sweet appearance attorney's

so. here's a little insight to my job... :)

as a process server of unlawful detainers, part of that job is testifying in court hearings if the residents of the home refuse to vacate the property. residents try the craziest things to remain in the house as long as they possibly can. well, eventually the banks, who already own the homes again, will set a trial to have the judicial system step in to help the banks gain posession of the property. by the time it gets to this point, there is nothing anyone can do, but buy the residents more time to vacate the property. the stories and the situations the residents come up with are classic, mind you, they have not paid rent/mortgage for atleast 6 months to a year at this point. so options at this point are to sign a stipulation, which overrides the obligation to stand before the judge and have an actual trial. the stipulation is a time period agreed on by both parties for the residents to vacate before the sheriff lockout. or parties can stand before the judge where myself and the real estate agent must testify as to each part of the "workup" of the case. stips can allow for as much as 30 days at the property, but the judge cannot legally allow more than 14 days. then the sheriff's actually come out and kick all living beings out of the house, change the locks and have gotten posession for the bank. it's a hard thing.

anyhow... the eviction attorney's do not do their own appearing, they hire appearance attorney's to take care of these situations. well, i had a hearing in the downey courthouse... the appearance attorney was linda seals. she was frazzled that day. the defendants on the case agreed to sign a stipulation. i had filled out the stipulation for linda and did some of the work. she told me that i would be an amazing lawyer and i should go to law school. she gave me lots of research information. i really enjoyed her that day. then, one friay, i had 3 hearings in the whittier courthouse. when i got there, linda seals was the appearance attorney on all 3 of my hearings. it made me so happy. she was also the appearance attorney on a total of 16 of the 30 unlawful detainer hearings that day, that's already a lot of work in one courtroom. well, those hearings are normally heard in department 6 of the courthouse. well, this day, the comissioner was out ill. so they took the 30 cases and seperated them into the remaining 5 departments throughout the courthouse. there was no way that linda could be in all 5 departments at the same time to take care of each case. so i jumped in and started helping her, talking to defendants, seeing where they are and what their plans are. linda seals husband, jay tenanbaum, came from the santa ana courthouse to the whittier courthouse to help us. because i cannot appear on linda's behalf, but her husband could. so the three of us were running around getting all the cases heard in a timely manner and trying not to upset anyone... it was actually fun. i had a brief moment of thinking it would be fun to go to law school and all that... hahahahaha...

anyhow. that was friday. on monday... im at work all working away at the office. i keep the door locked because usually im there alone. there is a knock at the door. i look out the window and it is linda seals. i was like "what the heck in the world?". i opened the door and she came in. we sat for a minute and chit chatted. she came by to give me a gift certificate to starbucks for my help the friday prior. i was floored. her thank you meant the world plus to me. that, to me, is what it's about.... i did not help her for any recoginition purposes. i helped because it was needed and i knew it made her day easier. but her thank you, that carried me through my week, which ended up being hard to make it through, and her sweetness made me smile!!!