Communicate with law enforcement. Believe it or not most of us want to do a good job. Don�t privately criticize the work you receive from them (it will get back to us). Meet and confer, offer suggestions for improvement. Ask them to attend court and observe. I learned more sitting in a murder trial for a week, assisting the D. A., than at any homicide seminar I ever attended. Hold pre-trial conferences. Most officers still have some anxiety about testifying, even after years on the job. Prepare them for your questions, as well as for possible defense strategies.

AP the look you describe is Sunday-go-to-meetin' in all but five or six counties.

I think above all folks ought to take repsonsibility for their mistakes. Those of us in management should take responsibility for the errors our staff make on our watch. I have great respect for people who do not shirk or pass the buck.

Hey folks, we're updating this thread and wondered if any more wisdom had come your way since 2006.

We're going to put all of these replies on a disk for the newest prosecutors to learn from your successes (and mistakes -- probably to learn more from the mistakes).

Any valuable insight would be appreciated. Thanks.

My best tidbit of advice from law enforcement is to be honest with your officers. If you can't prosecute a case for whatever reason or are in a position to make an unpopular deal, just tell us. We might not like it, but it does make it easier to swallow. If it is something we screwed up, we'd like to know so that we won't make the same mistake the next time.

We have an excellent relationship with our prosecutors here and it makes it so much easier to know what they need to successfully prosecute our cases.

Return phone calls as soon as you can. Putting it off will not make the conversation any easier and doing it sooner rather than later will keep you out of the bosses office trying to explain why you have time to post on TDCAA but no time to return calls.

Don't limit yourself, learn a little about all the things your office does (juvi,CPS,Grand Jury, appeals, forfeitures....) you never know when you might be asked to fill in.

In your office, look for the person like Stacey who seeks out work to do and who always finishes her work sooner than it is expected. That person who does his/her job better than anyone else and who is always ready to help you do your work. Have this person as your role model and you will learn alot. Even if you have been practicing longer than your role model.

Track down every answer. If you are in a hearing and something crazy gets thrown at you, go back and find out what the law is so that you can answer it should it happen again. Do this regardless of the result in your case, and particularly if you win. Winning is good, but knowing how you got there makes you a better attorney, and correcting mistakes for the judges enhances your credibility. And don't shy away from tracking down the answers to things that seem obvious. Just because "that's the way it's always been done" doesn't mean it's been done the right way. (For a super-smart-Tanya-Dohoney-example that could really bake your noodle, by what authority does a trial court enter an instructed verdict when the jury is the fact-finder?) All of this will hopefully establish a base of knowledge from which you can answer the most esoteric questions.

And enjoy your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Excellent advice from David. I'd add that you should have somewhere to keep all that knowledge that you get. A notebook or journal or something. You will probably be able to remember the details of each big case or trial for a number of years, and then, all of a sudden, you won't remember Smith or Jones anymore . . . and you won't be able to put hands on the file with the case in it that you need. Some uniform way of tracking that info will be invaluable. Now that we are really getting computerized, you can do this with a word processing file, and then you can text search it or even Google search it using Google desktop. If you are a cool Mac user like JB, try the program Notebook by Circus Ponies. I use a Word file on my PC, but MS OneNote looks like it might have promise.

What I do is keep a daily log in a Word file that contains notes about what I do and lots legal questions and answers. When the file becomes too big, I peel off the oldest year or so and save it to another file. It is a great thing when some opponent says you didn't do something, and you can search your notes and say, "Yes, on October 7, 2002, I offered to agree to X in exchange for Y, and you told me where to stick it." I learned this from a great chief of mine, Lori Ordiway.

You might also look at Getting Things Done by David Allen. While not geared toward the practice of law, it has some great insights toward what we do and how to organize your work so that it gets done.

Get an Apple laptop and an iPhone. The rest is easy.

I'm not a prosecutor yet. But, as an ex probation officer I can say that knowing your judge is extremely important. Know what their personal do's and don'ts are and how to act in their courtroom. As someone said earlier, one judge didn't like your briefcase on the table. Knowing those little things will make your life so much easier. And if you don't know the big ones you might as well just pack up and go home.

Those tools suggested by JB would be great. I still use a Big Chief tablet and No. 2 pencil. Not because I dislike technology, it's more of a budget thing. If you are blessed with a budget that allow technology, knowledge of how to practice with the old No. 2 pencil and tablet are still valuable when the machines break.

Take advantage of TDCAA training. Go to as many of the seminars as you can. In addition to learning from the training, you establish relationships with peers across the state that always will help when the brain synapses fuse. My first job as a lawyer I was hired in Nacogdoches County at the DA's office. Before my boss let me move to East Texas, he had me go to the Annual Meeting. It was a generous move on his part and set up a great network for someone working out of a small office like ours. Our metropolitan brethren are there willing to help on issues we generalists don't frequently see. Plus, the rural prosecutors from all over the state have a different perspective and will also share.

Maybe TDCAA should look into giving out free Apple laptops to baby prosecutors as part of their mission. Contact John Brown at TDCAA for more information on this hopping good idea.

If you aren't careful, you will conduct the same research project about once every year or so on some topic that comes up enough to be familiar, but not enough for you to remember the answer.

So, I'll share the system I finally developed of keeping my legal research. I have a word document file on different topics, and then list case references and summaries as I find them and do research on the subject. Some are huge documents (like my search and seizure one with several subparts and subtopics) and some are smaller (like the one on bond issues). It makes it easier to pull up my answer from the last time I asked the question. I really wish I had found a system of organizing legal issues years ago--it is really only in the last two years that I have found the system that works for me.

But, I'm a bit envious of JohnR's system, and I might try to combine mine with his. So, I guess mine is still evolving.

You can have my Dell PC when you pry it from my cold dead hands.

Dude, you got a Dell!