Reflections

-- By LindaMuzere - 23 May 2012

Introduction

As my final major contribution to the wiki I decided to write a retrospective on my first year of law school in the context of major themes from Eben’s course. Critical introspection poses tough questions requiring honest answers. This was incredibly difficult for me as I confronted some hard truths about my character. But by being candid with myself I’ve become constructive about my future. Perhaps others will relate to my reflections and I can forge some missed connections with my classmates.

(First year of) Law School

First semester I was under the naïve impression that law school was about learning; maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much. I was spoiled by my liberal arts education at U Chicago and, after working in operational finance for a few years, I looked forward to returning to an environment in which I could learn something new every day. I had unwavering confidence in my decision and I was happy to work diligently because I knew why I was here.

But by November the warm weather had barely cooled and I was already being asked to consider where I wanted to work the following summer. By second semester the rhetoric went from internships to law firms, and I found myself planning two years in advance for a career path I wasn’t even sure I understood. As the emails from Career Services changed, so did my perspective.

Successful law students fall into roughly one of two categories: 1) natural geniuses and 2) very bright people who work obsessively hard. But in a grade fixated academic environment and job market, actual learning is filtered out by the distraction of a single final exam. If you don’t want to risk someone else getting the job that you may potentially want, you’d better figure out which group you belong to.

I did.

Law school is not about learning; it is about getting jobs. I can acknowledge that a JD is a professional degree and that people go to law school with the expectation of getting a legal job. To an extent, one cannot fault Columbia for providing a service and filling that demand. But for all the reasons we discussed this semester, I think we can agree that our school chose an irresponsible and destructive way to go about it. Law school helps students get jobs by breaking us down without even teaching us how to be good lawyers; what a shame.

I like learning law but I don’t like (Columbia) law school. So why continue?

Motivations (Fear)

In my first paper I wrote about my parents and their survival instincts. To escape the consequences of civil war my parents opened their own doors by becoming the first in their families to go to high school or college. Because of their influence, fear of insecurity and the aggressive pursuit of opportunity became the foundations of my family’s values here.

Growing up in the privileged suburbs of St. Louis and Boston by no means compares to life in southern Sudan. But even in America my family and I are still motivated by a lingering fear for our future.

My father is a professor and is easily the most educated person I know. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the top universities in Uganda and Kenya. He has a PhD? in math from Northwestern and a PhD? in finance from Wash U. On paper it would seem he had secured a very high base quality of life. But in 2008 my father did not receive tenure and he found himself unemployed alongside many others with much lesser qualifications, including myself—a recent college graduate.

Like most immigrants my parents came to the U.S. with no savings and a host of financial obligations. My dad actually went back to school for his second PhD? because he could barely support our immediate and extended family on a math professor’s salary. These past few years have been draining on our entire family and served as a cautionary tale for those of us resting on our private school degrees.

Academia is notoriously cutthroat but so is today’s legal industry. We discussed “covering your nut” in class and rationalized our pending financial burdens. But considering my family’s experiences, and the thought of graduating with $300k in student loans and huge family commitments, I cannot help but be motivated by fear.

A law license is the right to live and practice the life you want. This is not to say that I would be justified in selling my license. But my life has made me very risk averse and I plan on pursuing my most profitable interests.

I will become a lawyer. But what kind of lawyer will I be?

Lawyerland

In “Lawyerland” it was easy to spot the protagonists and antagonists. I want to be in control of my career like Robinson, without being forced to split myself like Wylie. I want to be shrewd and effective like Tharaud but conscious of how I define success, unlike Cerriere. I want to understand the power of the law and use it to my advantage, like Judge Day.

But how will I know who I’ve become?

Courage

Whether right or wrong, John Brown had the courage to act upon his principles in the face of the law. He didn’t ignore the responsibilities of “knowing what should be known” and “doing what should be done.” I need to embody this level of self-awareness and courage before I proceed in my career. This begins with understanding the behavior, functions, and limitations of the law.

This summer I will be interning for the general counsel of a quantitative hedge fund. After the financial crisis I took an interest in regulatory reforms and followed those interests to law school. I don’t know if this is what I want to do with my career, but I’ll be happy to see where it takes me.

I will probably not be a lawyer forever.

I think the essay proceeds by using to sets of alternatives, actually distinct, but sometimes conflated here. There's the opposed pair: "about learning" and "about getting a job." That these are strictly alternates is nowhere demonstrated, and in fact it isn't true. I am trying, in each of my courses in different ways, to help students learn and to help students learn about and choose their careers, for example, and I think that's a consistent position to take. Then there's the idea that security consists in having a job, and that not being someone's employee is insecure. Here too, I wonder why the unexamined premise gets smuggled in. Experience, including experience you relate, shows that having a job is not the same thing as security. While the possession of a license to solicit and represent clients that no one can take away except on a very difficult showing of cause--which from a defeasibility point of view is essentially the same as academic tenure, the most secure form of employment in our savage employment system--is nothing to sneeze at from the security point of view. If, that is, one puts not only enough intellectual equity into the license to develop several areas of profitable expertise, but also develops a network capable of promoting your areas of expertise among potential clients. But networks and knowledge, like the license, are basically indefeasible: whatever you build is solid for a lifetime.

So, when the rather artificial nature of those oppositions is reconsidered, why doesn't the analysis point in the end quite another way?

(995)

I hope to continue working on this piece, and edit my opinions throughout my internship this summer.