"You mean you're 32 and you're not a lawyer yet??"

I should say first that I love DC.  Moving up here and starting this job has been the best thing to happen to me since...well, in a long time!  I'm lucky enough to work with really nice down-to-earth people who simply do good, honest work to make the world a better place.  And that's just it.  They're really good people, all of them, doing really good work!  If they were corporate types I wouldn't be feeling this way at all, but last night I met this guy who's 26 and does employment law which is, I guess, kind of a civil rights thing (you know, like discrimination etc)  and he's about to finish law school and take the bar exam and then he'll keep doing civil rights work and he was just so cool.  I was jealous.

And that's the thing about this city.  I'm feeling the pressure.  Am I a slacker?  I'm thinking thoughts I never thought before like, gee, I'm 32 and I'm not a lawyer yet! What's wrong with me?? lol...

Everyone here is a good-guy lawyer (okay well not *everyone* in the city but everyone I'm meeting in non-profit-land!).  I've never been even remotely interested in anything like law school.  The closest I've come is taking a few international law courses but now I find myself wondering about it.  You could argue that I should consider international law because I've always been inclined towards the theoretical (sorry that's an IR joke!) but if you want to make a real impact on people's lives it seems like domestic law would be more practical.  Save some family from being homeless.  Keep immigrant parents from being separated from their kids.  Challenge big corporations that spray their workers with pesticides.

Why am I so enamored with lawyers now you ask?  Is this just a phase?  Will I grow out of it?  Maybe...

But you see, lawyers are like the Catholic church.

I'll pause a second for that to catch your attention! Lol....

Okay, no, it's true: Lawyers are like the Catholic Church.  Both have bad reputations among certain sectors of the general public, right?  And to an extent there are valid reasons for those bad reputations.  But I didn't grow up around Catholics and I didn't grow up around lawyers and by the time I met both as an adult I was politically active enough to be meeting the cool ones.  I met the liberation theology Catholics and poverty lawyers.  The Catholics were organizing against US sponsored violence in Latin America and the lawyers were helping out people who were getting evicted from their homes.  What's not to love?

Law school would be a lot of time and money and effort.  About the equivalent of having a child (except that it ends in three years instead of eighteen) and since I'm now considering the very real possibility that having children might not be my lot in life, I think I've decided this: If I don't have a child, should I go to law school?

What do you think?

 

Comments

[Alison]

Weigh the pros and cons. Ask a lot of questions of the law students and lawyers you meet. Think about it, but try not to overanalyze.

Who knows, it might be just the thing for you!

[feministgal]

Are you interested in law school or just think you should go because you're in DC, 32, and hanging out with lawyers ? ;) There are others ways to be an agent change, law isn't the only one :)

Good luck figuring it out though! i know how stressful it could be not being sure whether you're doing what you are "meant to me" doing!

[mimbreno]

I highly recommend it. Email me if you'd like a slightly more in depth treatment. :D