In December of 2014, I became the Chief Public Defender of the Republic of Palau, a small island nation near Micronesia. I had been a lawyer for 2 years and 1 month and had worked as an assistant public defender there for six months before my boss quit and left me holding the bag. Even though the nation was small, the job was big. The private bar was tiny and generally disinterested in taking low-paying criminal work, which meant our office handled about 95% of all criminal cases- around 1,200 a year. These cases included murders, drug trafficking from the nearby Philippines, and a large number of sex assaults. In addition to rampant alcoholism, the native population of Palau also had one of the largest percentages of schizophrenics in the world.
I knew that I was underqualified for the job. I had no resources and no help. For the first three months, I was the only lawyer in the office, running desperately from traffic court to misdemeanor docket to felony trials. I bleated for help to everyone I could back home, through achingly slow dial-up internet. TCDLA answered.
Jani Maselli sent me dozens of hours of CLE on disks that even my battered desktop could play. She sent me books and banks of motions and everything she could get her hands on. The package arrived out of nowhere and I wept in my office, not just because of the life-changing materials I desperately needed, but because of the overwhelming kindness it showed.
Months later, David Ryan would show up on a late-night flight, bleary-eyed, and would present a CLE the next day to just about every practicing lawyer in Palau, a group that could fit in a medium-sized conference room. When you’ve been isolated for such a long time, seeing a familiar face, hearing a familiar voice, smelling their familiar cigars, and leaning against them as the night wears on in a muggy outdoor bar in a strange land means more to you than they can really ever know.
And that’s what TCDLA means to me. More than I can ever repay.
