Boxes.

I worked on my first trial as an intern at the public defender's office. It was an amazing experience. The case itself involved nearly every issue of criminal procedure that exists. If you can think of it, it was probably in that case. Suggestive identification procedures? You betcha. Agency issues? Of course. Canine tracking, recorded phone calls, expert testimony, search and seizure. We had it all. Suffice it to say, there were lots of motions to suppress. Thus, the suppression hearings alone took more than week.

Now, here's a little known secret for all y'all non-lawyer folks out there: Court can get really boring. It's true. It's not like is on TV. Sure, every now and then you'll get that made-for-television cross examination moment. But many times, it can be rather tedious. So you know what we do when court gets slow?

We doodle.

Oh, it looks like we're taking copious notes on our legal pads. But we're doodling. Yesiree. Now, back when I was an intern, I had some very important tasks. One such task was to sit at counsel table and look pretty. Luckily, this was not difficult. However, I quickly tired of this task, and found myself doodling. I drew boxes. Little boxes. Big boxes. Cubes. Boxes within boxes. Cubes within cubes. Rows of boxes. Cubes full of boxes. Sometimes, when I got bored with my own doodling, I'd check out the doodling of the attorney and the other intern. You know what they drew?

Boxes.

You got it. A row of lawyers and lawyers-t0-be, and we all drew boxes.

I have not given up my doodling habit, nor have I given up checking out other people's doodles. And more often than not, I see lawerly types doodling in geometric shapes. I've come to the conclusion that our doodles are represenative of our personality types. We compartmentalize. We feel the need to put things in their proper categories. This is likely why we became attorneys in the first place.