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Cabot & Associates, Sunday Afternoon

Jack had no idea what to expect from his first day of office work, but he supposed that gave him more to explore. By midday Sunday, the mail was sorted, the plants watered, the papers on the desk filed with a rather terrifying degree of order, and Jack was trying to figure out how the computer programs worked.

It was perhaps inevitable that he'd end up exploring the Internet. A few clicks took him to a website about Blind Items, simultaneously horrified and appalled by the apparently lax state of American libel law.

He was sure he could justify it as work-related in some way.

[OOC: Come, bother the new legal assistant!]

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Alex Cabot had a steaming cup in each hand, and her laptop in a bag slung over her shoulder. The one in her left was hot tea, for her, and the one in her right was set carefully on Jack's desk.

"Coffee," she said. "Black, but I've got creamer around here somewhere. Staying warm?"

"I like it better black," Jack said as he smiled his thanks. "I am. I hope you don't mind me using the computer -- I was trying to figure out how you had your systems set up."

And read random trashy websites.

"Oh, not at all," Alex said, setting her own cup down and coming around to see what was on his screen. "I need to get you a password for Lexis. Or Westlaw. Maybe both. Very helpful, if you're looking for legal precedents."

And introduce him to the law-related trashy websites. It was much easier to pretend they were work-related.

Jack did his best to look innocent as she came around, though there was the slightest flinch to his shoulders. Gossip wasn't really work and he knew it.

He was looking at Ted Casablancas by now. "I was trying to learn more about media law in this time. This is all okay to print?"

Yeah, good save.

"It is," Alex said, looking amused. "They don't name names. If they told you who it was, they'd have to be able to prove it in a court of law if the celebrity wanted to prosecute. The sites that try to guess are usually off the hook, too, because they're not passing it along as truth -- just guessing at a mystery."

"And it's probably nothing like what you actually do here," Jack said, closing the window with some vigor. "Which is -- what I assume you want to tell me about. I'm all ears."

He demonstratively reached for a notepad and pen.

Alex pulled up a chair near his. "What we do here," she said, "is mostly research, since we don't have any clients. But I can fill you in on the specifics of that, too. Right now, we're looking for legal precedents."

She leaned back in her chair with a shrug. "Courts like to know about similar rulings in the past. Let's say the cops get permission to open a gym locker, and find a murder weapon. But they only had the gym's permission, and not the owner of the locker. The defense tries to argue that we violated the suspect's rights, because we should have gotten a warrant, or asked his permission before searching his locker. The judge will be making a ruling in two days. So what we need, then, is to find similar cases, and see how their rulings were decided. We look for cases of semi-public property. Other gym lockers, or maybe lockers in a school, or related questions like that. Rulings that go against what we're looking for are just as important as rulings that support it -- we need to know what ammunition the other side is likely to bring. Does that make sense so far?"

He nodded briefly. "It does. Is there a specific area we're looking for precedents on, or does it vary?"

"It depends on the case," Alex explained. "Most of the cases we handle are major felonies, and the wrinkles are different each time. Whatever the snag is, we need to investigate that issue and find relevant case histories. Anything you find helps us argue the case. And if you find something that supports the other side, I need to know so I can prepare against it."

She nodded to the computer near him. "There are databases you can search, to look for precedents. If you find a relevant legal issue in a case on jaywalking, that's still applicable to a case about a sexual assault."

Jack scooted over to make room for her before the keyboard, eyes bright with interest. "Because the law doesn't change based on specifics," he theorized. "Show me an example?"

"Sure," Alex said, tugging the keyboard slightly so it was in front of her. "Here's a good example. I worked a case where a man was attacking young women, and taking 'trophies' from them -- pieces of jewelry they had. He gave the jewelry to his wife, who assumed he had purchased the pieces. When she found out the truth, she was horrified and turned them over to the police."

Alex was on the Lexis-Nexis website, logging herself in and selecting the 'legal' tab. "In our legal system," she explained, "married couples have certain privileges. Your private communication with your spouse is as sacrosanct as confessions before a priest, and neither are admissible in a court of law. The idea is that you shouldn't be able to arrest someone's wife and force her to either turn on her husband or go to jail. However, in this case, it was working against us. The defense said that his gift of jewelry fell under spousal privilege. So that's our starting point. We need to find the limitations of spousal privilege, as shown in previous court rulings. With me so far?"

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Cabot & Associates, Sunday Afternoon

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