Lawyer? I Hardly Even Know Her!
What? Like it's hard to know lawyers?
Well, friends—it’s happened. I’ve hit the stage of my 20s when I’m constantly debating whether or not I should go to graduate school.
As I’ve said here a number of times before, I have so much respect for those who know they want to go back to school, especially those like my past guests who have such conviction for continuing to study their passions. This may then lead you to ask: what would be the passion I would want to pursue in grad school?
And the answer is: your guess is as good as mine ❤️
But, after having researched a number of laws and lawbreakers for this newsletter (and serving as a therapist for a number of future lawyers during my brief stint as a law library desk assistant in college), I wanted to know what drives people to go to law school and practice various forms of law.
While I remain unconvinced on whether or not grad school in general, Emily—BFFR law school is right for me, your honor, I’d like to present this testimony as evidence, may it please the court.
Where are you in your law school journey/legal career?
SH, 31, she/her: Attorney
RD, 25, she/her: 2L with a summer internship secured!
HL, 26, she/her: Halfway!!!! (2L Spring)
CG, 25, she/her: 1L
ZA, 25, he/him: Graduated law school and have a job as a judicial law clerk
MHF: Second semester 2L (aka over halfway in the name of Jesus)
LF, 24, she/her: About to finish law school!
Nico Brown, 24, he/him: Attending in the fall
Zachary Beck, 24, he/him: 1st-year associate
Skylar Corby, 24, she/her: A baby 1L 🥲
JG, she/her: Partner in big law
SJ, 23, she/her: 2L
SA: Working
Why did you decide to go to law school? Was there a specific event or moment that inspired this decision?
SH: I always wanted to be a lawyer. I had a great mentor when I was a paralegal who gave me the confidence I needed to apply for law school.
RD: Not at all! I started taking “legal based” classes at Emory—Criminal Justice and Queer and Feminist Legal Theory—and absolutely loved it! It made for a difficult personal essay when I was applying to school, though.
HL: I was working as a paralegal for over a year and decided I was tired of doing all the work but not getting to put my name on any of it or make case decisions. The area of law I worked in is kind of niche and not really taught in law school, so when I was giving new attorneys at the firm a crash course in immigration and then working under them in less than two months it was….frustrating, to say the least!
CG: During some difficult periods of my life, I realized that words and the law are just as powerful as my previous career choice (medicine) and that this career suited me better.
MHF: Hearing Greg Taylor & his attorney speak at my undergrad university. He was the first man to ever be exonerated for murder in NC after 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Nico: Law school was one of those things that I think I always was interested in. I’m a big believer in finding a career that gives you purpose, and for me, that’s law (or so I hope). Being in the working world for a few years, I realized that so many jobs at the end of the day are sort of pointless. I get it: people need to put food on the table, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a great education and the resources to do something with myself that’s not just making money for someone or something. I’ve tried jobs from finance to sales to gig jobs, and the ones where I have been the most satisfied weren’t the ones where I was making the most money, they were the ones where I was actively helping people, no matter how small.
More academically, I think that an understanding of our legal system helps with a general understanding of how we as a society operate. Also, I want to have “esquire” after my name.
Skylar: I’m not sure there was a specific moment, but I was just feeling uninspired in my job after college and was missing the learning aspect of school so much. I ended up choosing law school because I felt really drawn to the topic of it, given the shitstorm political climate we find ourselves in now, and really enamored with the thought of getting to go to school and read and write all day.
JG: I wanted to be a high school Latin teacher. A professor at Vanderbilt told me that I would have to learn German and French, it would cost $250,000 to get my PhD and I would have to get published. I got a high score on my LSAT, so she suggested that I go to law school.
SJ: Covid, a cancellation of my summer internship leading to a cleared schedule, and a degree without a clear path to a job (especially in a time when the world was shutting down) were all the immediate pushes to start studying for the LSAT and to apply. But I think I always knew I was going to go back to school, and law school was always on the table as being something to do at some point in the future, the question was just of when
SA: I didn’t know what to do with my philosophy degree.
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What form of law (if any) are you looking to practice and why?
SH: Employment law. I am passionate about protecting the rights of employees in the workplace.
