#008: Khalida Sims - Public Defender

This transcript was generated by AI.

Khalida Sims [00:00:00]:

Mind you, the people that write the law aren't usually under the control of that law, nor does it impact them in any way. So then us, as public defender, we see it in the rawest form and we then have a job to confront that. Like the law is meant to be the sword as well as the shield. And I think public defenders, we put up that shield more than anybody else because of the people that we represent.

Jonah Perlin [00:00:23]:

Welcome to How I Lawyer, a podcast where I talk to attorneys from throughout the profession about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it. Well, I'm your host, Jonah Perlin, a law professor in Washington, DC. Now, let's get started. Hello and welcome back. This marks one month since I started the How I Lawyer podcast. Honestly, I can't believe how much I've learned from this new creative project. And more than that, I've learned so much from the interviews, and I hope you have as well. If this is your first episode of How I Lawyer, welcome. I'm so glad to have you. And if you were one or several of the first 4000 listens of our prior episodes, well, welcome back and thanks for the continued support. Last week, I interviewed Serena Zita, a prosecutor in Baltimore County, Maryland. This week, we moved to the other side of the courtroom and hear from Cleveland based public defender Kalita Sims. What surprised me most about their respective stories is that while there are certainly differences from a prosecutor and a public defender and what they do and how they view the criminal justice system, their two career paths actually share a great deal. They both approach their legal career with a passion for public service and a fundamental belief that even though the criminal justice system is imperfect, justice can be done. Kalita is a federal public defender in the Northern District of Ohio. Before that, she worked for seven years as a public defender in the Cuyahoga County Public Defender's Office. She is a graduate of the Ohio State University Go Buckeyes and Wayne State University School of Law. Go, warriors. In our conversation, we talk about the roles of a public defender both inside and outside the courtroom. The importance of building rapport with clients, especially those who do not get to select their attorney and are currently in jail. The centrality of representing the person and not the conduct. How a trip to New Orleans soon after Hurricane Katrina changed Kalita's life and inspired her to become a lawyer, the ways to fight to change the law from within the law, and so much more. After a brief disclaimer, we started our conversation by discussing the role of the public defender in today's criminal justice system.

Khalida Sims [00:02:24]:

Here's Kalita. My name is Khalida Sims. The statements and opinions that I make today do not represent the opinions of the federal defender or Defender Services or the administrative office of the US. Courts. I just started at the Federal Public Defender's office, the Northern District of Ohio, about eleven days ago. Prior to that, I was with the Cuyahoga County Public Defender's Office for seven years and some change. So that has been my practice. I would say Annalise Keating, the later versions of how to get Away with murder when she was going to the Public Defender's office, that's essentially what I do. Everyone's entitled to an attorney. They can have an attorney of their choice. But kind of like what you hear in Law and Order SVU, if you can afford an attorney, one will be provided for you and paid for by the courts. So I'm that attorney, and my fellow public defenders, we fall into that category.

Jonah Perlin [00:03:16]:

By definition, then those are people who haven't selected you personally, right?

Khalida Sims [00:03:21]:

Right. I do not have the pleasure of selecting my clients. You're entitled to attorney from the time that you are arraigned, and that's where you enter a plea of not guilty. There have been charges that's been presented against you, and you have an attorney right next to you when you enter that plea of not guilty, and you get a bond.

Jonah Perlin [00:03:38]:

Right. So then after the plea of not guilty, the case really begins in earnest. What do you do to get started with that representation?

Khalida Sims [00:03:45]:

When I get that file, I try to figure out whether the client is in jail or out on bond. If they are in jail, I try to meet with them as soon as possible.

Jonah Perlin [00:03:54]:

And why is that?

Khalida Sims [00:03:55]:

I think it's important to establish rapport, because when you're charged with a crime, that's probably one of the worst moments of your life. So we're a team. I have my role in it, and you have your role in it. So I think it's important for you to get to know me and me to get to know you as soon as possible.

Jonah Perlin [00:04:14]:

And so the first time you're meeting that client, you're meeting them in jail. Can you talk a little bit about what it's like to go to jail and meet that client for the first time?

