University of Tennessee College of Law, I did not have any interest in criminal law. My initial plan was to be a civil attorney: doing corporate and transactional work. In my mind, criminal defendants were unsavory individuals that I would be best suited to stay away from. My perspective completely changed after taking classes with Professors Doug Blaze and Dwight Aarons. I understand now just how misguided my old perspective was. In law school, I was immediately drawn to criminal defense because of the opportunity it provided me to assist people in need. Specifically, I realized that criminal cases are not always cut-and-dry scenarios where one side is good, and the other side is bad. Rather, I realized that criminal cases often involve situations where good people make bad decisions. It only takes one mistake, one bad decision, for any of us to find ourselves entangled in the criminal justice system. In turn, those bad decisions may be based upon a momentary lapse of judgment, or a more prevailing issue in a defendant’s life: such as addiction, or mental illness. Upon graduating from law school, and becoming licensed in October of 2019, my mission was clear: I was going to be a criminal defense attorney. A particularly impactful moment in my young career occurred shortly after I began practice in the spring of 2020. The COVID Pandemic was still new, and things seemed to be getting worse by the day. At that time, I was practicing mostly in Blount County, and most of my clients were appointed criminal cases. While much of the workforce January 2022
was confined to their homes, criminal courts were still operating. Criminal defense attorneys were still going to court, and everyone in the court system was trying to adapt to the unprecedented challenges. Due to capacity restrictions, private criminal defense attorneys were unable to enter the Blount County Justice Center while court was in session. To address this dilemma, a system was put into place where— during court proceedings— the private attorneys would enter Blount County Jail and go to the jail intake. At the jail intake, there were rows of holding cells where the inmates whose cases were on the docket were kept. Additionally, there were two holding cells that were converted into Zoom rooms. In these Zoom rooms, there were laptops that would broadcast the defense attorneys and their clients to the courtroom. Through this system, the private defense attorneys would meet with their clients, discuss their cases, and subsequently address the court. My cell phone did not have reception at the jail intake, so plea negotiations would consist of me having to exit the jail, calling or texting the prosecutor, and then returning into the jail to meet with my client. When I was a law student, I never imagined the practice of law would look like this. All the private defense attorneys spent countless hours in the jail during that period, and I would often pass the time by talking with my clients. We would obviously talk about their cases, but the longer we were in the jail, the more often the conversations would turn to my client’s lives. They would tell me stories about their families, their children, their significant others. My clients would tell me about what they wanted to do with their lives, and what they planned on doing once they were released from custody. My clients would talk to me about personal subjects in detail: such as their battles with addiction, mental health, and traumas they had experienced. We also, of course, would spend much time talking about the COVID Pandemic. My clients had limited access to information inside of the jail, so they would often ask me about the latest news surrounding the spread of the virus. The time that I spent with my clients in the Blount County Jail during the early days of the COVID Pandemic taught me firsthand the extent to which society dehumanizes those involved in the criminal justice system. It is far too easy for us to forget that participants in the criminal justice system are real people: not simply figures defined by the accusations brought against them. Beyond criminal defense practice, attorneys in any field will benefit from connecting with their clients on a personal level. A personal connection with a client can be something as simple as talking to them about their day. We must never forget that behind every case is a person depending on us.
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