|
NoelleWilliamsFirstEssay 4 - 02 Jun 2017 - Main.NoelleWilliams
|
|
>
> | Revision 4 is unreadable | |
<
< |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
|---|
The Lawyer’s To-Do List
-- By NoelleWilliams - 13 Mar 2017
Section I - The Problem: What is “Good Lawyering?”
“Lawyering is the process of making things happen in society using words.” While, I’m still not entirely convinced that this premise fully encapsulates lawyering as a profession, I do think the phrase itself has merit in its simplicity; it clearly defines the process of lawyering and the means by which it takes place. One of the major themes of Law and Contemporary Society has been “how do I become a good lawyer,” a concept that many in the class, myself included, have struggled to grasp. We’ve read accounts of the lives and careers of various attorneys in Lawrence Joseph’s Lawyerland, and used these characters as a basis for discussion of what good lawyering looks like (and in some cases, what it does not look like), but how do we think about good lawyering in the context of our own lives? It’s easy to look at these characters as caricatures and to judge them harshly for their flaws, but how do we avoid becoming the archetypes we mock?
Section II - What Makes “Good Lawyering” Complex?
The biggest challenge for Columbia Law students is distinguishing a prestigious career from a meaningful one, assuming, of course, that effectively executing good lawyering involves innovation and results in meaningful work. Law students chase perfect grades, plum editorial positions on Law Review, prestigious clerkships, and coveted Associate positions in Big Law. And everyone thinks this is good. It’s not necessarily bad. After all, M&A lawyers affect changes in the economy through words, but does this work represent the “good” we mean when we think about “good lawyering?” Attorneys often sleepwalk down a career path, collecting tokens and accolades as they go, but the sum of these parts is status, which is not necessarily correlated to creativity or meaningfulness. But is the fulfillment problem unique to law firm life and is it inevitable?
Pursuing a career in the vague abyss of “public interest” appears to fit neatly within the context of what’s often considered “good lawyering,” yet C. Oliver Robinson’s experience in Lawyerland illuminates the strategizing and political angling necessary to navigate a legal system in which true “justice” can be illusory. Robinson’s experience shows us that a desire to do “good work” is not necessarily enough to achieve this end and that mental coping mechanisms such as denial and rationalization can be just as necessary in a public interest career as they are in Big Law.
Thus, in spite of the perceived differences and preconceived notions of the types of people they attract, both the private and public sectors are unable to produce a definition of “good lawyering” solely by virtue of the work performed by the lawyers in these sectors. Consequently, it seems that external validation, measured either by our own accomplishments or those of other lawyers, is not a valid measure of good lawyering. Without some valid measure of “good lawyering,” the odds of us accomplishing it are significantly reduced, and any acts of good lawyering that we manage to perform will be random and sporadic, rather than conscious systematic acts.
Section III - “Good Lawyering:” A Working Definition
However, a goal-oriented approach is essential to understanding the concept of “good lawyering.” It’s imperative to keep the goal of meaningful work at the top of mind to ensure that it doesn’t get lost in the fray of daily work stressors. The crux of the issue is defining the process by which this goal will be met. While “good lawyering” may look different to each individual striving to practice it, if the definition is broad enough, it can be universally applicable and this is where analyzing the definition of “lawyering” may present a helpful model. If lawyering is a process, the “good lawyering” is some sort of modified form of this activity. Perhaps the question of “good lawyering” is really a proxy for “what problems do I want to solve with my legal education, and how can I succeed despite various legal and non-legal obstacles?” If this is the case, then defining good lawyering requires deciding the type of “good” you want to achieve with your legal knowledge, and ensuring that all of your career decisions are in deliberate furtherance of this goal.
This conception of “good lawyering” is useful because creating a functional definition allows us to transform “good lawyering” from a laundry list of achievements into a single method for evaluating the value of particular choices. I do not mean to oversimplify or trivialize the significance of or challenges associated with doing meaningful legal work. I only wish to propose that we shift our thinking about how to achieve this goal and the necessary components of success. The benefit of this reframing is that it allows individuals to actively pursue good lawyering in almost any type of post-graduation legal work. Also, by continuously working towards this goal though a series of discrete, purposeful decisions and actions, young lawyers may avoid the disillusionment and burnout experienced by many of the attorneys featured in Lawyerland.
