A Working Vacation

Between all the boating and diving, I do occasionally mange to work. At just over three months on the job I am getting quite comfortable in my duties and responsibilities. The main body of work that I am doing is appellate case work. I have a variety of casework assigned to me ranging from contract disputes to criminal chain of evidence issues. One of the first cases that I worked on was a disputed state governorship election. The losing candidate, Tulop, lost by a single vote. With so few votes here in Palau every vote really does matter, a lesson Tulop had previously learned when he lost a legislature election also by a single vote. In this case, absentee ballots had arrived after the deadline stated in the election regulations and Tulop was attempting to invalidate the regulations. The Supreme Court affirmed the Trial division's opinion validating the election regulations and sending Tulop to another defeat. Our decision made it to the front page of the newspapers and they quoted the opinion I worked on. The papers are notorious for misquoting judicial opinions, but this time they got it right.

By far, the majority of my appellate work has been land disputes. Lately, I've been working on a series of cases dealing with the government returning public lands improperly seized by previous foreign governments. The two cases I have worked on ensure that the constitutional directive to return lands to the proper heirs is carried out. They have been interesting cases to work on because they have been establishing new precedent in the area of law and the passages I wrote will be cited in future cases.

In addition to the appellate work, I have also done various research projects for the Land Court dealing with homesteads in Peleliu and the role of a receivership for the Court of Common Pleas. Those type of projects are more infrequent and only occur when a judge contacts me with a project. We court counsels also have a few projects of our own we are working on. I am revising the Rules of Appellate Procedure. They are based on the U.S. rules, but haven't been updated since 1994. I am looking into the changes to the U.S. rules since then plus changes suggested by the judges and lawyers. I am also helping with recruiting the next group of court counsel and have been sending email notices about the job opening and answering questions from potential applicants.

The workload has kept me busy enough, but I have been able to keep up with the work by working at a normal pace. I still have time to chat with the judges or other court personnel. After work, many days I go to PPR, the beach resort where I am a member. After a day of work it is wonderful to relax in the hammock or beach chair with my iPod or a good book. I also go swimming in the ocean either snorkeling over the coral or swimming laps between their break walls. The ocean at PPR is the world's best lap pool because it is calm and there is plenty to look at as you swim over the coral. My time at PPR usually concludes with a typically gorgeous sunset. All in all, an excellent way to spend a few hours after work.