RD: I’ll be working at a big law firm in their antitrust practice. I kind of fell into it after interning for a commissioner at the FTC this summer but liked the fact that I didn’t have to choose between the traditional litigation vs. transactional division. The firm I’ll be working at also has both civil and criminal antitrust matters so I got to avoid yet another choice. After speaking to a lot of attorneys working in antitrust I decided that it was interesting and a cool way to understand the business world from a legal perspective. It’s very fact-centric and I much prefer that to deep dives into case law!
HL: Immigration! The wholesome answer is that I myself am a second-generation immigrant, and I still have family in the motherland/from the motherland who have immigrated here so it’s a way I can connect the personal and the professional.
The non-wholesome answer is that I applied to a million jobs after college, didn’t hear back about a single one, then knew someone who worked at an immigration firm and was able to help me get an interview for an administrative clerk position, so I kind of…found my way to this area by chance, oops!
CG: Mergers and acquisitions at a firm with a healthy pro bono practice and then likely shift into either nonprofit work or in-house counsel.
ZA: Litigation (corporate and securities).
MHF: Criminal defense. It’s all I’ve ever been interested in as far as the legal profession. I think the justice system is shattered & lawyers have a unique ability (and duty) to fix it.
Nico: Intellectual Property. I enjoy using/viewing/listening to things people create and would like to creatives continue to create by providing legal representation. This may change once I start taking classes, though.
Zachary: Estate planning and business law.
Skylar: As of now I’m most interested in entertainment law because I grew up as a performer, and my constant goal in life is to find loopholes where I get to work with artists and creatives and still make a decent living. I AM still toying with some other areas, like family law or even real estate. As someone still just starting law school, I don’t want to box myself in and cut myself off from something I may potentially love.
JG: I specialize in medical malpractice defense
SJ: I came into law school interested in human rights law, and I am starting my practice doing corporate litigation...not necessarily what I had planned, but I think we all knew it was coming.
SA: I practice commercial lending; it’s a steady field even in a recession.
What is the number one thing, if any, you would like to change about our current legal system and why?
SH: Strengthen anti-discrimination laws.
RD: If I’m honest with myself, I would choose only judges whose values align with mine. That’s the exact opposite purpose of the legal system—so all I know is that I don’t know. Judicial discretion is huge, but the legislature isn’t off the hook either. It’s yet another reason why it’s so important to vote—the legal system can only operate off of the laws that exist.
HL: It is so fake, y’all. THE LAW IS FAKE!!! I’m currently in my second semester of constitutional law and I cannot stress this enough. To be clear, I’m not telling anyone to, like, not follow the law because there are obviously very REAL consequences if you don’t. But so much of what we’re supposed to value and respect about the law, and the system we’re supposed to work in, is completely hinged on the whim of whoever has enough power to “make laws” that it’s very hard sometimes to take any of what you learn in law school seriously.
CG: More accessibility for people who need life-changing legal work (tenants facing eviction, divorce, immigration, etc) and more lawyers for the criminal justice system to provide a quality defense to defendants.
ZA: Qualified immunity reform in civil rights cases.
MHF: Abolish the death penalty and life without parole.
LF: The rules for pro se litigants [litigants or parties representing themselves in court without the assistance of an attorney], especially with regard to habeas corpus proceedings, are really unfair and unnecessarily strict which means a lot of prisoners get timed out of their legal challenges to their detention. Also, the Harvard Law Review should stop making all their notes anonymous.
Nico: Speed of trials and detention without trial. The fact that a (possibly innocent) person can sit in jail for months and even years just because they are waiting for a trial date is wrong. This is made even worse with migrants/refugees who are often also detained for lengthy periods while awaiting their requests.
Zachary: Needless gatekeeping of the LSAT and Bar Exam.
Skylar: I think we really need to work on the structure of it—from a SCOTUS perspective, 9 people deciding the fate of things like reproductive rights (even though their most recent decision in Dobbs doesn’t reflect the majority opinion of the people of this country by a long shot) is extremely detrimental. I don’t know that there’s a great solution either, but it’s not really working right now.
JG: The cards are too stacked against defendants. Judges need money to get on the bench, so they are beholden to plaintiffs’ attorneys and it’s hard to find justice.
SJ: I think beyond the issues and flaws with the criminal justice system, one of my biggest issues with the legal system is the disparity in public interest work and private sector corporate work that forces people to make tough decisions for their career goals and financial needs that become moralized. There is a lot of good work to be done in all parts of the law and it is a shame that compensation is so disparate that tons of lawyers are funneled into a certain type of law and really important work is left without top minds and resources.
