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By fightinfilipino
i haven’t written on this thing for months. so of course, right when i need to be stuffing as much knowledge on torts into my head as superhumanly possible, i decide right now to write a blog post.
it’s been really hitting me over the last couple of weeks that i’ve been wrong, seriously wrong, on how i’ve been approaching things i’ve felt were really important to me lifewise. one of the attorneys i used to work with was one of the senior lawyers at the firm, so he had a lot of experience and knowledge not just on immigration law (he worked for the INS for a long time, too), but on living as an attorney. unfortunately for him, he learned things the hard way, absorbing insights by making some wrong choices and bearing the aftermath.
this attorney was in no way a bad person, at all. i’ve told him this before and i’ll say it now: i can only hope to be the kind of attorney he is. he knows immigration law inside and out, and has very keen instincts on how to proceed with a case and how to work with clients. more than that, he’s a hard, honest worker, and won’t stand for shortcuts simply on principle. that’s admirable to me.
but, and there’s always the cautionary “but” in every story, this attorney found his way only after traversing tough waters. originally he had focused his life so much on work that other vital things, like family and friends, and taking care of himself, were subsumed.
he and i and another attorney ended up being the firm’s official “Night Crew”. we stayed late to get work done, sometimes far later than the other attorneys and paralegals in the office. and then afterwards, we would all head to a local piano bar to relax and, well, self-medicate. it was during these trips out that this attorney sat me down and told me not to do what he did in being a workaholic and nothing else. he told me to find things important to my life and to follow them as much as i could, outside of the law career.
i’d always been fairly single-minded whenever there was something i felt i needed to do because it was right, but often i would become so focused on my goal that i didn’t carefully consider the consequences. my actions were like shaking a strand on a spider web: no matter how intent you are on one strand, the vibrations ripple out to the rest of the web and reach things you didn’t even realize were there, like ravenous spiders for example. i learned this the hard way when i decided to join a full-on protest during undergrad. i found it again while i was working with youth facing the threat of deportations or prison time in juvi. while i was so focused on the end goal, i didn’t even stop to think of the ripples i was sending out in other places, not until those ripples magnified and returned to burn and hack and slash me.
when i moved out to SD, i had a rough time of it at first. i’ve always been a nomad and used to transplanting myself to new places. i also have a lot of family up in LA with whom i did spend a lot of time. but i didn’t realize the depth of my loneliness, being separated from all my lifelong friends and my parents and sis, until law school’s jaws had firmly ensnared me. things eventually became ok, because i remembered what my attorney friend back home told me. i sought out friends and made it a point to hang out with them, as much as possible for law school anyways. i started getting back into web tinkering and messing around with drawing and graphics. i even got to rock out again, at least in video game form, on a bass (thank goodness for Rock Band). and i swore to myself that i was not going to let all of that go. i was looking forward to Spring semester.
now i’m sitting in our school’s mock trial office praying i suddenly evolve the power to absorb law knowledge by osmosis, and i’m wondering if i’ve only shot myself in the foot for keeping my single-mindedness on those life and non-lawschool things, if i’ve pursued them too zealously. i’ve been a bull in a china shop.
my attorney friend was not wrong. i know that in my heart. but the way i’ve been seeking my own heaven here hasn’t been right, either.
PS: thanks USD for giving me all this extra non-time. i really appreciate it.
By fightinfilipino
so…which one do you all like?
or:
By fightinfilipino
i’ve been hearing from an increasing number of law school alums that their own careers weren’t the result of their directed, dogged search for an area of law in which they wanted to practice, but instead was the culmination of a series of coincidences. i had a hard time swallowing this at first. i realize that right when you get out of law school, you’re not immediately going to find your dream job, that it might take a few years to be practicing in your favorite area of law. but until now i very much believed that on the Quest for My Career®, i’d find some amazing subset of law while in school and follow its thread out into the real world.
