| | |
|
AFancyShingle 8 - 12 Apr 2012 - Main.ElizabethSullivan
|
| | One of the main reasons I was interested in taking this class is to learn more about unconventional legal careers. I don't think of myself as being a very entrepreneurial person, so I've found myself listening to some of what Eben says about working for yourself and doing good while doing well with skepticism. The path he describes sounds great, but I don't see myself who has what it takes to strike out on my own (I imagine other people feel the same way--after all, at least some of us are in law school because we are risk averse). That's why I found this article to be so interesting. The article is fairly light about Casey Greenfield's actual legal qualifications. She went to Yale Law School and worked as an associate for a short time at Gibson Dunn. She also took some time off to work (though it's unclear how relevant her work experience was to her legal career). The article also doesn't tell us too much about the personal traits she has that might make her an exceptional lawyer. The article does emphasize how pretty, privileged, charming and tenacious (at least regarding her own high profile custody battle) she is. I came away from this article with complicated feelings. On the one hand, Casey Greenfield has managed to strike out on the path Eben has been describing to us. She has done so at a fairly young age and without spending a lot of time doing work that she was not interested in. On the other hand, by giving us so little information about her actual legal career and qualifications, the article makes it seem like she has been able to do this because she is very privileged and because she had an out-of-wedlock baby and a high profile child support/custody battle with a famous, married legal commentator. I'd be interested in getting a more nuanced and informative perspective on Casey Greenfield's career and I'll be interested to see where she and her firm are in 20 years. | | | --Main.JessicaWirth-5 Apr 2012 | |
>
> | Thanks for sharing that blog, Jess. I've been tracking his progress since you posted the link with a mix of admiration and unease. Though his motivation for striking out on his own (having failed to secure a job with a firm) might be a bit suspect, I am nevertheless impressed by the fact that he is making the attempt at all. Perhaps I am as impressed as I am because I cannot imagine myself, at this point in my life, doing what he is doing. I think that probably stems from the fact that I am also a bit lacking in entrepreneurial spirit and find comfort in pursuing a path that has been successfully carved out by others before me. Despite this, my apprehension is not something I feel I can fully justify and is something I would truly like to overcome. I have been trying to figure out the best way to deal with this anxiety. I wonder if Eben would encourage those of us with little/no background in business to take some business courses while in law school or if he feels that starting a firm can be done successfully without? My parents own/run their own business (not law related) with what seems to be relative ease, neither having gone to college, let alone business school. I do know that at times having their own business has caused them considerable amounts of stress, as it is only the two of them involved, but that they both greatly enjoy the level of control they have in making important/major life decisions. Having grown up in that atmosphere, I am a bit surprised at my willingness to pursue a career in which I am not in a position to make important decisions myself.
-- ElizabethSullivan - 12 Apr 2012
| | | I am completely in alignment with all of the above commentary and have found this thread enlightening. Thus far, this class has been revelatory for me in that it has helped me to re-shape the contours of my legal career goal into something that entails leveraging my license to have a career that allows me to do good while doing well. However, while venturing out and starting a practice sounds like the way to arrive at that intersection of doing good and doing well, I've been struggling with moving beyond that idea to anything tangible or implementable.
Like everyone identified above, one obstacle fundamental to starting and running your own practice is the risk inherent in entrepreneurship, at least for those of us who are risk-averse, which I am. I too like paths and plans and 'career tracks' and I like the security that comes with thinking that I'm following such a path or plan or track. |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |