Monday, July 11, 2011

“A NEW DAY. A NEW DA.”

This is my first blog post as a Princeton AlumniCorps Project 55 Fellow. I just finished up my first week back in the office from a vacation to California. It was a much needed and long overdue trip home, but I’m glad to be back at work. I am excited to be a fellow for the upcoming year and to be living in the great city of Philadelphia once again.

Following a historic election last year, R. Seth Williams was inaugurated as the first new District Attorney of Philadelphia in nearly two decades. Under the newly implemented system of zone prosecution, I work in the Southwest Bureau, which deals with crimes committed in the southwest part of the City.

My work in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office involves mainly paralegal duties. I assist prosecutors in case preparation, communication with victims/witnesses, compilation of statistics, maintenance of records and files, document review, and production and coordination with outside agencies. I also represent the office in Municipal Court in a pre-trial diversion program called the Accelerated Misdemeanor Program (AMP). I find my job very interesting because I get to deal with a wide variety of criminal cases.

In between my daily duties, I try to get over to court as often as possible to watch our attorneys’ jury trials. This has been a great learning experience for me thus far as I get to witness firsthand our criminal justice system in action.

I look forward to detailing more about my adventures in Philadelphia as well as the great work our office is doing to protect the citizens of Philadelphia.

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