Khalida Sims [00:04:22]:

You'll never forget the smell of jail, the smell of a bunch of people being locked into a confined space for a long period of time. It's eye opening, but it gives you a level of empathy for the people that are there, and you're just wanting to help them in the best way that you can.

Jonah Perlin [00:04:39]:

And how do your new clients typically react when you meet them for the first time?

Khalida Sims [00:04:43]:

Just imagine if you were sitting in jail for three days. You haven't showered, you haven't washed your face, you haven't seen a mirror, and you're like, I have these charges. I don't know what's going on, whether I did it or not, at that point, it doesn't matter because you've been in jail, and that's an eye opening experience. It's traumatic. So I'm sure you want answers or want to be able to ask questions as soon as possible. So if my name doesn't say it, I'm a black woman. And the reason why I mentioned that is because I think your appearance does play a part in how people perceive you. And based on that, that's how they may come at you. So when you meet a person in jail, they could be disgruntled. They could be tired. They could be like, oh, goodness, I'm so excited to see you. Or they can be, why are you here? You public pretender, so sometimes you don't know what you are getting. And I think it is best to just remain professional. So this is what I have. This is who I am. This is what you're charged with. These are what the penalties are. What questions do you have at this point as a defense attorney? You look at the person first. You have to I think the government arguably has to look at the conduct first, right? Then they look at the person. Any and all information regarding their background. When someone's comfortable with me or knows that I'm on their side, I'm here to help them. They open up. They open up. And I said, who do you want me to talk to? Who don't you want me to talk to? So for me, getting basic information, going through the indictment, making sure they understand what they are charged with, not what happened, what they are charged with.

Jonah Perlin [00:06:25]:

And why is that distinction important?

Khalida Sims [00:06:27]:

As a lawyer, you provide the legal options. You navigate the legal system, right? And the client makes the decision of whether they want to go to trial or not, whether they would like to plea or not, and whether they would like to testify or not. Those are their rights, and that's something that I can't take away from them. So I try to establish what their rights are, what they can do, and then what I do. So then that way, they're like, well, you're going to do this and you're going to do that. No, we're going to make sure established roles really quick and fast. What I've learned with being a criminal defender attorney is you can't have any BS. You got to be upfront there's a rawness to criminal defense that's not meant for everybody. You're not representing the conduct. And I always get asked this, how can you represent someone who's guilty? Well, are only non guilty people allowed to have an attorney? No constitution says you're entitled to an attorney regardless of whether you're guilty or not.

Jonah Perlin [00:07:24]:

And early in the case, what are you looking for?

Khalida Sims [00:07:27]:

Do I have a suppression issue? Were they profiled in some way? Could they have gotten the wrong person? Did my client say something that he should not have said? One thing I do emphasize to my clients in abundance is your right to remain silent. They think like, well, if I talk, then I should be okay. No, that has not helped anyone, ever. By a final pretrial, I will know whether my client wants to move forward with a plea or with a trial. So to kind of answer your question, after the investigation is done and we go back to the client, we have to see what we have. I have had clients that have made statements and then later recanted. So I'm like, okay, well, this is the issue that we have. I don't know what the government may be offering in light of your voluntary statement outside of an attorney. Right.

Jonah Perlin [00:08:19]:

So it's a lot of issue spotting at that point.

Khalida Sims [00:08:20]:

It's issue spotting. And then I would say probably determining whether we go to trial or not really depends on sometimes what they're being offered. You know what I mean? And I think times when people are like, oh, well, they're going to trial, but they're guilty, or they admitted to this, well, it depends on what they were offered. For instance, I had a client that was charged with a second degree felony in the state of Ohio. You're looking two to eight years. Generally, he was offered the F two. So it would probably be in his best interest to try it and see what happens. Because if you lose, it's nothing different than what you were already offered. And then if you win, you're out. So I think sometimes that's where you see trial versus plea may come into play. I kind of describe it as like a mix of Monopoly and chess.

