This event has motivated me to see myself as a future business owner (law practice) with skills, assets and resources to manage. Those brave young women run their own non-profit organizations under dangerous conditions and I’m inspired to do the same. My ideal practice would be in International Law and Human Rights. I’d like my practice to specialize in transnational cases, preferably advising and consulting. I like the work that Sarah Cleveland has done with Jamaican cane workers, addressing the Supreme Court on the detention policy of the United States in the ‘War on Terror’ and her advisory role in constitutional drafting in post Arab Spring countries.

I envision my clients to be non profit organizations, nations, corporations, and individuals. Organizations that currently take on cases and activities that I would like to be engaged in are the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, The ACLU and also corporate firms who do pro bono work like Paul Weiss.

The type of classes that I’ll need to take to be an International Human Rights lawyer will be: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs, Human Rights Law, International Trade Law, the seminar on Law, Economics and Development, International Law, Global Constitutionalism, Critical Legal Thought (Katherine Franke), Lawyering Across Legal Orders, Anti-Discrimination Law, Equality and Disparity: Contemporary Issues (O. Johnson), International Environmental Law, Energy Law and Immigration Law

Classes that I will benefit from for breadth in my learning are: Corporations, Commercial Finance, Advanced Corporate Law Mergers and Acquisitions, Anti Trust and Trade Regulation, Advanced Legal Research Techniques, Deals and Wills & Trusts. Useful student clubs will be CSIL and CIAA

Clinics and externships: The United Nations Externship, the Human Rights Clinic, the Colloquium on Comparative Law and the Diversity and Innovation Clinic, Mediation Clinic Faculty members that could mentor me in my chosen areas are people like George Berman, Anu Bradford, Sarah Cleveland, M. Gerrard and Eben Moglen.

Learning external to law school that would be beneficial for running a business are: basic accounting and event planning. Soft skills that are helpful and cannot be learned in a course are organizational skills, time management, the ability to identify talent in people, reading body language and learning to network and be charismatic. There are books on all these topics that can offer guidance but the true development of these skills takes everyday practice and trial and error in life situations.

Leveraging the Columbia University network is a complex task. It could be as simple as asking a professor to put in a good word with a colleague for you, or getting a letter of recommendation but the challenge is deciphering who is connected to who and who has meaningful influence. Knowing the class year and background of people you meet can help in deciphering the people they are connected to but it’s laborious. The better way to leverage a network is simply being open with people about what you want, where you’d like to work and whom you would like to meet. Revealing strategic information lets other people make the connections for you.

My greatest allies in developing my lawyering skills are my professors, professional contacts (gained through attending events, using alumni contact information, and referrals) and my classmates in the law school. Organizations that wish to have access to lawyers trained in Human Rights and International law will also have a vested interest in making contacts with a potential employee.

Ultimately this plan is a work in progress but the guiding principle for me is “to whom much is given, much is expected”. There are people younger and less educated than I am who have the confidence to start and run their own companies, therefore once I can acquire the necessary lawyering skills, there is no reason I should not attempt to start my own practice; or at the very least to develop my skills as if I intended to run my own practice.

That's just not true. And the only people who could be fooled into believing it are the ones at law school(s) number 4 in the meaningless ranking system. Here are some of the most privileged people in the world, whose opportunities for prosperity and significance are unimaginable to more than 99.98% of the human race, worrying about whether they can succeed in life. Were it not so ludicrous, it would be obscene.

Did you proofread this? What has "Thurgood" to do with "The Folklore of Capitalism"? These memes you are describing above and below aren't creeds, in Arnold's sense, at all. They have nothing to do with defining the boundaries of organization. They're dogma, but of a different kind.

Debt Slavery

Why? The proportion of the price bought with future earnings in itself doesn't tell us anything. Inherently, any ability to pay a present price with future earnings is desirable, when the present purchase increases future earning power. There can be no doubt that having a law license increases future earning power. So the question is solely whether the price of the service and the money are both reasonable. Much as there is to deplore about the present state of Columbia Law School, there's no doubt in my mind that, properly used, the resources available here are well worth their price of purchase for every single student. Because, however, student loans are presently priced absurdly, students who don't need them shouldn't take them, which means that law school, like other forms of social mobility in America, is being sharply biased towards the rich.

