Justice for all

As an undergraduate student thinking of going to law school to become a public interest/civil rights/human rights lawyer, I’ve been talking to a lot of attorneys in the recent months. Informational interviews galore. I literally scoured the Northwestern University alumni database and searched for attorneys, both in the corporate and public interest area. I then sent them emails asking if they were willing to chat, and most of them responded immediately and were more than happy to speak about their career paths. I highly recommend conducting as many informational interviews as possible - it gives you an excellent understanding of the field you’re getting into, and what types of career paths people follow.

It was no surprise that corporate lawyers didn’t seem to love their work. Those I spoke with seemed okay with their life, and generally resigned to it. They spoke about the great benefits, salaries, and cushy lifestyle - but none of them actually seemed enthusiastic about whatever they were doing. As I said, this is not surprising.

But what particularly interested me was when I spoke to public interest attorneys, they were highly fulfilled by their work, but they generally told me straight off the bat - “If you want to do public interest work, don’t even start working at a corporate law firm. Just start doing the work you want to ultimately be doing. Period.” I always wanted to find out whether corporate law experience can be helpful in other areas of the law, but apparently, it’s really not.

This is interesting to me because in the field of finance and consulting, for example, private sector experience seems to be valued even in the non-profit world. Organizations like Acumen Fund, various social enterprises, microfinance institutions, and international development organizations all highly value private sector experience. This seems to be the case because business practices can be really useful when it comes to management of non-profits, or even in areas such as marketing, operations, logistics, and so on. Social enterprises also really draw on business practices, so having private sector experience can be valuable in this arena. And of course, work in the financial services field can be parlayed to some extend to work in the microfinance arena.

However, I always thought the same thing about law. I had imagined that working in corporate law would give you a very strong legal training, because firms have so much money to train you well. I thought that working in such a fast-paced environment and getting exposure to corporate law work would equip you with some basic skills that would make you a better attorney. Apparently, though, that’s not at all the case. In the public interest legal field, it’s better to jump into public interest work from the get-go. Start interning, volunteering, taking classes in, and doing clinics in the area of public interest law you’re interested in - whether it’s provision of legal services to the poor, immigration and refugee law, criminal defense work, or international human rights law. Private sector experience is useless, and often it makes you less desirable because public interest employers will think you’re not committed to the sector. On the other hand, it’s possible to transition into the corporate law sector even if you started out in the public interest sector.

I didn’t know any of this before I spoke to people, and it’s definitely shaped my thinking. I always thought it would be fine to go work at a firm for a couple of years, pay off my loans, and then devote my time to public interest work. But, apparently, that’s not the best route to take, as the training provided by big law firms may take the form of an organized program — but it does not allow young associates to gain the level of responsibility that many public interest employers generally provide. Moreover, the skills developed in the corporate law arena (e.g. mergers and acquisitions, securities) aren’t necessarily transferable to the public interest area you might be most interested in.

A word of caution to other aspiring public interest lawyers, from a helpful guide from Yale Law School (I recommend anyone interested in this area of work to read this guide!):

If I work at law firms after I graduate, can I make a switch later to public interest work?

It is possible, but several facts conspire against you. First, you grow accustomed to the money. Just as you cannot imagine making $160,000 a year now, after you’ve made it for a few years you will not be able to imagine making $50,000. You will have expenses that seem necessary. Family and friends will tell you that you are insane. You’ll wonder if it’s fair to the spouse and kids (who, by the way, have been hanging out with other folks who made $160,000 to $2 million). Second, you will then have an uphill battle in actually getting a public interest job. Your resume does not demonstrate commitment to public interest; your experience from a corporate law firm may not demonstrate the needed skills or knowledge. Quite frankly, everyone is a little suspicious about whether you are serious about the cause and if you’ll stay. These can all be overcome by making sure you do lots of pro bono work during private practice, maintain
and cultivate contacts in the public interest community, and continue to live a simple life…but most people working in private practice find it difficult to do these things.

So, the lesson is: do the work you’re interested in now, not later. Don’t postpone it. You’ll get stuck in a life you aren’t passionate about, and you’ll never be able to accomplish your big dreams if you give them up for a high salary and cushy job. In some fields, it might be possible to get your private sector experience AND become a leader in a public interest organization. You might still be able to rise in prominence and affect people’s lives. But if you want to be an attorney, this isn’t the best way to go. So suck it up, get on a loan repayment program, and don’t postpone your dreams. Start living them now; otherwise, it may not even be possible.