Jonah Perlin [00:09:11]:

Say more about that. Why mix of Monopoly and chess? I love that image. But tell me more about why you say that.

Khalida Sims [00:09:16]:

With Monopoly, you know what you have the money that you have, you know the money that you don't have. And you know, if you make this certain play, it's just like a circle where you land and landing. That can include what judge you have, that can what prosecutor you have. And that plays a huge part in trial as well as also with your plea and potential sentence. And I also see it kind of like as chess because you have a little bit more options.

Jonah Perlin [00:09:47]:

Can you talk about what it's like to go to trial, to prepare for trial?

Khalida Sims [00:09:50]:

Sure. Trial is nerve wracking. It's nerve wracking. You're not going to sleep, you're not going to eat, really, until it's done. So a little background about me. I was in musical theater for high school, and I studied music in college. My disconnect from Music into law came with Katrina, and we'll get into that later. But the reason why I bring that is because you're in front of an audience. And I think the reason why I like trial is because you're in front of an audience and you want people to like you. You want people to believe exactly what you are saying. And it can be nerve wracking because you have twelve to 14 because you have alternates looking at you, your every move, your every move. They're also looking at your client. And it's incredibly nerve wracking. And in trial, you never know what can happen. You could be prepared, but things can go awry. Things could just it's exciting and nerve wracking all at once.

Jonah Perlin [00:10:46]:

And when you're preparing for trial, are you the kind of person that scripts everything out, or are you more of the bullet points and go from your gut kind of lawyer?

Khalida Sims [00:10:55]:

It's a mix of both. So I will be practicing eight years in May, so I'm still relatively new, so I do write out my statements, my opening, and my questions. But I will leave room for bullet points because I sometimes don't know what a witness is going to say. You can prepare, but also leave room for edit. I think that's probably the best advice I can give for trial. Know your case, know exactly the points that you want to make, but leave room for what's going to happen at trial. Trial never goes as expected.

Jonah Perlin [00:11:31]:

It is not like on TV where the producers know exactly what's going to happen. I did mostly civil litigation when I was at a deposition, the best advice I ever got was, don't stop listening to the person you're questioning because you think you know the answers, because you've seen the discovery. But some of the most important moments are the answers you don't expect. And I assume it's the same thing at trial.

Khalida Sims [00:11:52]:

Oh, my gosh, that's so real, it's not even funny. Even with picking a jury, sometimes you will have jurors say something and you're like, I can't believe you just said that out loud, but that is real. I always compare picking a jury to a group blind date, and we're going to see if we're meant to be for a period of time, but it gets people laughing, gets people comfortable. But I think with trial, you learn so much about yourself. You learn how you respond when you get angry. You learn how you respond when things go your way, when the judge cuts you off or he sustains an objection that you know he or she should not have sustained. There's so many things you learn about yourself in trial.

Jonah Perlin [00:12:37]:

I want to ask about. Juries at their core are making decisions, but they're not lawyers, by and large. Right? And so how do you think about translating a story to non lawyers who need to make a legal determination?

Khalida Sims [00:12:54]:

Oh, that's a really good question. No one's ever asked me that. This is where I think you make your client, a person comes into play with that. So, yes, the law is meant to be the standard as it relates to conduct or punishment. I think there are some gray areas within that. I say that obviously as a defender attorney, but I think personalizing your client to a group of people as it relates to the law. I think is answering your question. Well, why did they put themselves in this situation? Well, we need to give you some background in terms of how they grew up or how they didn't grow up.

Jonah Perlin [00:13:32]:

But does that mean you're presenting things about the defendant that are not related to their conduct at trial?

Khalida Sims [00:13:37]:

A lot of things are related to the conduct, or the alleged conduct is a snapshot of their life. I always say that about domestic violence cases because there are so many things that led up to this point. It's not this alone. And I get the government and the state has an obligation. They were like, well, we can't address everything that's happened to them in the past. We're here because they violated X, Y, and Z. And I have total respect for that. But as a defense attorney, I have to give you a full picture of my client that brought us to this point.

