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WinningTheLottery 13 - 08 Feb 2009 - Main.MichaelDreibelbis
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Today, in the midst of the broader discussion of the Arnold reading, Professor Moglen talked about “winning the lottery”. I’ve thought about this frequently – that the place where I am today, and indeed most of the places I’ve gone in my life, were predetermined by the time and place where I was born. Obviously there have been choices made along the way, but I’m not interested in addressing how frequently these choices were actually conscious decisions or to what extent a conscious decision can even be reached. Rather, I’d like to address the issues that arise for me when I presume that my privileged position in life is largely due to random chance. | | | There have been some comments made above concerning the value of using our potential wealth as lawyers to fund efforts of promoting justice versus working as lawyers for the public interest ourselves. On the one hand, it is true that money is powerful in today's world. Surely many organizations working to promote justice are strapped for cash and could accomplish more if they were better funded. On the other hand, the true strength of any organization comes from the power of the minds behind that organization. You can fund a cause with as much money as you want, but unless the right talent is behind that cause nothing will ever be accomplished. When we talk about "winning the lottery," I think we should focus more on the fact that we have been given the opportunity to develop our minds into effective tools for promoting justice rather than that we have been given the opportunity to be financially well-off.
-- JustinPurtle - 08 Feb 2009 | |
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Selflessness is Overrated
I think we are making a big mistake if we frame our career search as a choice between selfishness and selflessness: wealthy, soulless corporate lawyer or poor, noble public interest lawyer. For the many of us who do not have interests which fit neatly into the rubric of public interest law, this kind of thinking is probably only going to lead only as far as a couple of short guilt trips before we accept a career path with long hours, uninspiring content, and zero creative control.
Instead of constructing this false dichotomy, I think we should be asking ourselves, first, where is my community? Once we've figured that out, the second question is, how can I develop a legal practice which benefits my chosen community? Framing the question this way makes a couple things clear:
- The first question is the hard question.
- The first question is not actually a professional question at all; it's a personal one.
- The reason why we all end up going to big firms is not that we're evil, or even selfish, it's that we haven't answered the first question. We are all so busy getting A's on our homework and getting into the next big school that we never quite get around to the first question. And once there's no more school to go to, and somebody's willing to give us a safe paycheck and a safe answer to the first question, we take it.
- After devoting our whole lives to maximizing our own potentiality and keeping our options open, answering the first question requires that we stop asking ourselves what we can do to become more powerful and starting asking ourselves questions like: “what interests me? What kinds of people do I want to be around? What kinds of day-to-day activities do I want to do with those people?"
- Answering the first question should take us to a place where we feel excited to be, not guilty about not being
- The second question is probably pretty easy. Everyone needs a lawyer. Once we each figure out where we fit, it should not be hard to figure out how to make a living off of our trade.
-- MichaelDreibelbis - 08 Feb 2009 | | |
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