Why did you answer as you did above?
SH: The legal system works but needs change.
RD: The legal system, in a way, is based on fiction. There are infinite cases where courts do whatever they want for whatever reason. There are also infinite cases where the court refrains from doing what it believes to be right in order to operate within sometimes nonbinding institutional constraints.
The legal system doesn’t function how it should but I’m not sure how it would work to abolish it—especially right now when such extreme minority voices hold so much power.
HL: At first I said abolition, then changed my answer to reform. Going to law school and working in the legal world, it’s hard to imagine ever actually being able to tear down the whole system, so while abolition is an idealistic goal I think reform is waaaay more attainable.
Also, so much of what you learn is how to be a zealous advocate for your client, and sometimes that means working within the broken system (while acknowledging that, yes, they are broken) to still attain the best possible outcome for the actual literal human you represent.
CG: The legal system as it is now will most likely never be torn down by an abolitionist approach. Lawyers are extremely smart and powerful. However they also think critically and problem-solve, so I think capitalizing on these traits to make change seems much more effective.
ZA: I think this is a broad question but I am capping my response to criminal justice. I think the abolition framework suffers from serious flaws, most notably the lack of workable solutions to issues like incapacitating dangerous individuals. This summer, Thomas Frampton published a very interesting article on prison abolition. It’s thoughtful, but I finished this article with more unanswered questions and unsatisfactory resolutions to these issues than before I began.
MHF: I really wanted to pick abolition… because it’s royally fucked, but that just isn’t realistic (although maybe reform isn’t either). But I have to have some hope or what’s the point, and I do think our reform should be SIGNIFICANT (and perhaps look a little more like abolition).
LF: This may sound narrow-minded, but nationally, I don’t think there are radically different alternatives for a system that could cater to the whole country. I think on the community scale there are completely different legal approaches that could satisfy the community needs, but nationally it’s hard to think of a system that would be different than now despite its flaws.
Nico: The system is indeed flawed, but I don’t think that it’s the role of individual lawyers to revamp the legal system any more than it is other citizens. I think this falls (unfortunately) on the shoulders of lawmakers. Everyone dreams of being a modern Thurgood Marshall, but it’s not practical to plan your career around litigating against the United States of America and being the reason an unjust law gets overturned. I think that lawyers who want to effect change are most successful when they educate as many people as they can about unjust laws, norms, or situations, and they drive change at the ballot box.
Zachary: Abolishing the legal system would be chaos and America can’t handle more chaos right now.
Skylar: I think the truth is that I look at the legal system as a whole as something that is extremely apprehensive of change, and that includes the people inside of it. The majority of the people making and enforcing the current legal system do that because they believe in it, and it will be much easier to get those individuals or groups to alter what they’re doing than to scrap it altogether.
It is certainly a more moderate approach that takes a good amount of time, and that in itself can be problematic but at the end of the day, I want things to get better, and I think taking an approach that changes the system from the inside out can do that if implemented correctly.
JG: We need to even the playing field.
SJ: Honestly, I feel like I do not have a very nuanced take on this issue and have been doing my best to try and learn from those around me (and there are so many passionate, engaged, and informed students that are my classmates and friends) to try and have my own take on this issue. I think it is clear the system needs to be changed, and I agree that it is on young lawyers to tear the institution down and build it back up, but I think there is more nuance than the way reform and abolition are defined and approached.
SA: As someone who works in finance law in private practice I’m sadly not exposed to the real problems of our legal system.
What responsibility/responsibilities do individual lawyers have to make sure the system they're a part of works as best as it can?
RD: I struggle with this question because part of the requirement of the legal system is zealous advocacy—but there are definitely lawsuits that are a waste of time and money or disproportionately impact people without the means to fight it
I guess my answer would be for attorneys to forgo cases where the best strategy is to throw disproportionate resources to receive a desired result to the detriment of the public good. In a lot of circumstances, that type of discretion for attorneys is not fully possible.
HL: Technically under the model rules of professional responsibility you have a specific duty of candor to the court, and then a whole lot of duties to not lie or commit fraud or help anyone do so, and then what my friends and I refer to as narc duties. Narc duties basically mean if you see something, say something. If you know another lawyer is not performing as they should and is not keeping everything confidential, let the bar know. You also kind of have a duty to narc on yourself in these situations.
