A young lawyer wrote me recently from California. I thought I might share it.
~Rob
To: rob weinberg
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 9:04:07 AM
Subject: Question Re: Your Experience with the AG in Pohnpei, FSM
Dear Rob,
I am an attorney in California. I have recently been offered a position in the FSM's AG office, and I am strongly considering taking the offer. I have previously lived overseas in a developing island nation, so I have a little familiarity with the culture shock that comes with such a move. However, I also know that Pohnpei is its own unique place, and because of that, one can never truly prepare for such an experience.
I wanted to tell you that your blog is a fascinating read. It has given me more of an inside look into Pohnpei than any of the travel books or other internet sources that I have read.
I also have some questions regarding the job itself. I know you stated that it was like the Wild West out there, but how would you rate the quality of the projects that you were given? Also, what was the typical workload for an attorney in the office? Finally, because I am a newbie attorney who would essentially be learning on the fly in whatever job I held, what type of mentoring, if any, does one receive in that office?
Thank you in advance for your help, as any feedback is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Michael
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:23:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rob Weinberg
Subject: Re: Question Re: Your Experience with the AG in Pohnpei, FSM
Dear Michael:
What a pleasant surprise and request. Where to begin....
When I first arrived in Pohnpei in June 2003, and I doubt it's changed, it was six lawyers plus the AG, three on the litigation side, civil and criminal; three on the “law” writing opinions, drafting, and advising agencies. The AG himself spent a lot of time in the President's Office, especially giving the president political advice on dealing with the Congress or various departments, or foreign nations or the United States.
All the lawyers I knew and worked with in Pohnpei are now gone from the FSM, but that's not a reflection on the FSM. It's more a reflection of the expatriate mentality that draws people out this way, and sends them on their way to other adventures. They come; they go; some, only a few, stay and start families.
Let me say also that of the lawyers I knew on Pohnpei, one or two remain very close friends of mine. For a while, after I left Pohnpei, and after I came to Guam, a few of the friends I made and I were leap-frogging one another around Micronesia – from Pohnpei to Guam to Saipan, and in my case back to Guam. Perhaps the best friend I have, I met in Pohnpei, is now in Saipan looking to get back to Guam, but only because the economy in the CNMI is so difficult right now. If you tell me who you've been talking to, I may be able to get you some information about what kind of lawyers they are and what the office may be like today from an old contact who was the AG when I was there and is living in Washington State now. I am not familiar with the current Secretary of the Department of Justice, if it is still Maketo Robert, who appears on http://www.fsmgov.org/ngovt.html.
Working in a six or seven-lawyer office for an entire country can be extremely rewarding, if you have the right attitude. My view is that you're there to help them "be all that they can be," to guide them along the path they choose to true sovereignty and independence, not to foist your (colonial) attitudes on them or what you think they ought to be doing based upon your standards of how we do things stateside. As an attorney, my philosophy is that you are there to serve, and to bring your experience base to their justice system, which is modeled on ours. Their mileage may vary. And that’s OK. With the right attitude, you’ll gain the respect of your peers and the people you’re working for, and it can be a very rewarding experience.
Just so you know about other lawyers outside the office you may be running into, there were also a couple of other off-island lawyers attached to the courts as law clerks from the States (judges are not necessarily lawyers); a lawyer advising the FSM Congress; and a lawyer attached to another department like Commerce or Finance or something. There are only a handful of other lawyers in private practice that you regularly encounter, as well as a few from Micronesia Legal Services. All of the above are American. Very few lawyers are “home grown.” The couple that are from the FSM who practice law are from Kosrae, for some reason. [Editor's Note: The current Secretary of the Department of Justice is originally from Chuuk. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Guam, now the University of Guam, and later graduated from California Western School of Law with a juris doctor degree.]
The diversity of issues you'll encounter is more than just civil and criminal litigation or advising local officials on routine legal matters. The job advertisement is no puffery in that respect. You’ll be shaping their very image of themselves on how to be a government. The projects you’ll be involved with are not merely the run of the mill legal issues you encounter in a state attorney general's office or district attorney's or city attorney's office, which are interesting enough in and of themselves; you will also encounter and deal with international issues involving immigration, fishing rights, territorial zones, and contractual relations with countries making investments in the FSM such as China, Japan and Taiwan. You'll meet and work with people like engineers and diplomats from Australia, and of course, the United States. Just in terms of purely “domestic” issues, you may be handling a boundary dispute or easement in court one day, defense of public officials in a civil rights action or breach of contract case in another, criminally prosecuting corrupt public officials another, and drafting contracts and agreements, legislation and administrative rules and regulations yet another. There is likely not a course in law school you will not have an opportunity to put to use. And there’ll be a few you’d wish you’d taken as well.