but with what happened tonight, i’m starting to believe the happy accident stories. earlier today we’d heard from the school that our grades, long kept in captivity in some secret, dingy vault miles below the school’s foundations, were going to be released. finally i could learn whether or not i flunked out, or flunked out with style. turns out i didn’t flunk out after all. i also had a practice mock interview scheduled tonight with a law school alum who graciously volunteered to help us burgeoning law students practice our interviewing skills. having happily established that i get to stick around for at least another semester, i went in to the interview expecting to just “shoot the shit” with a random alum.
the alum i interviewed with was a newly-minted associate attorney with one of the larger law firms in town. he was working in corporate litigation, a field that i have almost no interest in whatsoever. but figuring i needed to emphasize my “excellent research and writing skills”, i go on to explain a little about my past semester (studiously dodging the grades question) and how that must be very on-point with business litigation memo and brief writing. i mention the names of the professors we had last semester, and my interviewer’s eyes lit up at the mention of one of the professors. it turns out that he had had that professor for a corporate law class, and that, like myself and a lot of other people, he too struggled with what turned out to be an economics class in disguise. we spent the rest of the interview jovially talking about the craziness that is law school. at the end, i got the requisite business card, and a mention that if i needed some help figuring out the San Diego legal community, he would be more than happy to help. the professor coincidence made the interview a hell of a lot smoother than it could have been.
we head back to the career services office, me relating an anecdote from when i was still working in Boston and some of the bizarre corporate ethics issues we ran into in some immigration cases. as we enter the office, one of the career services counselors more or less thrust a box of sandwiches at us and asked us to stay and eat a bit. being a law student, it is a moral obligation for me to accept free food. my interviewer grabbed a few sandwiches, chatted a bit more, and then took his leave. during this last bit, another student in the room, a 2L, overheard that i had been working for an immigration firm. we started talking a bit about H-1Bs and PERM and how the economic turmoil of late has been upending hiring of foreign nationals. it turns out that the guy currently works at a local branch of one of the major multistate immigration law firms. he immediately asks me for a resume copy and says he’ll check if the local office needs 1Ls for the summer. job opportunities +2! then, out of the blue, he asks me if i had heard of a company where one of the other alumni interviewers was general counsel. incredibly enough, the company was one of my old firm’s major clients; we’d done a ton of various immigration cases for them, and the general counsel was someone with whom i’d chatted on a daily basis. we immediately launch into a long conversation about the company’s immigration work and what the company was like as a whole. turns out that my new immigration buddy was looking to apply with the company. i let this insane coincidence stir in my head a bit.
at this point, the career services counselor comes by to chat a bit about our interviewing experience, and then mentions that the alumni interviewer from that company wanted to talk with my immigration buddy about a job offer. i hung out a bit in the office to see if i could say hi to this alum before i left; a few moments later, he walks into the office and conducts an informal, friendly interview with immigration-buddy. i step off to the side to avoid being rude, but listen in on the job opportunity, a legal research position over in China. i can’t help but be amused, since i had done a good deal of work before with the China branch and knew some of the staff there. after the alum finished the interview, i step up to “introduce” myself, and the alum’s eyes brighten like a flash bulb. he asks me about how i’m finding law school and a bit of the recent immigration scuttlebutt, and then invites me to visit his office near LA on a free day and have lunch. he even mentions that his own paralegal, a person whom i also talked with frequently and knew very well, would be glad to see me. he offers me his card, briskly shakes my hand, and leaves for the evening.
it only hit me then that the entire night was a string of coincidences. the odds of these discrete events happening all in a row were ridiculously low. i’m idly considering hitting the local poker club around the corner just to see if this luck holds.
the notion that this all happened in the space of a couple of hours has me bewildered. but on a detached level, i recognize that i just had three very good ways to find a jobby job for the summer, and perhaps for something more substantial later on, presented to me during an evening i thought would consist of going through the motions of a fake interview. i’m still going to have to invest a bit of effort to find work, sure. but the next time i hear an attorney tell me that they found a job or even a calling they liked through a combination of happy accidents, i’ll be more inclined to believe them.
By fightinfilipino
“research” is a euphemism for torture.
did you know that “torts” shares the same etymological root as “torture”?
X_X
By fightinfilipino
O_o
o_O
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(this is going to be me for the next two weeks. won’t be posting for a while!)
By fightinfilipino
before i started law school, i was fairly sure i was going to continue with immigration law in some capacity after i graduated. now i’m not so sure.
a while ago, i’d spoken with a good friend about why i wanted to become a lawyer, and i explained that i wanted to be able to help people. navigating the law without help is tough enough. i want to be a guide for those folks, aiding them in determining their rights and making sure they see justice. after these last few days, i realized that my drive to be a lawyer is more than that. as cheesy as it sounds, i want to be someone’s champion. being a champion directly applies to immigration law: as an immigration attorney, you’re advocating for a foreign national or a family, defending and claiming their right to come to and stay in the United States, to grasp for them their chance at the American dream. cliché? completely. awesome? hells yes.
i’m starting to genuinely understand that being a champion for someone extends to other areas of the law. i had the chance to shadow a judge in the San Diego court system last Friday. the judge is a USD alum and is currently working on criminal cases. as with all judges, this particular judge started out practicing in the area on which he focuses now; he began his career working for the district attorney’s office, prosecuting a good number of criminal cases and advocating for “the people” against a “wretched hive of scum and villainy.” many of my friends who know how i think would be surprised that i’m coming around to seeing the law this way; usually i’m against the expansion of police power, the criminalizing of people under onerous statutes, and the furthering of police abuse. but i think my time seeing the other side of the law, law enforcement, in practice, still fits with my sense of seeking and securing justice for each and every person.
in criminal law, you often (but not always) have victims who have been wronged by another. you also have defendants who often cannot afford the legal counsel they need to ensure their rights are protected and supported. on either side you have attorneys who serve as champions towards the ideal of justice. i won’t pretend that problems with the way criminal law functions in the U.S. don’t exist. in fact, one of the things i observed during my stint at the courthouse was a settlement session, where an attorney from the DA’s office was negotiating settlements in rapid fire on criminal charges with a number of public and private defenders, under the supervision of the chief judge of the court. both the DA and the defense counsel spent at maximum five minutes on each case, reflecting both the docket overload our court systems face as well as the high risk that justice might not be done for each person. but in the same vein, both the DA and the defense counsel were seeking to uphold an efficient system of justice, serving as many people as possible. one of the other things that struck me during this session, and in the later court proceedings i was able to observe, was the collegiality among the DA attorneys and the defense counsel. the antagonism that makes good drama on shows like Law & Order and CSI and others was simply not there. it was as if the attorneys for both sides mutually understood that they needed to seek out the best solutions and compromises for the difficult and numerous cases with which they are presented.
the main challenge for me in considering criminal law is one of emotion. earlier in the day, the judge had talked with our group about how during his time as a DA, he processed numerous murders, rapes, assaults, child abuses, and other heinous cases. later at our lunch break i asked the judge point blank on how he dealt with the waves of such difficult, emotionally disturbing and draining cases. at first his response was “exercise”. our group looked at him incredulously, until he started explaining further that being involved in criminal law leaves you with a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. during the time he was working at the DA’s office, the judge was also raising a family, supporting his wife and two children. during and after a particularly lengthy rape/murder trial, the judge’s wife told him that he had changed, that he became a person weighted with the horrors he had to see daily. the judge’s only recourse was to partly hold that life within himself, away from his wife and children, and partly vent it out by exercising and dampening that emotion through exhausting exercise. that could not have been an easy life, and i can’t see him finding criminal law any easier in his capacity as a judge.
being a champion for someone is not merely facing down your client’s opponent with vigor. to be a champion also means that you must bear the emotional weight of the fight as well. in this sense lawyers cannot be clinically detached as, say, a doctor operating on a patient. you have to internalize and challenge the fears and horrors that arise from prosecuting and defending in direct advocacy fields of the law, because the law itself deals with those fears and horrors. if there was anything giving me pause in choosing to explore criminal law, it’s the possible destructiveness of taking on these emotions. i am a sympathetic and empathetic person; to twist something our contracts professor likes to say, i’d like to think that i act with both a full heart and a full head. i know i want to raise a family down the road, and fear that working in an area like criminal law will make it hard for me to be a father, to keep all of the kinds of things our judge faced separate from my kids and from my own being. but while i’ve looked at crim law with trepidation in the past, i’ve come to believe that working in that field is still worth it. i’ve still got two years and a semester to go to sort this all out…
By fightinfilipino
in law school, studying and briefing convoluted cases and writing long, researched, and bluebookalized memos aren’t the whole show. you have to constantly remember you’re preparing to enter a profession with a proud tradition and an even prouder community.