Debt is the 21st century enforcer of the American dream and the instrument of the protestant ethos of "work hard, for hard work's sake" in the religion of capitalism in modern America. Debt is what drives recent college graduates to trade their lives to the U.S military for loan forgiveness, it's what keeps law students who have seen "the man behind the curtain" in the profession, it makes banks too big to fail and makes the American workforce prostitute their youth, intellect, bodies, health and sanity to 60 hour work weeks and minimum wage jobs working at multiple places on contract. The fear that debt foments is the instrumentality of control in modern society.

So there's politics to do, and you should be trying to get it done. But in the meantime, the nut's a little larger because of the artificially high rate. You prepay where you can, you wait for an opportunity to refinance your student debt by one means or another, you postpone consumption occasionally, and you get on with your practice. The idea that the debt is a life-altering disability is not debt-slavery, it's delusion-slavery.

Taking Responsibility

Externalizing and disassociating the problem to "the system" is both a truth and an excuse for the besieged law student. The manacle of debt does what it is meant to do. It disempowers students in an arena where they should be empowered. Legal Education at its best should be a tool of empowerment that aids the individual and groups to change their reality. It's an education in understanding the framework of civilization that helps people to strategize the reshaping of their world. Thus, taking responsibility for what was likely the bad decision of coming to a $50,000 tuition law school in a bad job market, in the world's declining hegemon, is ultimately on the student. It is the student's shortcoming for not demanding that the university, legislators and banks make education more affordable across the board, and not pressing on the argument of the unconstitutionality of making student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. In 1975 when this law was debated it was argued that "students should not be singled out for special discriminatory treatment in a denial of their right to equal protection of the laws". That argument should still be valid today. Generation Y will carry the social security system of the the preceding generations, along with student debts at interest rates higher than they've ever been and with zero to little real assets. As a group, student debtees are singled out by the federal government for discriminatory treatment in lending.

The Self Taught, $240,000, CLS graduate

One option after owning up to poor decision making and fear is dropping out and fighting the debt burden through personal litigation, a restructured payment plan that you never actually pay off or lobbying to legislators. "Door One" is always an option. The other option for changing the path of the overly academic, expensive legal education at a private law school is not well travelled but a feasible one for those who have the courage. Participating in semester externships and volunteering at legal organizations for a cause you believe in can help with gaining practical legal education. The other option is finding a mentor who is a practitioner of the law, who is willing to expose you to a working practice and will allow you to take on real world tasks and interacting with clients. Lastly it's about having the confidence to be self employed even now, attempting to do legal work for pay whenever possible and creating opportunities for yourself.

The first half of the draft sounds like panic, and the second half sounds like a speech. My response to the first part, as you see, is to wrestle with its premises at every turn. My response to the second is, let's get real.

First, then, I think it's important to stop hyperventilating. It's true that there's a mortgage. That's no big deal. People who buy houses have mortgages. Interest is subsidized by the income tax deduction. It's true that your rate is too high. You need to deal with that by every means possible. Your prosperity for the next few years will be reduced by the tax you are paying through the political manipulation of your interest rate. But your practice has a nut which is slightly larger than it should be, so you will be careful to pay less office rent, to cut your research bill near zero, and you may decide to have one less support worker than you need. In other words, your debt is a business issue for your practice, not a life-limiting disease.

Second, speech-making about the debt is a waste of time, as speech-making about any business issue in your practice is a waste of time. It would be nice if the ABA and other professional associations were lobbying on your behalf, but you're not their members and they don't give a damn. The right venue of lobbying is in the Columbia University-Chuck Schumer channel. That doesn't work naturally because Senator Schumer's real constituency, the finance industry, doesn't have your interests as a debtor very close to heart. And Columbia, as you notice, doesn't give a damn about your high interest rate because of price inelasticity in the educational services product it is selling you.

What will help you is ceasing to waste your time panicking about a debt that shouldn't be panic-inducing, and also about the politics of the interest rate, which are disgusting but not presently fixable. Instead you need to be getting yourself ready to practice. What skills and expertise are you going to need in the portion of your practice devoted to making money? Where are your paying clients or donors going to come from, and how can Columbia Law School's network connect you to them? What non-profit activities do you want your practice to engage in? Who besides yourself is going to support these activities? If you want to solve the problem you see before you, stop looking at the problem overall and start building your personal solution. The next draft should address questions at that level.