That was Thing One's question to me today, as we were cuddling in my bed laughing about how "late" it was after we sprung the clocks ahead.

I don't KNOW what I'm going to do when I'm a lawyer, and I find that kind of troublesome. It's not a job anxiety at this point, as much it's an anxiety over direction, or a lack thereof.

When I came to law school, as I believe I've said before, I was looking at doing family law. I wanted to start out with a firm that did family law in order to get the experience and reputation necessary to then go off on my own. I hoped to one day be a solo practitioner, perhaps even purchase a house that could have an attached office, and split my practice between full-fee paying clients and sliding scale clients.

But when I came to school, I really loved .... everything. And when I worked for the family law judge, and took family law class - those were the things I loved the LEAST. My draw to that in the past was the "human interest" element, and I think that's important, and I think I really enjoy that. But at the same time, I found myself getting a thrill from the more intellectual challenges. When I was working for the judge, I saw that intellectual challenges were very few and far between - and that was a judge, who had many more cases coming before him than any one attorney would have.

So I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want an assembly line of property divisions and child support guideline calculations and bickering over whether or not Mom should have 40 hours a week of income imputed to her instead of counting the 25 hours a week of work she is actually doing b/c she is using the other 15 hours a week to be at soccer practice and play performances iwth her kids. I don't want to be spending my time calling around to find witnesses who can say that yeah, dad has a second job, but is getting paid under the table, and therefore should have high support payments per week.

I also really found myself squirming a LOT over the fact that a marriage that didn't work out gave the State unlimited power to dictate a person's personal relationships. When one day, The State is a grouchy old man who doesn't feel that women have any right to date before remarriage, and therefore a Mom has less time with her kids b/c she went out on a Saturday night, and another day it's someone who comes from a long line of lawyers and other privileged people and therefore writes an order that a waitress and a construction worker must put their children's college education above, oh, i don't know, eating dinner 7 days a week.

Now that I know that I don't want to do that .... what do I want to do? I don't know. When I was in high school (in 1989), and first decided I wanted to go to law school, I thought I wanted to be a prosecutor. No, I KNEW I wanted to be a prosecutor. I wanted to put the scum of the earth behind bars, or better yet, in teh electric chair.

Since then I've changed. I've seen more things, learned more about life, and about society, and I don't want to be a prosecutor. I don't want to ever ever ever admit to anyone that I ever referred to anyone as "scum." ugh. I do find criminal law not only to have the human interest level that I think I crave, but also be intellectually challenging. But I can't do it. I can't get behind either side, not fully. And on the practical side, I'm not 24 or 25. I don't have the life station to spend 5-10 years making $30K/year (at most). I made more than that before I came to law school, and the law school endeavor was designed to provide my children with a better life .... not to amass $100,000+ [woefully +] in debt to then come out making less than we were before. (it must be acknowledged that I am no longer a single mother, but I would never put a) my law school debt; or b) the things' college education on Beloved's shoulders).

It's not just that I wnat to make more money - I really do not have the criminal law passion. I once that I did, but I no longer do. Or at least I now know I do not.

Am I just going to be a generic "lawyer"? With no real passion for a particular area? Just with my love to puzzle out intellectual problems and a flare for persuasively arguing a point? I keep hoping I'm going to take a class in school and I will find it to be MY THING. The thing that turns me on, and makes me want to write a paper, and become published, and focus my career in that direction. But so far ... no dice. i am happy that in some ways my problem is that I love everything. I loved all my first year classes (except civ pro, but while on my last civil rights-based co-op, i found a new appreciation, respect, and love for civil procedure, and did not in any way mind my projects that required great amounts of research into nuanced civ pro questions). I thought that property sounded AWFUL and uninteresting - instead, it was my favorite class. I thought that I would die over the fact that I had to take contracts. Instead, I was very engaged throughout the semester and received hte most complimentary evaluation of my life. I like everything, but am turned on by nothing.

Well, except constitutional law. I am greatly turned on by constitutional law. I can have quite active debates with our Supreme Court Justices while reading what they have written. A great deal of my last co op was spent working in that area, and I loved it, but I also know how hard it is to graduate and practice "constitutional law." The staff attorneys at the organization I was with *kind of* do it - but they also spend a lot of time fielding cases, and then passing the good ones off onto attorneys in the area who contribute their time on a pro bono basis. So *that* I would love to do. Take on civil rights cases on a pro bono basis. But that doesn't give me the direction I need to be in a place that I'm happy and doing something that I care about in between those pro bono cases.

posted by Zuska @ 3:05 PM

2 Comments:

At Sunday, April 02, 2006 6:05:00 PM, The Marpepps! said…

Yeah, I am really with you on the "can't get behind either side" thing. I really want to love crim law, but I just can't take it on.

I've been taking crim law and evidence, and watched RJ go through a summer in the public defender's office. It makes me completely cynical and emotionally overwhelmed.

I've always believed that if a system is flawed, I belong in there changing it. But the criminal system is just a bit too much to bear.
At Monday, April 03, 2006 9:29:00 PM, Asian Provocateur said…

i love this post. you perfectly capture the dilemma in my head these few weeks. thanks. here's to hoping you find that passion. it doesn't have to be any one thing or one part of the law, but it should make you wake up and be happy to go to work.