what prouder way to ensure the law community’s continuity by throwing together posh events with free food and lots of booze?
earlier tonight i went to an attorney/student mixer held by the Pan Asian Lawyers of San Diego (“PALSD”). as you might guess from the org. name, the group is the local bar association for Asian attorneys in the San Diego area. the purpose of the whole thing is to have law students introduce themselves to and socialize with practicing attorneys, get some insight into lawyering careers and legal life, and otherwise do that mystical activity called “networking”.
networking is an odd thing. it’s structured friend making with a mercenary bent. it’s getting to know other people not because it’s good to meet new folks and to form genuine friendships, but for the purpose of using others to discover open jobs, get your foot in the door of large firms or government agencies or non-profits.
i never much liked the idea of networking at all, mainly because it seems so shallow. call me idealistic or even naïve, but i would much rather meet people, get to know them better, and form authentic friendships not because i’d get some monetary or career benefit out of it, but because it’s simply good to meet new people and bond with them. if it turns out that your new friends also have connections or know of openings in the careers or opportunities in which you’re personally interested in, great. that’s a bonus.
despite my misgivings about networking, i will attend these events anyways. but i’m going to insist on being human, getting to know interesting people as people first, and seeking the “career opportunities” as the afterthought.
By fightinfilipino
i was talking with a law school friend earlier today just to catch up, and we started talking about how law school really makes it difficult to balance out our normal lives. she told me about how because of school, she can’t get to things that happen in her normal life anymore. basic things that we’d all taken for granted, like taking care of our health, seeing old friends and making new ones, going grocery shopping, starting (and ending) relationships, walking around downtown or around the block, doing mundane house chores…
we’re forgoing all of this. we must all be insane.
when i started school, i came in with the mentality that i was going to treat it as a job. 8 to 5. i come in, hit classes, get my reading and work in, and then hit the gym before going home. it was a great plan that also left me time for a personal life outside of school, extra time to explore this new city, meet new people, all of that.
now it’s november; two months have zipped by without us even noticing, and finals are breathing down our necks. i’m sitting in my apartment forcing my eyes to rake yet-another-contracts case, and i can’t get myself into it. it’s all a part of the whole-day routine; i go through classes in the morning, get to random group and school-related meetings, and then chain myself to a desk for the next five hours slogging through what now seem to be books devoid of meaning. the day isn’t 8 to 5, it’s 8 to some-ungodly-hour. this was definitely not in the job description. to use a legal term, i’ve forborne a lot of what i’d considered life for this institution of law.
i have a bunch of med student friends whose lives have been all but subsumed into the world of medicine. their world is much rougher than ours, filled with long schoolwork hours and even longer intern shifts. but from them i hear the same thing: their lives have become medicine. maybe sometime after school, after interning, after the boards, they might be able to seek their own personal lives again. there are the lucky few who can still do it while in school. but for the majority, they have no such luck which could avail against the maelstrom of their medical lives.
law students are swept up in the same storm. the 2Ls and 3Ls i’ve spoken with all claim that things get substantially better after the first year, but i can see in their eyes and their posture, and i can hear in the tones of their voices, that it’s not precisely things “getting better”. they’ve simply accepted the hurricane, learned to read its currents, ride them out when possible, and accept the losses they must bear. like the med students, some are luckier than others and can find the eye of the storm. but for many others, they’re simply hanging on for the ride and waiting for the season to end.
if i’m on some ship in the hurricane, i’m clinging onto the gunwale right now. there are a lot of things i still want to do. there are things i want to say, to tell. the energy and hopes and emotions i need to say and do these things are all tied up in me simply holding on. but i still want to tell you.
it doesn’t help that i’m horribly impatient 
. right now, the winds are not with me. but i’m hoping, somehow, i’ll find that storm’s eye.
