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I was born to be a lawyer

-- By JonathanCoaxum - 24 Feb 2024

What I believe

I believe that I was born to be a lawyer. I say this because I feel like it is something that I have always been destined to do. It was the thing I wanted to be when I grew up during a time when my peers wanted to be the first person on mars, president of the United States and professional athletes. As far as I am concerned, no one that I grew up with accomplished those dreams and many have already surrendered their dreams and fell into the rat race and push paper and will do that for the next forty years at least. To me being a lawyer is not just an aspiration because it means success to those around me but because it means success to me. I remember when I read Max Weber when he gave his lecture on politics and what it means to truly live a life of politics. The part that resonated with me the most and drives me is when he talks about having a vocation instead of a job. I view being a lawyer as a vocation rather than a job.

How I want to practice

I want to live a life of the law and be a practitioner of high integrity. Just like physicians we deal with clients during some of their worst moments and we have a duty to serve them to the best of our ability. Being a lawyer is being an advocate for our clients and representing their interest regardless of personal stake. Meaning that as lawyers we serve our clients and we have an obligation to follow their lead. There may be times when we give advice or make a suggestion that is not heeded and the client goes in a different direction. This means that as lawyers we need to have humility and realize that we are not always the experts even when we think we are “right”. I do think there is a sense of hubris that is common in the legal profession that as practitioners we are the experts and our suggestions should be taken as scripture and strictly followed. I think it is a natural human instinct to feel that way but the elitism that is deeply ingrained in the profession exacerbates it to sometimes intolerable levels.

This is not actually about law practice, that what, where, with whom, how much and why of planning and running a practice. This is dinner-speaker rhetoric. But we can actually talk about the real stuff here, so let's try.

What it means to listen

I have been thinking deeply about the question posed in class, “Are you listening to respond or listening to understand?”.

That wasn't a question. I was edscribing active listening and stating it as a requirement of building the psychological sides of a lawyer's theory of social action.

Such a simple question in theory but it truly unlocks a new depth to critical thinking when having a conversation or analyzing an interaction. It has made me think about how people communicate with each other and how poorly people who claim to be well-educated interact with each other. Many times it is people with fairly set preconceptions thinking about how they will respond to what was said to them rather than understanding what is being said.

Many times they are in law school?

As said before law school teaches us to interact this way because that is how oral arguments often work.

No.

But when one thinks about that critically that is a major shortcoming in the practice of law. When there is a dispute there is a misunderstanding between the parties of issues of law. Rather than working to have a better understanding of the law and the other side, things can quickly become adversarial and it becomes about who has the better story for an “objective” third-party. Sometimes it fails to call into question the spirit of the law and the behavior that has been exhibited. I would love to see the legal profession become more focused on the public policy impact of the laws being argued and have considerations of equity when making crucial decisions.

Thoughts on Law School

I came to law school because I want to learn and be challenged. I believe that as a future lawyer I owe it to my clients to become the best version of myself possible so I can effectively advocate on their behalf. I see the law as something that is a reflection of the imperfections of humanity and it requires people that are bold and willing to challenge the imperfections that they see. Just like individuals, the law is something that is constantly changing and evolving and needs to be changing for the better to better serve our society. I want to be a lawyer because I want to have consequence in the work that I do and be able to take injustices to task. But then again, that is almost too idealistic. I do feel in some ways that I am losing some of the optimism I had for practicing law since I have started my law school journey. I see how quickly we have become regimented and drilled to think in formulaic manner rather than having realist or pragmatic approaches. I feel that I have been trained to look at the law and the issues that arise within its context in a sterile and objective manner that denies the humanity of the situation. The people in the cases are just names that quickly become “plaintiff” and “defendant”. Many times these are everyday people that have suffered great injury and injustice and have to go through the mentally and emotionally taxing process of litigation. For them the stakes were higher than ever and for me it is just a note in a casebook for my edification. Something about it feels sadistic and callous. I do not want to lose my humanity and I refuse to let that happen to me. I was born to be a lawyer and a great lawyer is led by his heart before he is led by his head.

I think the best route to improvement is to lose the generalities and take on the specifics. Let's try a draft in which, following the schema we use in "Planning Your Practice" (in which perhaps you and I will work together), you lay out the five corners of an imagined future practice:

• Where your practice will be;
• What services you will provide to clients, in which areas of law;
• With whom you will practice, the network of people who will help you deliver services and recruit clients to serve;
• How much your practrice will need to earn for you and how you will make that money; and
• Why the practiced describe will meet your material, intellectual, moral, political and social needs.

Obviously an effort to imagine a practice at the end of one year of law school will fall short in many respects, and you will change plans many times in years to come. But learning to think about your practice is specific, serious terms is the habit you need to build. That way of thinking protects you against both drowning in fuzzy rhetoric and selling out your birthright vocation for a mess of pottage, which you will see going on around you every damn day.

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