A few days ago, amidst my crazy studying for final exams (which I have finally finished!), I ran across this simple, yet immensely poignant “Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice,” by Professor Bill Quigley. Now, I’m not a law student, but I hope to be sometime in the next few years. And, the letter truly touched me. If I could, I’d rewrite every portion of the letter here - because it was just that inspiring and enlightening. But I can’t, and so I’ll focus on a few portions that really spoke to me. In the letter, Quigley says:

Advocates who do not create time for regular reflection can easily become angry and overwhelmed and bitter at the injustices around and ultimately at anyone who does not share their particular view about the best way to respond.

This is so true. When you start thinking about critical issues and social change, and when you get consumed in all the grand ideas of how messed up the world is and what you can do to help - everything else starts to seem a bit more trivial. You start to get really angry when you see people constantly striving to become millionaires, or just trying to climb the corporate ladder. It starts to become extremely frustrating to witness people obsessed with acquiring material possessions and fame.

This is happening to me. For the past week or so, this feeling has been intensifying, as I keep wondering: Why don’t people care more? There are so many ongoing atrocities around the world: conflict, torture, poverty. When there is so much to be done, how can people sit idle? It’s started to make me angry, because I just don’t think it’s right.

True, society is changing, and it’s changing for the better. Every day more people are dedicating time and effort to public service, and the nonprofit industry is becoming mainstream. Social enterprises are pulling talent in with fresh, innovative ideas and business models. But at the end of the day, it’s frustrating to still see so much greed everywhere.

Let’s face it - society’s priorities are completely screwed up. Who said it was okay to have prestige defined by the number of zeroes in your salary, the brand names in your closet, or the cars in your driveway? Why is it considered “cool” to live extravagantly, to have all the latest gadgets? Why does society define people by what they own, and not who they are? We all have our priorities wrong when money and possessions and fame become more important than integrity, humility, passion, and dedication. Prestige needs to be defined by what’s in a person’s heart, by compassion and goodness, and by dedication to a mission larger than yourself - passion for what you do, and passion for changing the world.

This is one of the problems with law school. In his letter, Quigley describes how students enter law school with the desire to help others. Bright eyed and imbued with idealism, they hope to use their legal skills to defend those who need it most. But 2/3 of those who enter law school with interest in government or public sector jobs do not end up in that line of work. Quigley quotes a student who said: “The first thing I lost in law school was the reason that I came.” Why? Because law - and thus, law schools - ultimately isn’t about justice, or upholding some noble ideal. When it comes down to it, much of the legal profession is about making money. He writes:

Unfortunately, the experience of law school and the legal profession often dilute the commitment to social justice lawyering. The repeated emphasis in law school on the subtleties of substantive law and many layers of procedure, usually discussed in the context of examples from business and traditional litigation, can grind down the idealism with which students first arrived. It pains me to say it, but justice is a counter-cultural value in our legal profession. Because of that, you cannot be afraid to be different than others in law school or the profession – for unless you are, you cannot be a social justice lawyer.

There’s the key point - in order to care about others, and want to make a difference in others’ lives - you’re automatically different. This is true for law school, but it’s also true in business school, and for society as a whole. Why is it that if you actually care, you have to be different? An anomaly? Shouldn’t the desire to better the world be something normal? Something admirable, something to aspire to?

But it’s not. I don’t blame individuals for chasing success or money. When society values something, it’s natural for people to gravitate towards that. Not everyone knows what their true passion is, but it’s often because they haven’t been exposed to all the career paths out there, and so turn to society’s conceptions of what to do as a rough guideline. Well, that guideline is skewed, and it needs to be changed.

That’s why before we can help “change the world,” we have to change ourselves. As you, and I, and others one by one decide to go against the grain and work to improve the world we live in, society will undergo a shift. Someday, it’ll become more normal for law schools to emphasize human rights law or public defense. Someday, I’ll have to hope that working on criminal justice reform or microfinance will be as prestigious as being an investment banker or corporate lawyer. We’re not there yet, but I hope someday we will be.