Jonah Perlin [00:14:08]:

Got it. That makes a lot of sense. And one of the things as a law clerk that I saw a lot of was that the juries were not just focused on the defendant, but the jury spent a lot of time thinking, do I trust the lawyer? Do I trust the defense attorney? Do I trust the prosecutor? Is that something else that you think about when you're presenting a case?

Khalida Sims [00:14:27]:

Yes, definitely. And I think that's when you have to be transparent, I think you have to be likable. And I think rapport that you have with your client does show with the jury.

Jonah Perlin [00:14:37]:

I want to switch gears and talk a little bit about your path. So you talked about your musical theater background, but what made you decide to become a lawyer in the first place? And if you could just tell me a little bit about that story, certainly.

Khalida Sims [00:14:48]:

What made me become a lawyer. It actually came to me. I feel I went to Artermine College for two years on a scholarship for music, and I liked it, but I started to not like it as much. Like, my passion was starting to dwindle, and I think that reflected in my performance. I was just kind of like, okay, I'm just here. And one day I was crossing the street, and one of my friends was like, oh, come to this meeting with, you know, happened, and there's a meeting to help people there. And I'm like, all right, sure. So I went to the meeting, and they were talking about going down to New Orleans and helping people gut houses, working with Habitat for Humanity, and helping the residents in need. So I was very vocal in the meeting, and I'm like, we could do this, we could do that. And I arranged for us to get a chartered bus versus driving down a bunch of vehicles. I was like, that's a liability. And again, it was all lining up, and I just did not know. So we go down, we stay in the 9th Ward, which was the hardest place where the hurricane hit. It was also the poorest area. And we stayed in a vacant church. The roof was missing. And then CNN came down and they were interviewing people, and we talked about our experiences. But one thing that I had mentioned was you saw the Red Cross. The Red Cross was at Bourbon Street. They weren't in the area for the people that needed the most help. And every house that we helped rehab had an X on it. The X was certain parts filled in the X that would be the number of bodies that were found, whether it was cleaned or not, whether there were other indications of that. So Rare Cross wasn't in any of those areas where we saw X's on the buildings. So I'm just kind of like, well, hold on a second. Red Crosses were requesting all this money from everyone, and I don't see them in this area. That's a problem. So that, coupled with how I saw people were being treated in the area, it blew my mind that this was one the United States. And it blew my mind that even with us going down to help people, we weren't even well received because we were supposedly taking money away from residents that were going to gut houses at a cost. And we're like, well, we're doing it for free. And they're like, no, you shouldn't be here. That house has this type of gold and you're going to die. So with my experience, it really woke me up to how the world works to some degree. And I was just like, how do I change this? How do I make this better? So I called my mom and I said, Mom, I'm not coming back. I'm going to live here in New Orleans, and I'm going to help these people and help these injustices. So my mother is black, and she said everything that a black mother similar to probably other mothers, like, no, you better bring yourself back to Cleveland, and then why don't you become a lawyer? And I said, lawyers represent guilty people. Like, I'm not trying to do any of that. And she was like, no, fool. Just look into it. And I did. So I took the LSAT, got a good enough score to get into law school, and then it was just history.

Jonah Perlin [00:18:13]:

And can you talk a little bit about what you did during law school to sort of prepare yourself to become a public defender?

Khalida Sims [00:18:19]:

Certainly. Well, I'll say this. When I went to law school, I had no desire to become a public defender. I feel like my life is full of, no, I'm never going to do that, and I end up doing it.

Jonah Perlin [00:18:29]:

At the time you were in law school that you said, I don't want to be a public defender. Why was that?