I say all this very casually because during my entire professional responsibility (aka legal ethics) class, the professor emphasized that the rules aren’t really followed to a tee in the real world. Also, the average passing score on the MPRE (multi-state professional responsibility exam) is roughly a 60% so…
ZA: Candor and honesty to the court and opposing cons, competency and effective written advocacy, and zealous client representation. These concerns are especially salient in the criminal context.
MHF: ETHICS!!! We have some good ethical rules that just simply…get ignored (@ special duties for prosecutors to be arbiters of TRUTH).
I also think being a lawyer is such an honor and privilege and gives you such a powerful tool to create change—so even if you aren’t interested in public service (which is fine!!) USE your legal skills and place in society to at least support those who are being public advocates and to highlight the important issues in the entire profession beyond just what your clients need.
Skylar: I think the beginning of this is sticking to the morals and ethics that they drill into you so hard when you’re in school, which I think can sometimes be forgotten along the way. Otherwise, I think it becomes a real decision to choose what’s right whenever you can - and to make choices that are true to your own values, not JUST the paycheck.
JG: Become involved in organizations that help make laws fair to all.
What is the number one thing, if any, you would like to change about our current overall justice system and why?
RD: The outsized impact that wealth plays in the outcome of cases.
HL: ABOLISH THE SUPREME COURT!!! Get rid of those guys and gals!!!!! If this is off the table, since I will pretty much never interact with the Supreme Court or most federal non-EOIR judges, I think I would like to have some sort of impact on immigrants’ rights in the legal system. Many of the constitutional and other longstanding protections we have throughout the legal process as American citizens are not extended to foreign nationals.
This, combined with the fact that most people (including quittteeeeee a few DHS employees) don’t really know how immigration law works, allows for a lot of abuse of power throughout the immigration process.
CG: Put everyone on the same footing.
ZA: See above. Qualified immunity reform. It’s nearly impossible for a civil rights plaintiff to succeed under the current qualified immunity framework
MHF: How we prosecute crimes/the way prosecution is so often done. Hearing about prosecutors’ offices celebrating lawyers based on their convictions and the number of years they convicted in total is DISGUSTING. Clinging to a conviction for no other reason than to not be found to be wrong. I feel bad to just shit on prosecutors bc some people need to go to jail and many prosecutors are probably awesome people but the system for me is fucked all the way up.
Nico: Detention without trial and cash bail. It is unjust to imprison someone before they’ve had a fair trial, and I just don’t understand why cash bail is a thing at all. Why should your financial circumstances determine whether you’re a flight risk? If anything, those with cash have more to lose and more resources to avoid trial than those who can’t afford bail.
Zachary: Sentencing minimums.
Skylar: The structure and impact of SCOTUS on how laws are made and implemented. While almost every Justice ever will probably tell you they are not in the business of making laws, they do decide if certain laws can be made at all, and how, and those decisions are again becoming increasingly worrisome as the rightward shift has continued to make itself known on the Court as of late.
To be clear, I do not mean to overly dramatize the state of SCOTUS affairs and make everyone think we’re doomed, but when a certain Justice goes around town and blabs about cases they are currently deciding (see: Alito on Hobby Lobby), we’d be remiss not to be at least a bit concerned. Not everything is SCOTUS, and local and state governments and courts are where our actual day-to-day lives tend to be affected, but if the highest court in the land decides tomorrow to take a case to re-litigate gay marriage (Justice Thomas has made clear he would like to see this happen) then we should all be worried how that might go.
I mostly just want people to pay more attention and familiarize themselves with how the whole system really works, so we can get to work on changing it.
What do you hope to personally achieve in your legal career and why?
SH: Become a partner at a law firm.
RD: I’m still asking myself this question. I’m looking for a level of success that allows me to mentor others and support women and people of color in this environment where disparities persist.
HL: My externship advisor says to make small goals along the way, so as of right now I would like to help 100 people immigrate to the United States. After that, maybe I’ll raise it to 500, and after that 1000, and so on. On a much less quantifiable note, I really want to make my clients feel safe and welcome in their new home country. I still don’t know whether I will be working in business, humanitarian, or family-based immigration, so this could look quite different depending on the path I eventually choose.
But having lived in this country my whole life, I know not everyone will always show them the compassion they deserve, and they will at some point doubt whether they made the right choice. I think that they should, at MINIMUM, feel like the person helping them through the complicated and time-consuming process of immigrating is on their side.
