Today, in the midst of the broader discussion of the Arnold reading, Professor Moglen talked about “winning the lottery”. I’ve thought about this frequently – that the place where I am today, and indeed most of the places I’ve gone in my life, were predetermined by the time and place where I was born. Obviously there have been choices made along the way, but I’m not interested in addressing how frequently these choices were actually conscious decisions or to what extent a conscious decision can even be reached. Rather, I’d like to address the issues that arise for me when I presume that my privileged position in life is largely due to random chance.

The main difficulty, when I think about the circumstances that brought me to law school, is that I have trouble feeling that I’ve really earned my achievements. Granted, I succeeded at test-taking in college and then learned how to take a four-hour exam, but in doing so, I’ve felt like one of the multitude of ants following my prescribed role in building the anthill. With this sentiment, and with my experiences in other countries not as fortunate as our own, I find it exceedingly difficult to justify spending my life at a firm. My concept of justice may be subjective or insignificant, but that concept nonetheless makes me reluctant to see such a life stretching ahead of me.

I’m sure there are many people in the class who have traveled or lived outside of the “developed world”, and I’m curious to know how others feel about working as a part of structures that often seem to deepen existing inequities. If you accept that there is some abstract thing called justice (albeit defined differently for each of us), is it unjust for a law student, with a wealth of opportunities, to work within the structures in place in this country to make a comfortable life for herself and her family? I also wonder what kind of dialogue would follow if we consider the contention that the United States has won the lottery multiple times, and that this country’s prosperity is due more to chance than to any superior system of values or organization.

-- MichaelDignan - 05 Feb 2009

Why should you feel like you've "really earned" your achievements? I don't really consider it a "trouble" at all.

-- WalkerNewell - 05 Feb 2009

Like Walker, I was having a lot of trouble relating to the cognitive resistance to the idea that your achievements are partially, if not largely or entirely, a function of external conditions that aligned to create your birth, your personality, and your choices.

Although Michael, it seems like you are saying that you have a hard time with the thought of becoming a lawyer who works for a law firm and gets rich because, as a function of this whole, my-achievements-are-not-entirely-my-own thing, you didn't work hard enough to get to a position where you could live somewhat selfishly and take a job that didn't really pursue "justice." If free will was real, and if you had 100% control and responsibility for where you are today, would you feel better about going to a firm? I may be misunderstanding your point.

-- MolissaFarber - 06 Feb 2009

Michael, Professor Moglen's comment that recognition of the randomness of our position should make us think harder about our choices made me pause as well. I don't think that this acknowledgment dictates (or bars) any specific line of work – I do think that it means that we need to think harder about our choices and how those choices will enable us to help others.

If a given person will be able to impact the world in a more positive way by working at a large firm (and donating a significant chunk of their salary to worthwhile causes) than by working at a non-profit, wouldn’t the law firm be the more responsible choice? (I recognize that working for a large firm reinforces the economic structure of our profession. While I think we’re all capable of changing the world for the better, I don’t think we’re all capable of changing the very way in which the legal world operates.) In today’s world, money can accomplish a lot - and I think it would be wrong to ignore that. If a given person will be able to impact the world in a more positive way by working at a large firm (and donating a significant chunk of their salary to worthwhile causes) than by working at a non-profit, wouldn’t the law firm be the more responsible choice (assuming large firm work was suitable for the individual)? (I recognize that working for a large firm reinforces the economic structure of our profession. While I think we’re all capable of changing the world for the better, I don’t think we’re all capable of changing the very way in which the legal world operates.) In today’s world, money can accomplish a lot - and I think it would be wrong to ignore that. Realizing that we owe our position in the world to a lot of luck (without forgetting that we’re also here because of our hard work) means that we ought to make less selfish choices – but that recognition, to me, doesn’t mean that choosing to work at a law firm would be selfish, or that choosing to work for a worthy social good would be selfless. I think it’s all about the net positive change in the world our choices will enable us to make.

-- MelissaMitgang - 06 Feb 2009

I think the topic may be confused as to which is my point vs. Michael's... My point isn't so much that I didn't work hard enough to get to this point. My main question is, given the random advantages that many of us have enjoyed, whether others feel an obligation to do something other than merely forge a comfortable life for themselves.

-- WalkerNewell - 06 Feb 2009

“…given the random advantages that many of us have enjoyed, whether others feel an obligation to do something other than merely forge a comfortable life for themselves.”

As I alluded to in my post ExplainingWhatISaidInClassToday, I certainly do feel the kind of obligation Walker inquires about here. I hesitate, however, to use the word “obligation” because – much like “duty” – it connotes some level of altruism. I do not believe in altruism: My sense of obligation stems from the discomfort I know that I would feel if my work had no greater purpose than financial gain. In this way, the sense of “obligation” is grounded more in selfishness than in selflessness.

The way I think about our privilege is similar to the court’s reasoning in Evans v. Merriweather, a water-rights case we read in Property this week (wait, bear with me!). In essence, the court said that a riparian landowner may withdraw enough water from a stream on his land to satisfy his “natural” needs (drinking, farming), but not his “artificial needs” (consuming the entire flow of the stream for his mill). In short, Evans's right was one of “reasonable use.” Similarly, I may use my happenstance privilege to live a reasonably comfortable life, but to use it entirely for my own benefit in complete disregard of the rest of the world would be satisfying an artificial need. It would amount to greed.