While this framework requires individuals to identify their own priorities, it is not meant to allow them to justify trivial work. The ideal definition of “good lawyering” should not be a crutch, but rather a compass that helps practicing lawyers to recalibrate and refocus during the seemingly inevitable moments of inner turmoil and emotional conflict associated with lawyering.
It is nearly impossible for young lawyers to conceive of what a career forged in creative lawyering looks like and even more challenging to design and execute a plan to achieve this unfathomable end. Networking and mentorship can be valuable tools to expose neophytes to new ideas and opportunities. However, in addition to external feedback, it’s critical for individuals to have a simple, but effective standard to continually evaluate their progression towards good lawyering.
The best route to improvement of the next draft is economy. You use
far too many words in this draft to say what can be said briefly.
Everything before the jump can be reduced to: "Other's opinions
about whether I am successful don't make me a good lawyer."
Everything after the jump can be reduced to "Good lawyering is
lawyering that is in furtherance of my personal goals." Developing
the first point is not very difficult, and can be done in two
paragraphs at most. The second part of the argument is more
problematic. Good lawyering cannot be said to consist solely in its
motivation, or in its consistency with personal ideology. That's
evident once one clears away the extra words. Technical skill,
social effectiveness, ethical integrity—a number of additional
elements are immediately apparent, even before analysis begins.
Once hard editing has created space, this is what it should probably
be used for.
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:
Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules for preference declarations. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of these lines. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated ALLOWTOPICVIEW list. |
|
|
NoelleWilliamsFirstEssay 3 - 11 May 2017 - Main.EbenMoglen
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
|---|
| |
<
< | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | The Lawyer’s To-Do List | | | It is nearly impossible for young lawyers to conceive of what a career forged in creative lawyering looks like and even more challenging to design and execute a plan to achieve this unfathomable end. Networking and mentorship can be valuable tools to expose neophytes to new ideas and opportunities. However, in addition to external feedback, it’s critical for individuals to have a simple, but effective standard to continually evaluate their progression towards good lawyering.
| |
>
> |
The best route to improvement of the next draft is economy. You use
far too many words in this draft to say what can be said briefly.
Everything before the jump can be reduced to: "Other's opinions
about whether I am successful don't make me a good lawyer."
Everything after the jump can be reduced to "Good lawyering is
lawyering that is in furtherance of my personal goals." Developing
the first point is not very difficult, and can be done in two
paragraphs at most. The second part of the argument is more
problematic. Good lawyering cannot be said to consist solely in its
motivation, or in its consistency with personal ideology. That's
evident once one clears away the extra words. Technical skill,
social effectiveness, ethical integrity—a number of additional
elements are immediately apparent, even before analysis begins.
Once hard editing has created space, this is what it should probably
be used for.
| | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
|
|
NoelleWilliamsFirstEssay 2 - 13 Mar 2017 - Main.NoelleWilliams
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
|---|
It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | | | Section I - The Problem: What is “Good Lawyering?”
“Lawyering is the process of making things happen in society using words.” While, I’m still not entirely convinced that this premise fully encapsulates lawyering as a profession, I do think the phrase itself has merit in its simplicity; it clearly defines the process of lawyering and the means by which it takes place. One of the major themes of Law and Contemporary Society has been “how do I become a good lawyer,” a concept that many in the class, myself included, have struggled to grasp. We’ve read accounts of the lives and careers of various attorneys in Lawrence Joseph’s Lawyerland, and used these characters as a basis for discussion of what good lawyering looks like (and in some cases, what it does not look like), but how do we think about good lawyering in the context of our own lives? It’s easy to look at these characters as caricatures and to judge them harshly for their flaws, but how do we avoid becoming the archetypes we mock? | |
<
< | Section II - Why is “Good Lawyering” A Nebulous Concept?
