It’s never sat well with me being categorized as one of “The privileged” simply because I’ve had access to tertiary education. I’ve always been very aware of my family’s economic and class origins. My maternal grandmother was a single parent and worked as a cleaner for middle class Venezuelans in order to send money to Trinidad to support her three children being cared for by her relatives. My paternal grandfather worked for white, expatriate, Englishmen on oil rigs for 20 years until he opened his own well servicing business. My parents lifted themselves out of extreme poverty to create a better life. All this is to say that I am ever aware of the people I come from and thus having access to a privileged world and “the key to power” via the law, seems farcical to me rather than a defining point of who I am.

In an attempt to center myself and reconnect with my motivations for choosing a legal career I attended the 2013 “Women in the World Conference” on April 4-5th. Although it was an extravagant, corporate sponsored, publicity extravaganza for celebrities and corporations seeking to gender their brand’s image, one event stood out because of two young women. Humaira Bachal (Founder of the Dream Foundation Trust) and Khalinda Brohi (Founder of Sughar Women Program) risk their lives daily to open schools and community centers for girls and women in Afghanistan. They work under the threat of violence from the men in their rural communities who believe that educating women is a threat to their power over their community. These young women are being threatened for simply teaching young women to read and create crafts. This fact struck a nerve for me because it’s the first time I felt, and not simply acknowledged, that having the chance to attend a top graduate school in the world is an opportunity I should make the most of, not simply for myself but to honor those who sacrifice greatly to pursue their right to education.

This event has fueled my interest in viewing myself as a future business owner (a 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.

The Risky Business of Law School

A characterization of the law student personality is “Type-A, risk averse, control freak”, the implication being that becoming a lawyer is something safe and manageable; a veritable nirvana for the neurotic. However, given the realities of the shrinking legal job market, particularly in Big Law, the option of law school is now akin to the risk taking behavior of asking your drug dealer if he accepts IOUs after a second hand needle shot of heroin. Opting to attend any American law school, perhaps with the exception of the top three, becomes the pursuit of the willfully ignorant and/or delusional, fed on the bedtime story of a pre-2008 world or it is a respite for the hopeless with a penchant for high stakes gambling.

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.

The creed of legal education (Thurgood, The Folklore of Capitalism) “you are safe, you are someone” continues to be promulgated by top 14 law schools.

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.

Simultaneously outside of the alabaster walls of academia, the hew populist creed forged in the vicissitudes of homelessness, poverty and high unemployment has invaded even the hallowed halls of the American Bar Association, the new creed being "the system is broken".

Debt Slavery

The unjustifiably high cost of legal education is a major component of the "broken system". The cost of legal education in the last 5 years has outpaced inflation and "among private law school graduates, the average debt in 2011 is $125,000."

I don't understand what sort of argument it is to say that a price has gone up faster than inflation. We've established that demand for that good or service grew with respect to supply, so the price in real dollars rose. But that alone doesn't give us a basis to infer anything else. As for the loan debt of law school graduates, the principle is reasonable, and shouldn't concern us much; the problem is that the interest rate is absurdly high.

Regarding my personal debt burden, factoring in my undergraduate loans along with the 7.9% interest rate of my Graduate Plus Loan, I will owe almost $300,000 in debt to the U.S. Federal Government if I graduate in three years. Every law student with a loan that is greater than 50% of their total cost of education could be called "a debt slave".

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.

Which is altogether true about working class people, while being a shameful dodge from law students who are being given, in return for the price they pay, a license and a network more than sufficient to earn a fortune in almost any walk of life they choose. The debt is an economic problem only because the mortgage involved is too expensive, not because (even at this ridiculous rate) it will be an unbearable burden for young lawyers to discharge through earnings from their practices. What you have to fear, therefore, is fear itself. The debt is a nuisance: you need to refinance your practice as early as you can, because of these absurd and politically-determined rates. And so?

As most Generation Y narcissists (middle class, privileged, usually white young people) are wonton to do, the first instinct might be to blame others for the trap that we've walked into.

Wont isn't wonton. Did you proofread, or were dumplings on your mind?

"Generation Me" can blame the system itself for victimizing the law student, Congress for rescinding Subsidized Stafford Loans for graduate school, parents for not lobbying on their behalf, the law schools for charging a ransom in tuition, the tenured, high pay, low productivity, theoricians of the law a.k.a law professors, or the complacent, "Generation Me"; apolitical, irreligious, disciples of the Holy Trinity of the Church of Jobs-Page-Zuckerberg; a generation that cannot muster the energy to critique the establishment much less fight for our own educational and economic justice.

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.

As the issue of empowerment relates to the collective group of indebted law students, as a whole a committee for legal education reform could accomplish much through networking. Bringing media coverage to the issue through protests, articles, petitioning to legislative representatives, imploring high powered alumni, filing a collective action lawsuit or even a lawsuit meant to bring the issue attention, can all help in reforming legal education and the profession. However, the most important element is leveraging the network of family, friends and alumni to aid their sons, daughters, friends, cousins and mentees, in becoming whole, empowered lawyers who serve the interests of people rather than corporations.