When we submitted our proposals for our internships, I had a very clear plan of what I thought I would be doing for my internship. I had a list of items that I thought were the most important for my employers. However, just because it is the professional world does not mean that life is not allowed to interfere and I am learning to be flexible. The caseload at work has dictated what has become the most important tasks and the website I thought I would be working on has been put on the back burner. In fact, I don't think there are plans to take it off of that back burner. Instead, the Office Procedures Manual is still important, but the editing and construction of the legal documents to be submitted at court have become the priority.

I am still very lucky because it is still technically tech writing. I am writing, editing, proofreading, and more. I remember the speakers in all of our TC classes talking about taking jobs for TC personnel only to find that they were not wanted for TC tasks. However, I am the type of person who likes to have a list of what I will be doing and simply be able to do what is set in front of me. This is giving me a great lesson in flexibility and learning how to just go with the flow. There are some days when I will be working my hardest on a project only to have something come up and be told to put it aside for a week or so. Then I have to completely shift gears on focus on something extremely different for a different client in a different aspect of the law.

Preparing legal documents, however, are a new genre. Each document must have that case's legal caption in bold at the top, certain things must be double-spaced, much of the grammar defies the rules of the English language, and that is just the start of it. Also, many courts, sometimes even courtrooms, have their own styles that they prefer. For example, most of the time we produce documents on a more expensive paper and copies on regular white paper to keep the originals separate. That is how we submit them to the court. However, some courts will not accept the more expensive paper and will only take the regular white paper. Don't even get me started on the appellate court!