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TaylorLawsonFirstEssay 7 - 23 May 2025 - Main.TaylorLawson
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
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| | | My understanding of what it means to be a lawyer has shifted. I compare myself to my classmates, many of whom have clear paths to lucrative corporate careers, and I wonder if my idealism is misplaced in this environment. I find myself disillusioned with the idea of law school. It doesn’t always create change-makers; it also creates people who play it safe and stick to the rules. Lawyers who are stuck under long chains of command, at the beck and call of senior partners. Lawyers who are taught to uphold the same systems I had aimed to disrupt. Combined with the tumultuous political climate, there is an even greater recipe for disaster. The law is decomposing before my eyes. Individuals are actively being stripped of their rights. People are suffering to no avail. I feel utterly hopeless at the state of the world. I wonder how much of an impact I can even make. | |
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< | I often struggle with self-doubt, wondering if I belong at CLS, or even law school. I try to remind myself of my ‘why’, my former students, whose eyes still shone with light despite the unfair cruelties life had placed before them. My focus has shifted to the type of individual I want to become, rather than the type of lawyer. I remain steadfast in my desire to be dynamic in my professional life. I want to be someone who can connect with people, affirm them, and assist them on their journey of existence. I want to tangibly improve life outcomes. I want to spread kindness, to instill joy in others. I want my life to have meant something. | >
> | I often struggle with self-doubt, wondering if I belong at CLS, or even law school. I try to remind myself of my ‘why’, my former students, whose eyes still shone with light despite the unfair cruelties life had placed before them. My focus has shifted to the type of individual I want to become, rather than the type of lawyer. I remain steadfast in my desire to be dynamic in my professional life I want to tangibly improve life outcomes. I want to spread kindness, to instill joy in others. I want my life to have meant something.
Ultimately, law school was never the dream; it was the means. The title “lawyer” only matters if I use it the way I once imagined. My past has shaped my purpose, but has not dictated my path. What brought me to law school was never about what others expected of me. It was about what I expected of myself.
I must build forward. To be a lawyer in the way I once envisioned, someone who affirms people’s dignity, who brings clarity to chaos, who walks with clients through their most vulnerable moments, I must stop waiting for the institution to make space for me and start carving my own. I cannot measure success by prestige or proximity to power. I must measure it by how well my work reflects my values: compassion, honesty, courage.
This may mean allowing myself to imagine something bigger than the roles that already exist. I must seek out mentors whose values mirror mine, even if they are few. I will stay close to the communities that ground me. I shall push myself to speak up even when silence feels safer. I give myself permission to become the type of lawyer I witnessed when I was young, and the one my students needed too. | | | Should I have pursued a career in social work, or something of the sorts, instead?
Possibly. | |
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< | But I am here now, I am going to do the most with this opportunity that I can. | >
> | But I chose this career path for good reason. I will honor that choice by building a legal career that answers not to cynicism or fear, but to hope, purpose, and the people I came here to serve. | | | | |
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This draft establishes just how much difference there is between the images and the past and the prospects of the future. Improvement depends on leaving the past behind. Where you have been has given you the reasons to look carefully not at what other people are doing or might do, but at what you want to be able to do and how to become ready. Let's try a draft that focuses sharply where the present one leaves off: here you are, you see clearly that to connect your future practice to the reasons you wanted to go to law school you must carve a route for yourself that is responsive not to others, but to you. Good. Let's begin to think about how.
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