I did not always intend to go to law school. After college, I worked in research at a major bank. The job was well paid and often challenging, though not quite as rewarding. In three years crunching the numbers, it became clear that much of the planet was in a race to secure raw materials--copper, oil, ore, water and even air. While these themes made for lucrative investment ideas, I was reminded of a loosely Malthusian constraint on growth: in an increasingly crowded world, there's only so much stuff to go around. I spent two more years searching out a career foothold in the alternative energy industry. When the economy contracted, law school became a chance to better understand how emerging policies governing resource extraction and consumption turn into law.

-- MichaelDuignan - 17 Jan 2010