The biggest challenge for Columbia Law students is distinguishing a prestigious career from a meaningful one, assuming, of course, that effectively executing good lawyering results in meaningful work. Aspiring lawyers perform incessant drills to achieve the perfect LSAT score and gain admission to the top law schools where they then chase perfect grades, plum editorial positions on Law Review, prestigious clerkships, and coveted Associate positions at white shoe law firms. And everyone thinks this is good. It’s not necessarily bad. After all, M&A lawyers affect changes in the economy through words, but does this work represent the “good” we mean when we think about “good lawyering”? Attorneys often sleepwalk down a career path, collecting tokens and accolades as they go, but the sum of these parts is status, which is not necessarily correlated to creativity or meaningfulness. But is the fulfillment problem unique to law firm life and is it inevitable? | >
> | Section II - What Makes “Good Lawyering” Complex?
The biggest challenge for Columbia Law students is distinguishing a prestigious career from a meaningful one, assuming, of course, that effectively executing good lawyering involves innovation and results in meaningful work. Law students chase perfect grades, plum editorial positions on Law Review, prestigious clerkships, and coveted Associate positions in Big Law. And everyone thinks this is good. It’s not necessarily bad. After all, M&A lawyers affect changes in the economy through words, but does this work represent the “good” we mean when we think about “good lawyering?” Attorneys often sleepwalk down a career path, collecting tokens and accolades as they go, but the sum of these parts is status, which is not necessarily correlated to creativity or meaningfulness. But is the fulfillment problem unique to law firm life and is it inevitable? | | | Pursuing a career in the vague abyss of “public interest” appears to fit neatly within the context of what’s often considered “good lawyering,” yet C. Oliver Robinson’s experience in Lawyerland illuminates the strategizing and political angling necessary to navigate a legal system in which true “justice” can be illusory. Robinson’s experience shows us that a desire to do “good work” is not necessarily enough to achieve this end and that mental coping mechanisms such as denial and rationalization can be just as necessary in a public interest career as they are in Big Law.
Thus, in spite of the perceived differences and preconceived notions of the types of people they attract, both the private and public sectors are unable to produce a definition of “good lawyering” solely by virtue of the work performed by the lawyers in these sectors. Consequently, it seems that external validation, measured either by our own accomplishments or those of other lawyers, is not a valid measure of good lawyering. Without some valid measure of “good lawyering,” the odds of us accomplishing it are significantly reduced, and any acts of good lawyering that we manage to perform will be random and sporadic, rather than conscious systematic acts.
Section III - “Good Lawyering:” A Working Definition | |
<
< | However, a goal-oriented approach is actually essential to understanding the concept of “good lawyering”. It’s imperative to keep the goal of meaningful work at the top of mind to ensure that it doesn’t get lost in the fray of daily work stressors. The crux of the issue is defining the process by which this goal will be met. While “good lawyering” may look different to each individual striving to practice it, if the definition is broad enough, it can be universally applicable and this is where analyzing the definition of “lawyering” may present a helpful model. If lawyering is a process, the “good lawyering” is some sort of modified form of this activity. Perhaps good lawyering is no more complex than deciding the type of “good” you want to achieve with your legal knowledge, and ensuring that all of your career decisions are in deliberate furtherance of this goal. | >
> | However, a goal-oriented approach is essential to understanding the concept of “good lawyering.” It’s imperative to keep the goal of meaningful work at the top of mind to ensure that it doesn’t get lost in the fray of daily work stressors. The crux of the issue is defining the process by which this goal will be met. While “good lawyering” may look different to each individual striving to practice it, if the definition is broad enough, it can be universally applicable and this is where analyzing the definition of “lawyering” may present a helpful model. If lawyering is a process, the “good lawyering” is some sort of modified form of this activity. Perhaps the question of “good lawyering” is really a proxy for “what problems do I want to solve with my legal education, and how can I succeed despite various legal and non-legal obstacles?” If this is the case, then defining good lawyering requires deciding the type of “good” you want to achieve with your legal knowledge, and ensuring that all of your career decisions are in deliberate furtherance of this goal. | | | | |