As to the statement in my blog that practicing law in the FSM was like the wild, wild west, my thinking was this: As far as lawyers you'll encounter, it's like the days of Judge Roy Bean: the ones with the law books make the law (or try to). When I was there, the FSM AG's Office had no access to Westlaw or Lexis. I expect that's changed by now. I know I tried desperately to change it while I was there. We literally did legal research via Google on the Internet. (And nowadays that's almost a workable thing with so many courts online.) The FSM Supreme Court has a law library, but the books were packed together in humidity so bad that if you can even get them off the shelves, you can't get them to open. Reporters and Digests and hard bound Shepard's Citations are 10 - 15 years out of date. Lawyers on the other side of, for example, a civil rights case may cite law that's 20 years old from some inconsequential jurisdiction in the U.S. (like a 1984 district court opinion from Kansas) as "precedent" and the local judges (again, not "learned in the law" necessarily) may think it's got some value. So, you've got to be on your toes when dealing with the lawyers over there. And something I found fascinating was how traditional or local law was incorporated in the judicial decision-making whenever possible or appropriate, especially in criminal, property, and probate law.
At the same time that you have to watch the lawyers on the other side in every little thing (which is what we do anyway), there’s a wealth of opportunity to influence the direction of the law, as there is so little precedent there, and they are lacking in the adoption of a lot of the model codes we take for granted here, whether in property and estate law, bankruptcy and debtor-creditor relations, taxation, juvenile justice, family law, whatever. The fields for legislation are wide open. Precedent from anywhere is fair game to be cited if it sounds remotely applicable.
As to being a “newbie” attorney and looking for mentoring, I doubt that you will find mentoring you might be looking for. But it’s a very good question. The truth is: You’re there to mentor others, especially the clients. If you have ten years’ experience, you’ve probably got plenty of skills to do the job without mentoring. The substantive knowledge in areas you are currently unfamiliar with, you can pick up on the fly. (Hell, everyone else does, and that’s the fun of it.) But if you have less than 10 years experience and don’t feel you have solid lawyering skills yet, don’t expect to find it in an office so small. The mentality is often that the clients want to be told by the lawyer what to do; my view is that the role of the lawyer is to empower them to think for themselves and to guide.
The types of legal projects I’ve already described. As to the volume of workload, I found it to be very reasonable. Plenty of time to put in a 40 or 50 hour week and you’re not asked for more, less actually, unless the Office is short for lawyers, which happens at times. As to secretarial or paralegal support, expect none. That way, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with whatever you get, if any. But in that area, it’s best to be prepared for being entirely on your own. There are also unexpected hardships. Despite air conditioning in all the buildings, the humidity is such that printing and copying, even writing on a pad with a ball point pen, can be difficult to count on. I toted my own laptop to and from work every day, and never did get a promised computer of my own. Humidity is very tough on paper and electronics of all kinds.
As for culture shock issues, I too thought that I would be prepared for it, as I too had lived overseas as a child. But growing up as an Army Brat in the 70's in Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, basically just another military base, isn't the same thing as being an adult and a professional in another country that was, and to a large extent remains, dependent on the United States (and before that, the Japanese, and before that the Germans, and before that, the Spanish) and just thinks differently as a result.
Although it has cable TV and telephones and a movie theater with "first run" movies, it is still very much "third world" in terms of its mentality. The locals who work with and for you, and who you work for, have elevated passive-aggressiveness to an art form that is … unfathomable at times. There are socio-anthropological reasons for this, I think, and learning to understand the locals on their own terms so that your expectations are realistic is paramount to handling the inevitable culture shock. It can be particularly deceptive and unnerving precisely because of the appearances of American and western culture that you encounter most of the time. But make no mistake: These people think differently than we do, and that can be exasperating and inscrutably infuriating if you do not have a great deal of built-in serenity when you arrive. I thought I did at the time. It was nothing like what I have now.
There are a couple of ways people from other countries – the U.S. and Australia mainly – adapt to life in Micronesia. Some people, with families, bring their own emotional support network with them, and they seem to be strongest in terms of their adaptability. But if the spouse is not employed too, it can be a very isolating experience for the family. For those without families, there are two ways, perhaps three in combination, to build that critical emotional support network that they did not bring with them. Some people spend their off-duty hours exclusively in the cliquish company of other ex-pats, and are very contented. I didn't do that and disdained those who do. I went the other way, and went "native," so to speak, with a local girlfriend you've read about, spending much time with her family, lounging around the house in my lava-lava (sarong). But I didn’t do it right, either, as you’ve seen in the blog. And that became isolating too, dangerously so. I’ve learned much since that time about living between cultures.