Khalida Sims [00:18:33]:

Well, I had the very skewed, limited assumption that public defenders were bad lawyers. And I'm just being honest, that was something that is a stereotype, and I fell into that. I went to law school at Wayne State University in Detroit, and I worked for the Wayne County Prosecutor's office for a while. I did some tort law a little bit. I worked with the disability law clinic, so I got a little bit of everything. But when I went to the prosecutor's office, I was like, oh, this is my calling, this is my calling. I am here to pursue justice. And this is how, you know, God is funny, because I applied to the prosecutor's office here in Cuyahoga County and got rejected. Well, all right, great. And I'm like, well, let me just do private practice for a little bit. Private practice is hard. I have so much respect for sole practitioners, but I also have all this debt from law school. I need something my dad, I think, had mentioned. What about the public defender's office? And I'm like, Nah, I don't know any public defenders. I haven't seen public defenders like, whatever. And he just said, Just try, just check it out. I think you'll get the training that you need that's paid for and see if you like it. Just see. So I applied, didn't hear anything. I'm like, great, I got rejected from the public defender's office. Maybe this just isn't meant for me. And I was working in insurance at the time, and I got a call during my lunch break from the chief public defender saying, hey, we got your resume. Can you meet now? Well, hold on, because I'm at work right now. And they were like, okay, but just like, if you can meet at four today, I'm like, oh my God, this insurance company going to fire me. And so I spoke with my supervisor. I told him the situation, he was like, Go, go. Went down. It was a very interesting interview. They asked a lot of questions regarding my social beliefs and kind of ideology, because that is a huge part of being a public defender. It is so unbeknownst to me. It kind of aligned with the public defender's office. And I got a call the next day saying, hey, we want you.

Jonah Perlin [00:20:56]:

Those are the best interviews, right? The ones where you go in and you actually feel better about the decision to have applied afterwards? Yeah, I had a very similar experience when I made my most recent transition to what I do now. I left the interview and I said, wow, I really want to do that. And it was like, whoa, no, I'm supposed to be selling myself.

Khalida Sims [00:21:13]:

They're not selling me.

Jonah Perlin [00:21:15]:

And what are some of those beliefs you talked a little bit about? Just everybody gets representation. Are there other things that you found through that interview or as you were thinking about taking the job that are core to what you do?

Khalida Sims [00:21:25]:

Certainly well, it was questions relating to how do you feel about poverty? How would you approach a client who has a mental illness? What's some of your experience with working with difficult clients or clients that may have a violent background? How would you approach that? My father had represented Anthony Sowell, the first known serial killer in Ohio, and I worked on a post trial motion with him. So that case was big, and that was something that I got a lot of perspective on in humanizing a person who was charged and later convicted of traumatic and horrific things. They wanted to know, could I disconnect or at least separate for a period of time, conduct from the person? And it brought me back to New Orleans. It brought me back to New Orleans where people were treated because of what they may have looked like or where they lived. And that triggered my passion, unbeknownst to me, and then it just got reset or reminded me of what exactly the reason why I went into law was to help people. So it just all connected, like the stars aligned.

Jonah Perlin [00:22:39]:

I'm curious for someone who hasn't decided what they want to do with their legal career yet, or maybe they're pretty junior and they started on one path, and they're like, I need to change. What would you say to those people? What should they be looking for in the mirror to say, you know what? A public defender might be a good job for you.

Khalida Sims [00:22:58]:

I mean, being a public defender, you are entertained. You are entertained to some degree because you never know what you're going to get. Like, I would say if you like excitement, being on your toes and being equally entertained at the same time, then being a public defender will definitely be a good thing for you. Being a public defender, you do have to have a passion for people. You have to have a passion for difficult people, because if that's something that you don't have a level of compassion for, being a public defender isn't really going to work for you. It just isn't right.

Jonah Perlin [00:23:32]:

And what's rewarding about that? I'm not sure that's the best pitch. You want to work with difficult people. What makes you wake up every day and want to keep doing what you're doing?

Khalida Sims [00:23:40]:

Oh, that's good. I feel like I'm helping people. I feel that I'm genuinely helping people, and this is what I've been called to do. My faith is a big part of my life, so the least of these and I feel like, as a woman of color, that I don't want to say I'm the least of these. I don't think that at all. But just in terms of being overlooked, silenced, kind of being seen as invisible, I do have a level of passion of representing those that fall into those boxes as well, because I can relate. So that's what kind of wakes me up in the morning, is I'm here to help people. That are marginalized. I'm here to help my community. I'm here to help people that people.