<
< | This conception of “good lawyering” is useful because creating a functional definition allows us to transform “good lawyering” from a laundry list of achievements into a single method for evaluating the value of particular choice. I do not mean to oversimplify or trivialize the significance of or challenges associated with doing meaningful legal work. I only wish to propose that we shift our thinking about how to achieve this goal and the necessary components of success. The benefit of this reframing is that it allows individuals to actively pursue good lawyering in almost any type of post-graduation legal work. Additionally, individuals can continuously work towards this goal though a series of discrete, conscientious decisions and actions. | >
> | This conception of “good lawyering” is useful because creating a functional definition allows us to transform “good lawyering” from a laundry list of achievements into a single method for evaluating the value of particular choices. I do not mean to oversimplify or trivialize the significance of or challenges associated with doing meaningful legal work. I only wish to propose that we shift our thinking about how to achieve this goal and the necessary components of success. The benefit of this reframing is that it allows individuals to actively pursue good lawyering in almost any type of post-graduation legal work. Also, by continuously working towards this goal though a series of discrete, purposeful decisions and actions, young lawyers may avoid the disillusionment and burnout experienced by many of the attorneys featured in Lawyerland. | | | | |
<
< | To be clear, I do not intend to create a scheme that allows individuals to rationalize work that is less than good lawyering. It’s more a question of thinking creatively about one’s career. Each milestone should be more than a random line on a resume; it should be a means to a clear end. As we’ve seen through the various characters in Lawyerland, practicing law in its various forms can have serious psychological consequences for its practitioners. Thus, the ideal definition of “good lawyering” should not be a crutch, but rather a compass that helps practicing lawyers to recalibrate and refocus during the seemingly inevitable moments of inner turmoil and emotional conflict. | >
> | While this framework requires individuals to identify their own priorities, it is not meant to allow them to justify trivial work. The ideal definition of “good lawyering” should not be a crutch, but rather a compass that helps practicing lawyers to recalibrate and refocus during the seemingly inevitable moments of inner turmoil and emotional conflict associated with lawyering.
It is nearly impossible for young lawyers to conceive of what a career forged in creative lawyering looks like and even more challenging to design and execute a plan to achieve this unfathomable end. Networking and mentorship can be valuable tools to expose neophytes to new ideas and opportunities. However, in addition to external feedback, it’s critical for individuals to have a simple, but effective standard to continually evaluate their progression towards good lawyering. | | | | |
<
< | It is nearly impossible for young lawyers to conceive of what a career forged in creative lawyering looks like and even more challenging to design and execute a plan to achieve this unfathomable end. Networking and mentorship can be valuable tools to expose neophytes to new ideas and opportunities. However, in addition to external feedback, it’s critical for individuals to have a simple, but effective standard to continually evaluate their progress towards good lawyering. | | |
|
|
|
NoelleWilliamsFirstEssay 1 - 13 Mar 2017 - Main.NoelleWilliams
|
|
>
> |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
|---|
It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
The Lawyer’s To-Do List
-- By NoelleWilliams - 13 Mar 2017
Section I - The Problem: What is “Good Lawyering?”
“Lawyering is the process of making things happen in society using words.” While, I’m still not entirely convinced that this premise fully encapsulates lawyering as a profession, I do think the phrase itself has merit in its simplicity; it clearly defines the process of lawyering and the means by which it takes place. One of the major themes of Law and Contemporary Society has been “how do I become a good lawyer,” a concept that many in the class, myself included, have struggled to grasp. We’ve read accounts of the lives and careers of various attorneys in Lawrence Joseph’s Lawyerland, and used these characters as a basis for discussion of what good lawyering looks like (and in some cases, what it does not look like), but how do we think about good lawyering in the context of our own lives? It’s easy to look at these characters as caricatures and to judge them harshly for their flaws, but how do we avoid becoming the archetypes we mock?
Section II - Why is “Good Lawyering” A Nebulous Concept?
