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THE MILTON C. GRIMES
TRIAL LAWYER’S COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP
SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT
Greetings and Salutations,
To the Board, Faculty and Staff of the Trial Lawyers College, the Great Milton Grimes, and the John M. Langston Bar Association, especially our current president Marie Maurice, please accept my most sincere Thank You and Appreciation for the opportunity to attend the 2018 Defense of the Damned course at the Thunderhead Ranch in Dubois, Wyoming. Those 8 days, all the skills, Psychodrama and the life long relationships created with people from places I hadn’t even thought about going, (I really have a connection in Maine now) was the greatest career and life enhancing experience I could have imagined at this point. Enhancing and improving are more accurate than changing as TLC has not changed my course but accelerated me and directed me on the path I had been wondering on for years, and it feels so good!
After multiple attempts, I never had the opportunity to participate in Trial Advocacy in Law School, nor work as a Deputy Public Defender in the 6 years I worked for the Los Angeles County Public Defenders Office. When I started my practice October 4, 2013, I did so with great passion and dedication but very little direction. Since then I have conducted 15 jury trials with clients not being convicted of anything in 9 of them, and clients convicted of the lessor included offense in 4 of them. That’s 15 Voir Dire’s and 15 trial preps, where
I never developed the story or had any real strategy for jury selection. I just did it. Never again will I just be doing it. I now have direction, strategy, and skill that I plan to improve upon (hopefully I can do the 3 week course soon.) The Voir Dire and Discovering the Story trainings are my greatest takeaways for the skill portion of DOD, but I would hardly call them my greatest takeaway.
The opening up of myself through Psychodrama is my greatest takeaway. So far in my practice I have only received from juries but gave them very little of my true self, except maybe in a couple closings, but definitely not in Voir Dire, opening, or examinations. But this expands beyond my practice and into my personal life. I was giving what I thought the world wanted more so than my true self. But in the few days I’ve been home, I’ve felt free and those in my life have noticed. For that, I am ever grateful and look forward to a continued relationship with TLC and definitely my fellow Warriors! Thank you!
Warmest Regards,
Jaaye Person-Lynn, Esq.