Jonah Perlin [00:24:26]:

Oftentimes would not help without you. They don't get help.

Khalida Sims [00:24:30]:

Right? So if they're difficult, I don't care. Just because everyone can be difficult to an extent, there are going to be times where you're going to be tested. So you have to make sure that you are here for the right reasons. So that way, when you're confronted with these difficult situations, you're like, well, I'm here to help you. I'm here to help people that are similarly situated to you. So I don't care that you're difficult right now. We're going to move on to the next crisis.

Jonah Perlin [00:24:54]:

As difficult as you might be, the situation you're in is probably even more difficult in that moment.

Khalida Sims [00:24:59]:

Right? Exactly. So you can be difficult with me all you want. I don't care. Take it personal. This isn't just a courtroom type of job. I'm a public defender inside and outside of the courtroom. Doing public defender or indigent defense, however you want to label it, a lot of those issues that you see in the courtroom come from outside of the courtroom. From poverty, homelessness, substance abuse. So when you have people, and I say this generally in a certain socioeconomic group or level, that can be associated with certain issues that come within that group. So to want to separate, like, oh, well, why didn't this person just get a job? Or Why didn't this person just get a car? Or Why did this person do that? I find that very naive and very judgmental. And then you have to understand a person's story. And again, that comes from outside of this case. And as a public defender, I have learned you can't disconnect them.

Jonah Perlin [00:26:00]:

I want to dig a little bit deeper on that. So a conversation I often have with colleagues and students is that we teach legal writing and legal analysis in law school with a focus on arguing from within the law, taking the law as it is. And maybe as a result, we're perpetuating some of these systemic societal problems you just talked about. Are we doing our students and our profession a disservice?

Khalida Sims [00:26:22]:

Let me say this. We are changing the law. As a defense attorney, we challenge the law all the time. For instance, there is a gang statute, and I'm very proud of my former office. We are arguing the constitutionality of it because laws, mind you, the people that write the law aren't usually under the control of that law, nor does it impact them in any way. So then us as public defenders, we see it in the rawest form, and we then have a job to confront that. Like the law is meant to be the sword as well as the shield. And I think public defenders, we put up that shield more than anybody else because of the people that we represent. If you want to find a group of. People that know how to argue the law and see how this law impacts people. It's public defenders through and through. And I'm proud of my office because it's a lot of bright, amazing people who have no problem arguing to the fullest the injustices around these laws.

Jonah Perlin [00:27:23]:

And do you think it's a big difference if you're coming from a public defender's office as opposed to representing criminal defendants in private practice?

Khalida Sims [00:27:31]:

I always considered myself as a public defender who practices like a private attorney.

Jonah Perlin [00:27:36]:

Say, Warren, what do you mean by that?

Khalida Sims [00:27:38]:

When people make the comments about public defenders, public pretenders I know what they're referring to, I know what they're referring to. Now, you will have people that are lazy, people that are not prepared. Please know that that just does not extend to the public defender's office. That can go for a private attorney as well. But with private attorneys, they kind of have this protection of, oh, I was retained, or oh, I was paid for, therefore better, when they could have got the same result as a public defender, but we were free.

Jonah Perlin [00:28:08]:

You'd think the thing you paid for might be better, but in reality, this is what you do and this is what you've been trained to do and what you've done for the last couple of years, which makes you that much more valuable to your clients.

Khalida Sims [00:28:19]:

Exactly. And then also with public defenders, we know the judge is better because we're there all the time. We know exactly what ticks them off. We know them closer than anyone else because we're with them all the time. Versus private attorney who's with them selectively.

Jonah Perlin [00:28:35]:

How many cases do you have? On a typical month?

