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DianaAvilaFirstEssay 5 - 06 May 2024 - Main.DianaAvila
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| | | And when I say that, I don’t mean I regret coming or that I do not want to continue, but more so thinking about the future of my community, my own future, and all the “collateral damage” that may come with the career choices I make. In Law and Contemporary Society,, we are always grappling with what kind of attorney we want to be and whether following some kind of “standard” is even beneficial to us. But yet what does that standard even look like for me? Very few people like me make it to places like these and it’s almost like we’ve fought for our lives to do so. And that’s another complication in my process. | |
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< | I find myself thinking and a sense of guilt always gets triggered. Will future me be upset that I followed a path that allowed me to live a life I would like to live? Or does the guilt of “letting home down” never go away? Ideally, I know I would want to be in a place of financial security because I know what insecurity is. And if we are honest criminal defense doesn’t pay too well.
I don't understand this statement. Criminal defense practice pays depending on the social class of defendants the practice represents. Wealthy people and middle class people pay what they can afford to stay out of jail. Salaried lawyers who represent indigent defendants on public budgets aren't well paid, but there are many defense lawyers who make a fine living from, among other clients, indigent CJA defendants appointed in and paid by the federal courts.
I would walk out of this place with debt and without a solution that would vastly impact that. Choosing a path that was not my planned one gives me the opportunity to take care of those I love in a different way. I would be able to provide and support. This seems like a great life, but it almost feels selfish. | >
> | I find myself thinking and a sense of guilt always gets triggered. Will future me be upset that I followed a path that allowed me to live a life I would like to live? Or does the guilt of “letting home down” never go away? Ideally, I know I would want to be in a place of financial security because I know what insecurity is. Which means having to balance accessibility to clients and financial circumstances to avoid walking out of this place with debt and without a solution that would vastly impact that. Choosing a path that was not my planned one gives me the opportunity to take care of those I love in a different way. I would be able to provide and support. This seems like a great life, but it almost feels selfish. | | |
On the other hand, it almost feels like a moral obligation. All those experiences that I went through just to put them on the back burner? Although I know that by myself I will not be able to dismantle over policing and the criminalization of people of color, I have always had faith in putting my small contribution into the bowl. It’s an obligation to my community to assure that they receive the ardent advocacy they receive after being failed time after time. Because I truly believe that the best advocates are those who actually understand us.
As my time progresses in law school, it feels like I need to make a decision fast. Because truthfully two years fly. But realistically, can a decision like this really be made on a whim? Do I let myself finally choose something new that I am intrigued by and ignore the selfish feeling or do I choose what I already had planned and risk insecurity? One thing is for certain, I’m at a place where my identity as a future attorney is constantly molding and changing. All I could hope for is that somehow, some way I still become an attorney with integrity that finds a way to impact her community. Whether it be here or there, I just want to fulfill that need to help, but also to finally choose myself for once. | |
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So perhaps you want to plan a practice in which by controlling whom you represent you are also able both to serve communities with which you identify and also to meet the material and intellectual as well as the social and political needs of your practice. Criminal defense is an area in which building one's own practice is not only possible but common. Many students who have worked with me in "Planning Your Practice" planned practices involving criminal defense. Instead of thinking of this as a conflict to be determined by job choice, why not think of the balance among interests and needs as the arena in which a lawyer's own decisions about her practice are shaped?
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