The biggest challenge for Columbia Law students is distinguishing a prestigious career from a meaningful one, assuming, of course, that effectively executing good lawyering results in meaningful work. Aspiring lawyers perform incessant drills to achieve the perfect LSAT score and gain admission to the top law schools where they then chase perfect grades, plum editorial positions on Law Review, prestigious clerkships, and coveted Associate positions at white shoe law firms. And everyone thinks this is good. It’s not necessarily bad. After all, M&A lawyers affect changes in the economy through words, but does this work represent the “good” we mean when we think about “good lawyering”? Attorneys often sleepwalk down a career path, collecting tokens and accolades as they go, but the sum of these parts is status, which is not necessarily correlated to creativity or meaningfulness. But is the fulfillment problem unique to law firm life and is it inevitable?
Pursuing a career in the vague abyss of “public interest” appears to fit neatly within the context of what’s often considered “good lawyering,” yet C. Oliver Robinson’s experience in Lawyerland illuminates the strategizing and political angling necessary to navigate a legal system in which true “justice” can be illusory. Robinson’s experience shows us that a desire to do “good work” is not necessarily enough to achieve this end and that mental coping mechanisms such as denial and rationalization can be just as necessary in a public interest career as they are in Big Law.
Thus, in spite of the perceived differences and preconceived notions of the types of people they attract, both the private and public sectors are unable to produce a definition of “good lawyering” solely by virtue of the work performed by the lawyers in these sectors. Consequently, it seems that external validation, measured either by our own accomplishments or those of other lawyers, is not a valid measure of good lawyering. Without some valid measure of “good lawyering,” the odds of us accomplishing it are significantly reduced, and any acts of good lawyering that we manage to perform will be random and sporadic, rather than conscious systematic acts.
Section III - “Good Lawyering:” A Working Definition
However, a goal-oriented approach is actually essential to understanding the concept of “good lawyering”. It’s imperative to keep the goal of meaningful work at the top of mind to ensure that it doesn’t get lost in the fray of daily work stressors. The crux of the issue is defining the process by which this goal will be met. While “good lawyering” may look different to each individual striving to practice it, if the definition is broad enough, it can be universally applicable and this is where analyzing the definition of “lawyering” may present a helpful model. If lawyering is a process, the “good lawyering” is some sort of modified form of this activity. Perhaps good lawyering is no more complex than deciding the type of “good” you want to achieve with your legal knowledge, and ensuring that all of your career decisions are in deliberate furtherance of this goal.
This conception of “good lawyering” is useful because creating a functional definition allows us to transform “good lawyering” from a laundry list of achievements into a single method for evaluating the value of particular choice. I do not mean to oversimplify or trivialize the significance of or challenges associated with doing meaningful legal work. I only wish to propose that we shift our thinking about how to achieve this goal and the necessary components of success. The benefit of this reframing is that it allows individuals to actively pursue good lawyering in almost any type of post-graduation legal work. Additionally, individuals can continuously work towards this goal though a series of discrete, conscientious decisions and actions.
To be clear, I do not intend to create a scheme that allows individuals to rationalize work that is less than good lawyering. It’s more a question of thinking creatively about one’s career. Each milestone should be more than a random line on a resume; it should be a means to a clear end. As we’ve seen through the various characters in Lawyerland, practicing law in its various forms can have serious psychological consequences for its practitioners. Thus, the ideal definition of “good lawyering” should not be a crutch, but rather a compass that helps practicing lawyers to recalibrate and refocus during the seemingly inevitable moments of inner turmoil and emotional conflict.
It is nearly impossible for young lawyers to conceive of what a career forged in creative lawyering looks like and even more challenging to design and execute a plan to achieve this unfathomable end. Networking and mentorship can be valuable tools to expose neophytes to new ideas and opportunities. However, in addition to external feedback, it’s critical for individuals to have a simple, but effective standard to continually evaluate their progress towards good lawyering.
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines:
Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules for preference declarations. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of these lines. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated ALLOWTOPICVIEW list. |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|