(Career) Identity Crisis

Rewrite by Michael Panfil

-- Edit of MisanIkomi - 27 Feb 2009

The sky is falling (or is it?)

I should be a lawyer? Okay!

But what does it mean to actually practice law?

Conclusion

The sky is falling (or is it?)

The word, I think, is nebulous. Ask most law students about their future and that’s the answer you get back. Sometimes you hear, “I want to be a lawyer.” Others say, “I want to help people.” Slightly more honest, but equally confused talk about money. We’ve all been told we’re smart kids with a bright future, and with law as a stereotypical mold for such impressionable clay we buy a ticket to life’s next step.

I can relate to four-year-old Misan. I think the current iteration of Misan can as well. We all want to be lawyers, but have no idea what being a lawyer really means. Some people can point to a moment of epiphany, but I’m of the “fell into law school” variety. Either way, the problem is constant – “what does actually practicing law mean for me?”

I should be a lawyer? Okay!

People talk about how risk adverse law students are as a group. Indeed, if there is a take home message of first year law, it is that we long for stability. Perhaps we’re all unified in other ways – a love to ‘argue’, to logic through a problem, or to think in sets of solutions rather than sets of questions – but at the end of our third year, the law school tells me this longing for stability will be the one true unifier. This could be true, that law school attracts the risk adverse, but this chosen profession certainly does its part in promoting the trait. From the moment I began class risk aversion hasn’t just been talked about, its been drilled into my head as something to obtain.

Of course, risk aversion would be nothing without a helping hand. We’re told options are limitless, but it is a defined limitlessness. Working for yourself isn’t an option - it is career suicide. Getting the most prestigious job isn’t just a good idea; it’s the ultimate goal. More money means less risk, which, I’m told, is something I’ve wanted all along. These are all goals, and they are described with the greatest of care and in grandiose terms. I’ve met partners who tell me about constitutions their firm has written. I’ve met public interest lawyers who tell me about all the good they are doing. They do, unfortunately, leave out the how and the why.

But what does it mean to actually practice law?

There is something to be said for every ‘law school certified’ option after graduation. However, most of us will, statistically speaking, be working at a firm in two years (although perhaps with this economy, I assume too much). Misan wants to know what this means. I do too. We both have the same information, similar experiences, and access to lawyers. However, no real answer is forthcoming. How could it be? What incentive does a lawyer have to tell you about all encompassing document review? What partner would explain exactly what that means? The initial truth, that I will be little more than a cog if I work at a firm, is no myth to promote.

Conclusion

So where does Misan turn? How do we go about finding purpose and answers? Figuring out what I want is always harder than it seems, because no one else can tell you that. This is where the uncomfortable feeling begins. It is a question with no universal answer, and what makes firm temptation so great. However, I have to believe it is a question with an answer. An answer found not through structure, but honest advice. A meaning found in reflection and in looking at career paths as possibilities rather than limitations.

Perhaps we do make it up as we go along, but that is, I think, the goal. An uncomfortable goal, no doubt, but one that affords some control. Because, if we’re not making it up, the only other option is to continue to let others make it up for us. As Professor Moglen points out, we all have the freedom to chose the latter, and receive a structured life in return. Whatever gain that may be, however, to me, isn’t worth the cost.

A Quick Note:

Misan: I thought my rewrite of your paper might need a bit of explanation. When I first read your paper, I saw a set of questions, doubts, and thinking that I’ve also been concerned about. I’ve spent a lot of time this semester asking the same questions you have, and wanted to build upon your paper because of this. In earlier versions, I tried to limit my rewrite to edits and changes of your paper, but found this unworkable. Your experiences have led you to the questions in this paper, and only you could possibly have access to these experiences. I’ve found myself in a similar situation, but through a different set of experiences. Because of this I settled on what you see above – a build upon your paper from my perspective. I tried to narrow the focus to what I responded to in your paper – questions of what exactly a firm is, why no firm answer is forthcoming, and a response that doesn’t cede freedom for structure. I’m hoping that this added to what your paper had to say, and clarified some of the thinking rather than taking away from it. I’d be interested in hearing any feedback from you, because this is one of the more important questions we need to think about during law school.

• I don't see where you "built upon" the draft you started from. You've asked most of its questions twice, but that was merely loosening the draft—which primarily needed tightening—rather than building upon it.

• What I do see here is a renewed insistence on the idea that you should know at the end of your first year in law school how to do what you're going to do. But you haven't decided what to do yet, and are in fact still dithering over whether to decide to do anything, or instead to allow someone else to make use of you without affording you any external direction at all. In view of which, it would be mighty difficult to teach you how to do what cannot yet be named.

• In fact, skills are acquired and sharpened in light of objectives. Counselors and litigators don't do the same work and aren't trained the same way. So instead of asking about jobs, ask other people about their lives, and think about your own.