Those that adapted the best were able to divide their time among westerners like the Americans and Australians, as well as spend time with the Micronesians, and were able to find a comfortable balance. They were able to mingle with westerners and not be judgmental and hyper-critical of the locals. They were able to mingle with the locals and not be taken advantage of. Or they were very solitary individuals to begin with and could do without either. But they were rare.
The most important piece of advice I got in the FSM, from a lawyer for the FSM Congress, about adapting to life in a different culture, and in the FSM in particular, was one I disregarded or simply was incapable of comprehending at the time: As expressed to me, if you have problems at home, they will be magnified three-fold in Pohnpei and the FSM. There is an expression that “wherever you go, there you are.” That became starkly true for me when it was too late to do anything healthy about it. There is simply no escape or geographical cure for whatever ails you wherever you are now, if anything ails you right now. No running away to an island paradise where your troubles disappear and you can “start over.” So, if you have any “issues” you didn’t discuss or share in the interview (and you know what they are), know that they will emerge and consume you.
At the same time, it is an island paradise, if lacking in many of the amenities we’ve grown accustomed to. Of course, there are no McDonalds or Taco Bells or KFC’s or any other kind of fast food restaurant. There are a couple of good restaurants where you can get some almost-American type food, and occasionally a steak, but only a couple, and you don’t want to eat out all the time.
As to food and groceries, if you love fresh tuna and other fish, the fish out here (meaning all of Micronesia and the Pacific) is the best in the world, in my not so humble opinion. The first time you eat parrot fish or other “reef fish,” or try Mangrove Crab, you’ll never go back to Red Lobster. But items you’d expect to find in a decent grocery store, especially fresh red meat (other than pork and chicken), and fresh fruits and vegetables are non-existent. Expect to be served heaping portions of rice at every meal, three to four times the normal amount you consume at home. Cabbage and onions and cucumber and root vegetables like carrots and potatoes you can find; fresh lettuce and the wealth of every other kind of vegetable you might find at home you will not find in Pohnpei. Apples and oranges you can find (usually); everything else – berries, melons, peaches, plums, grapes, you name it – you won’t find. On the other hand, banana, coconut, pineapple, papaya, mango and a few other “exotic” fruit grow wild all over. So your first purchase after you buy a car is a machete’ to keep in the trunk, for when you come across a downed banana tree. Avocado also grows in Micronesia, but the locals don’t eat it, and only feed it to their pigs. I don’t know why.
If you go, send yourself a care package of a year or more worth of herbs, spices, seasonings and sauces. Other than salt and pepper, Tabasco, Soy Sauce, ketchup and mustard are the only condiments readily available. You learn to buy things you see in bulk when you see it, because tomorrow it will be gone, and you may not see it again for months and months. You also learn that you buy some products at one store, other products at others, and that’s just the way of shopping. If you accept the job offer, I can give you a more detailed list of things to take in terms of household items, clothing, and things to leave behind in storage.
It’s funny that I received your email today. I was just thinking about whether and under what conditions I would return to Pohnpei. I certainly hope to go to visit again, and take my now four year old son there. His mother, of course, who I describe in the blog and with whom I have since parted company, is Pohnpeian, and longs to return and show off our son to her family. At one time, when I was leaving Pohnpei, I vowed to return to “do it right” next time. I doubt that will happen, as I am very happy where I am in Guam and am committed to the life I am making here. And I have nothing to prove like I thought I did when I left. If asked to return to Pohnpei for a limited time or for a special project, I’m sure I would go. But I am in a much better and far more serene place than I was in 2003. I am nevertheless tied to Pohnpei and its people forever now. And for all the torment I have described previously, I am the better for it.
I hope this is helpful. If you’ve gotten this far in the interview process as to be offered a job, you must have something about you that others have seen as well. Obviously, you have an adventurous spirit. Whatever you decide, or if my “brief” response has prompted further questions, feel free to call on me.
~ Rob
Editor's Note: In a followup email, I shared the following:
From: Rob Weinberg
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 7:23:18 PM
Subject: Re: Question Re: Your Experience with the AG in Pohnpei, FSM
Michael:
If Marketo Robert is indeed the currenty Secretary of the Department of Justice, you may want to look at this, which I found poking around just now: http://www.fsmcongress.fm/pdf%20documents/SCR%2015-61.pdf.
Politics in the FSM Government is ... tricky, particularly when it comes to Chuuk and people from it. I can tell you more of what I think I know if you're still interested after reading the link above.
