| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
|---|
| | |
| |
>
> | Creatively Envisioning my Practice
Reflection of My Inner Soul at Law School
Helplessness Due to Loss of Motivation
Last fall semester, I myself felt “stuck” in this feeling of helplessness and skepticism regarding coming to law school. I wasn’t necessarily intrigued by the law and it was not like I had a grandiose dream of becoming a big law firm associate. I simply wanted a “stable” and “well-paying” job that would not require any financial or economic knowledge—I deeply hated numbers and economic calculations. Therefore, I was happy when I got admitted to the law school of my dreams.
However, starting my studies and learning more about what actual big-law firm associates do and what their work-life balance looks like, I felt a larger dissociation than I ever had in my life. My immediate response to the fear and anxiety I felt was a want to drop out; but I had already paid for a semester’s worth of tuition, and it felt like it was too late. After all, I did not want to merely throw away the four years during my undergraduate career in which I vigorously prepared for law school admissions. I simply pushed through a semester, unclear of why I had to be studying all these theoretical legal classes. My internal conflict did indeed create a mental split, and to make the “split feel less tearing”, borrowing from Professor Moglen’s words, I relied on nicotine and alcohol to make it to the end of the semester.
My Initial Shallow Attempt at Solving My Cognitive Dissonance
When I applied to Columbia Law School, I wrote in my personal statement North Koreans face significant challenges in South Korea, and that I want to pursue a legal education to help these re-settlers frame their past sufferings as human rights violations, mobilizing North Koreans to call for reforms in the South Korean government’s resettlement program. This was my personal narrative that I carved out for myself and I think convinced myself was my true passion.
Even during the time when I was writing the first draft of this essay, I wrote that my creative attempt at solving my cognitive dissonance was to follow my “passion”, which I defined as education and refugee empowerment. As an East Asian Studies major during my undergraduate career, North Korean refugee policy was the main academic and professional extra-curricular activities I engaged in for years—working as head volunteer of North Korean refugee organizations and legal intern at legal NGOs serving advocacy for North Korean refugees. I think deep down I convinced myself that—as an undergraduate East Asian Studies major who was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea—this specialization would make me a unique candidate both as an applicant and student at law school.
Hence, when Professor Moglen pointed out that I have plans for work I want to do but with which “a US law degree would only be very peripherally associated” and “doesn’t involve practicing US law”, this was the first time I think I truly, honestly questioned myself for the first time whether I was consciously conditioning myself to a set “passion” that would conveniently reassure myself I have a set path ahead of me. Something not big law, something public interest related, and something involving a field I would have more experience than others and have more specialty in.
Redesigning my Path
My Passion for Wine
But really, when someone asks me what makes my eyes lit up, and what makes me zone in so strongly that I lose track of time, I always would answer “wine tasting”. In fact, during and after my time in college, I studied for months for the Wine & Spirit Education Trust exam, learning the history and processes of wine making, various regions and wineries that produce grapes, as well as tasting note distinctions for different wine varieties. My dream was always to become a professional sommelier, but raised by strict Asian parents who always told me the money they have invested in my education up until this point would all go to waste if I were to pursue a non-academic path, and already having studied for and built my career for law school until this point in time, I have for years shoved my greatest passion in the back of my mind and merely regarded it as a small “hobby” I have.
Representing Beverage Clients
With my US law degree, I want to represent alcohol beverage clients. Laws and regulations apply to all steps of producing, distributing, selling, marketing, and advertising alcohol beverages--including wine. I want to represent various clients such as but not limited to importers, wineries, wholesalers, and even unlicensed third parties. These parties are subject to various regulatory investigations under the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau as well as various state alcohol controlling legislations. With my enthusiasm for and knowledge in specific wines and wineries globally, as well as personal direct experience as a bartender and somelier-trainee, representing clients will instill within me purpose and professionalism in the regulatory and licensing guidelines I provide; I also want to partake in facilitating import of more diverse wine products globally in to the US by representing wineries in purchasing and selling businesses in transactional sales and mergers.
Looking Forward
Even until the second semester of my law school career, I never imagined I could build my own legal career and link it to the passion I have. And this scares me. While following the traditional big law path would provide me with thousands of mentors in the industry, this somewhat non-traditional path definitely seems like a challenge. Since my practice is an evolving process, as Professor Moglen has advised, I hope to “revise, reconsider, and redefine” individual decisions as I envision my career. | | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
|