I Won't Feel Helpless

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ll feel helpless when it’s all over anyways. Three years and 130K. I’d pay more if they charged it.

Law school is my alternative to feeling helpless. I came to law school hoping to find power, to morph words and logic into positive social change, to protect liberties and human rights with discourse instead of death. How many lives can I impact as a lawyer? It could be thousands, hundreds, or just one person. Maybe I won’t help anyone at all. Maybe I’m just buying an overpriced opportunity to fail. My willingness to pay still stands.

-- ChristopherBuerger - 18 Jan 2008

I think you hit the nail on the head, Chris. I feel exactly the same way.

-- JuliaS - 20 Jan 2008

Chris and Julia: In regards to helping people (in the way that you seem to be describing it), just remember: the context (whether in a firm or elsewhere) in which you work does not mean as much as you may think it does. Others may have different opinions about this, but my (admittedly Midwestern) experience has shown that many firms encourage associates to donate a certain number (50 comes to mind) of pro bono hours annually to the project and client of their choice. Based on the information I’ve received, associates who go beyond the 50 hours are applauded. In addition, I know several attorneys who donate time outside of the work environment to various social programs, including child-focused organizations that are involved in juvenile diversion and child advocacy. Attorneys who have ongoing work experience at firms and who donate time to these types of programs add another voice and oftentimes much-appreciated perspective to the work of those who are working from within the programs themselves. Just make sure that wherever you work, you’re left with the time and energy to do this (minimum billable hours requirements can catch up with you, depending on just how many hours we’re talking about). I’d love to hear from you this coming fall what you did this summer and how you felt about it. Best wishes.

-- BarbPitman - 21 Jan 2008

I have always worried about these "pro bono" hours and really how much "help" they actually provide. If you spend 3,000 hours during year 1 defending GE in toxic tort suits and then donate 50 hours to a non-profit doing breast cancer awareness, I imagine your efforts would have caused more cancer than they prevented. I know this is a pretty crude calculation, but if you have, say 3,000 hours in a given year to work, I just can't see how 50 (or even 150) of them dedicated to "helping people" could counteract the thousands spent defending the status quo.

They may "help" you, but making you feel good/human/etc., but I am just not sure they actually "help others" when all is said and done.

-- AdamCarlis - 21 Jan 2008

Adam, Thanks for your point. Keep in mind that I referred to a combination of both pro bono work within the firm structure and outside work in addition to firm commitments. If you are just looking at official firm sponsored pro bono hours, then I can understand your perspective. But if you approach these efforts from more than just that one angle, you can effect a more balanced approach to practicing law. Secondly, several of the attorneys I know do not do the type of work to which you refer -- plenty of corporate and municipal clients need real estate contracts, bond financings, bankruptcy assistance, etc. In my opinion, it's best not to look at options solely in black-and-white terms -- as I just mentioned, there are plenty of non-litigious ways to be involved in the private practice legal community that don't present the type of ethical dilemma to which you refer. The choice of exactly what you do and how you do it is more yours than I think you are consciously admitting or realizing. (Again, my perspective is Midwest big firm, but I still think that my point of view is applicable, perhaps in a modified form, to other geographic areas and firm structures.) Thanks for your input -- keep it coming if you still think there's something I've missed (I appreciate the learning experience!), and I'd love to hear from others on this as well.

-- BarbPitman - 21 Jan 2008

Adam, wouldn't it make sense to ask why someone who considers it socially harmful to defend toxic torts actions on behalf of GE--as you and I both happen to do--would be caught doing it for even one hour? Why should any lawyer, under all but the most exigent possible circumstances (the "last lawyer in town" situations), ever be doing work she thinks is unethical or socially harmful? No matter what anyone else thinks, if you have a license to practice you are permitted to take clients according to your own view of what constitutes justice. There isn't the slightest reason why--no matter your inclination to pawn--any of you should anticipate a future in which in order to secure your livelihood you will be required to do work you believe is harmful. That should be a predicate of your existence, a definition of integrity: not one of you has so few resources of intellect or character as to be required to sell out what you believe to be right in order to make a living. Instead, our question should be how to ensure that our practices have positive social meaning from our point of view, and are not merely a matter of pawning the instrument for what the market will give.

-- EbenMoglen - 21 Jan 2008