Khalida Sims [00:28:37]:

When I left my county, I had about 13 open cases, and I whittled that down to about six or seven. Like my last. That wasn't because I plead them out. That wasn't some of those cases either got worked out or either they were already about to be sentenced or got moved to another docket. Yes, the work is overwhelming to an extent, but I think that's where structure comes into play that's really important. For instance, my office, my old office, it would be a senior attorney on every floor. And then it was about four to five public defenders per floor. That, to me, helped so much regarding structure versus everyone going everywhere, because then you have more case control. Like, things were way more concise. Like, okay, you're assigned to this floor. Case comes here, you're going to have that. And then our senior attorneys were really great at allocating cases, making sure that everyone had the same level of cases. No one was really underwhelmed.

Jonah Perlin [00:29:45]:

It's amazing how process in an office can change everything. It's why I think we need to teach more management and teamwork and all of those I hate the word soft skills, but they're kind of soft skills.

Khalida Sims [00:29:56]:

No, that's true. Lawyers in law school they do not teach you how to manage a caseload to some degree because you're in law school. But it's totally different as a lawyer, like, without question, I would say you really need to learn how you work. You really have to multitask like no other. You got to call someone back. You got to visit this client in jail. This brief is due or this motion is due. You really have to know exactly how you work, for sure. But one other thing I wanted to add with what they don't teach you in law school and if someone is interested in being a public defender is they do not teach you in law school how to work with people who have a mental illness. I would say if you have a passion to working with people who have some type of substance abuse issue or mental health diagnosis, being a public defender will probably be really good for you because that's a huge part of our clientele. But in terms of being able to identify a mental illness or a mental mental health diagnosis is a skill, a skill that a lot of attorneys do not have, that work in the public sector. And you have to have that.

Jonah Perlin [00:31:10]:

How do you gain that skill except on the job? I mean, is that something you think we should be doing in clinics?

Khalida Sims [00:31:15]:

Clinics, for sure. I think this is maybe where externships will probably be helpful versus a law school class.

Jonah Perlin [00:31:22]:

I mean, I agree. I think that makes sense. You have to go out into the community and learn and look, legal education is getting better at that, but we still have lots and lots of work to be done on that front. All right, I want to move to the last question. So what's the best piece of advice that you've ever given or received as a lawyer?

Khalida Sims [00:31:40]:

The reminder that the law is meant to be the sword as well as the shield. That helps me keep perspective on what I have to do and what I'm up against and what other people have to do in this whole process. I would say that's the best advice. The law is meant to be the sword as well as the shield.

Jonah Perlin [00:31:57]:

Any other final thoughts?

Khalida Sims [00:31:58]:

Being a criminal defense attorney is incredibly challenging because we're thrown so many different things and wanting it to work out in the best solution possible and not necessarily having the same resources as the government. So I think you have to be that much more sharp, that much more resourceful, that much more bright. I think a lot of times the public defender gets a negative reputation or stereotype that, oh, the lawyers are lazy, all they want to do is want you to plea. And my experience is that a lot of my colleagues are incredibly bright, sharp people. They deal with probably the worst situations possible that retain lawyer don't want to deal with and handle it we handle it. And I think that's why public defenders get the bad rap that we do, because we don't get to pick our clients, so we don't get to pick only winners. But that's what makes you so good as a lawyer your experience and everything. Like, we've done it all. You may want to be with us.

Jonah Perlin [00:33:02]:

Again. That was Kalita Sims, who's a public defender in Cleveland, Ohio, who I want to thank so much for being on the podcast. I had never met Kalita before this interview, and it quickly felt as if we were old friends. Her candor, her openness, and her humor made for a relaxed conversation about what at times is a really difficult subject. I learned so much from her story, and I hope you did as well. In particular, what stood out for me was the way that Khalida was confident in her professional path and yet open to let new experiences lead her in new directions. More than that, I was inspired by her focus on helping people, even when they're difficult, even when they struggle, and even when they may commit bad acts. I sincerely hope you got as much out of the interview as I did. As always, if you enjoyed or learned something from this episode and haven't yet subscribed, please do at howilawyer.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you can, it would mean the world to me if you could share the podcast with a friend, colleague, law student, or future law student who you think might be interested. Thanks once again to Kalita. Thanks for listening, and have a great week.