CG: 1. Contribute to my happiness with an intellectually stimulating career and money
2. Make a difference in the life of at least one person
ZA: For me, it’s personal. Economic and social stability. Eventually, I want to work for the government and directly help those in my home state.
MHF: I want to feel like in every case I work I’ve made a small impact, even if I lose. I want to get a not-guilty verdict in a trial. I want to work on a case that ends in exoneration (see a person walk out of prison and be freed). I want to find a way to implement resources that support exonerees post-release (because life outside of prison even when you’re found to have been wrongfully incarcerated is HARD AS FUCK). I want to feel like I did something to move the needle toward the abolition of the death penalty. I want to work on a case that changes someone’s death sentence.
Skylar: I think it would be early for me to try to specifically project any real goal, besides just getting through law school, but I would really like to affect real change in whatever way I can, in whatever practice area I wind up in. That’s what matters to me, at the end of the day.
JG: Equity partnership and fun trials.
SJ: Honestly, I am really excited to get to work and produce work product I am proud of. I don't have any set benchmarks for myself, but I will feel like I am successful if I am able to help people, put out a good work product, and engage with complicated legal issues while continuing to learn every day.
SA: I hope to be a voice for minority women since there aren’t many at the firm level.
Do you have any regrets about pursuing this career path? If so, why?
SH: No.
RD: Not so far! Even though law school is really hard I couldn’t imagine myself in a different career. I think it’s fascinating most people I’ve worked with have been incredible.
HL: I complain about law school a lot (a LOT), but at the end of the day I don’t regret pursuing a legal career. I took two years off after graduating from college, so I really had to make a conscious choice to go back to school, which, knowing myself, I wouldn’t have done if I wasn’t fully committed to the career path attached to the degree.
CG: No.
ZA: Yes. I love the law but I hate the intensity, anxiety, and sometimes insanity of the practice of law.
MHF: Sometimes. I sometimes feel really really stressed out about how MUCH work comes with this profession. Also feeling like I won’t ever really feel like a lawyer, some imposter syndrome. But I don’t think I’d want to do anything else professionally.
LF: Lots of lawyers are terrible and so powerful. Another thing that needs to change about our justice system is the stupid Federalist Society.
Nico: Haven’t even attended school yet. Now is the exciting part—the time for regret comes later!
Skylar: Well, not yet! So far, I mostly really enjoy all I’m learning.
JG: Some. Billing is the worst and I have no work/life balance.
SJ: Going to law school (and going straight through from undergrad) is intimidating and scary and has often made me question my worth, academic abilities, and whether I am cut out for this field at all. But I also think it has shown me that I am capable of a lot and I am really excited to put that to work.
My one regret is not having a clearer idea of what I want to do so that I can fully take advantage of all that this part of my legal journey has to offer.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
RD: I’m always happy to talk about law school if anyone’s considering applying feel free to send them my way!1
HL: The number one piece of advice I can give to anyone thinking about going to law school is don’t do it unless you’re absolutely sure it’s necessary for the kind of career/life you are planning for. There are so many people in law school just because of the pandemic, because they have a history degree and didn’t know what to do with it (this is not shade as I do literally have a history degree and, for a time, did not know what to do with it), or because their parent or parents are lawyers and they feel obligated to follow in their footsteps.
Law school is not the kind of thing you just sign up for. The application process, the waiting period, the three years of school, the bar, and all of the BS are only worth it if it’s the only way to achieve some kind of professional goal you have set out for yourself. If you’re not sure this year, that’s ok! Wait a year and think about it again! There’s always time to go back, but once you’re in it you’re in it.
CG: I view big law, the criminal justice system, and then personal legal matters such as tenant work as almost three separate things. Big law probably doesn’t suffer from lack of access to lawyers which is a huge problem for the second two categories, among many other differences.
MHF: Thank you for asking these questions about our profession!! These are so important to use as reflection regardless of what kind of law you are pursuing and working in. OH and also… the law is fake.
SJ: Just that it is really incredible to learn from and with people (especially young people) who are excited and passionate about taking on complex legal issues and I am really looking forward to all the good that my classmates are going to do in the world wherever they end up.
SA: If you want to go to law school and actually make a change, you take a big pay cut and it sucks which is what drives so many people to go into private practice and ignore the issues in our legal system.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this roundtable!!! You’re all brilliant and I would be honored to have each of you as my legal counsel for every single part of my life.
Reach out if you want to be put in contact with RD!