In my mind, this is such a basic conception of justice that I have difficulties understanding how it is not clear to everybody in the room. I thought that most people come to law school because they want to explore and exploit a theretofore inexplicable sense of “right/wrong, fair/unfair, justice/injustice” lodged in their guts. Assuming, arguendo, that I am foolishly naïve on this matter (it would certainly not be the first time), and some people study law for reasons other than to serve their gut sense of justice, it would be interesting to explore the factors that lead some people to feel a sense of obligation and others not. A nature-nurture type exploration: To what extent does exposure to inequality matter? Parental or community values? Religion or lack thereof? The inexplicable phenomenon that constitutes our souls?

Personally, I remember the very first moment I felt it: It was in 1991, after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, when I first went to visit my father in Poland. I looked around at what I then thought was poverty and instantly realized the randomness of my own privilege, having grown up in Sweden, a two-hour flight away. Since then, I have felt an obligation to give at least as much as I take from "the world." But does this mean that absent that early exposure I would not react the way I do today in the face of injustice?

-- AnjaHavedal? - 06 Feb 2009

I agree with much of what has been said regarding the lottery of birth. John Rawls has a very insightful essay on this topic in A Theory of Justice. Rawls writes, “[It] is neither just nor unjust…that persons are born into society in some particular position. These are simply natural facts. Justice stems from the way that institutions deal with these facts.” Yet, I believe that it is not only a matter for institutions; it is also a matter for individuals. So if you accept that we are the privileged lottery winners, what does this mean for our actions and our careers?

First, I believe one should take as much benefit as possible from the privileges given, specifically your education. If we think about how many people are not given the privilege of any formal education, let alone graduate school, it will make us realize that we should get the most out of each day in class and out of our careers.

Second, I believe one should try to better the inequalities that are present in our society. I don’t think that means that everyone should necessarily work at a non-profit organization, but I do think that means one should make sure that work has a socially beneficial effect. There are lots of ways that our careers can be socially beneficial and if we work with Professor Moglen and each other, we can start to discuss how to achieve this.

Lastly, I wanted to address a lot of what has been said regarding the difficulty in thinking about this arbitrariness of position. It seems to me that it goes back to fear. It is very uncomfortable to think about how millions of people in developing nations without clean drinking water are no different than us. These fears tend to shut down our brains to avoid thinking about the situation. But when we don’t think about it, we can’t do anything about it. So if we can learn to accept the arbitrariness of birth and the fear that maybe we don’t “deserve” the privileges we have been given, then we can start to use these privileges to benefit society.

-- LaurenRosenberg - 06 Feb 2009

I think Melissa's point is a very reasonable counter to my post discussing being uneasy about working for a firm. To say that prosperity and comfort are morally reprehensible would be a difficult, and for me, hypocritical, statement to make. I also recognize that you can use the resources that career provides to attempt to make change. It does, however, seem difficult to reconcile a need to address injustices with a lifestyle which devotes 90% of waking hours to making money.

The nature-nurture distinction that Anja brings up is also, I believe, very relevant. Its worth noting that there is something of a correlation between the life experiences and the career goals of students here. Individuals who grew up in a certain environment want to replicate that level of prosperity for themselves. A natural tendency, and something that I can recognize in my own thought processes, but is it something we should resist or accept?

-- WalkerNewell - 07 Feb 2009

There have been some comments made above concerning the value of using our potential wealth as lawyers to fund efforts of promoting justice versus working as lawyers for the public interest ourselves. On the one hand, it is true that money is powerful in today's world. Surely many organizations working to promote justice are strapped for cash and could accomplish more if they were better funded. On the other hand, the true strength of any organization comes from the power of the minds behind that organization. You can fund a cause with as much money as you want, but unless the right talent is behind that cause nothing will ever be accomplished. When we talk about "winning the lottery," I think we should focus more on the fact that we have been given the opportunity to develop our minds into effective tools for promoting justice rather than that we have been given the opportunity to be financially well-off.

-- JustinPurtle - 08 Feb 2009

Selflessness is Overrated

I think we are making a big mistake if we frame our career search as a choice between selfishness and selflessness: wealthy, soulless corporate lawyer or poor, noble public interest lawyer. For the many of us who do not have interests which fit neatly into the rubric of public interest law, this kind of thinking is probably only going to lead only as far as a couple of short guilt trips before we accept a career path with long hours, uninspiring content, and zero creative control.

Instead of constructing this false dichotomy, I think we should be asking ourselves, first, where is my community? Once we've figured that out, the second question is, how can I develop a legal practice which benefits my chosen community? Framing the question this way makes a couple things clear:

1. The first question is the hard question.
2. The first question is not actually a professional question at all; it's a personal one.
3. The reason why we all end up going to big firms is not that we're evil, or even selfish, it's that we haven't answered the first question. We are all so busy getting A's on our homework and getting into the next big school that we never quite get around to the first question. And once there's no more school to go to, and somebody's willing to give us a safe paycheck and a safe answer to the first question, we take it.
4. After devoting our whole lives to maximizing our own potentiality and keeping our options open, answering the first question requires that we stop asking ourselves what we can do to become more powerful and starting asking ourselves questions like: “what interests me? What kinds of people do I want to be around? What kinds of day-to-day activities do I want to do with those people?"
5. Answering the first question should take us to a place where we feel excited to be, not guilty about not being
6. The second question is probably pretty easy. Everyone needs a lawyer. Once we each figure out where we fit, it should not be hard to figure out how to make a living off of our trade.

-- MichaelDreibelbis - 08 Feb 2009