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< | CONFLICT version 3:
Then and Now: Two Perspectives on our Legal System | >
> | My Dreams and Columbia version 3: | | | | |
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< | I grew increasingly unsettled while reading Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach. Upon reflection, I think the piece elicited discomfort because Cohen made me realize that I have been growing gradually more cynical in my outlook on the law. As a child, I regarded the law as synonymous with justice and morality. Yet starting law school and studying the system that I had thought functioned to protect the innocent and promote fairness made me increasingly skeptical about whether it actually does so. Ultimately, Transcendental Nonsense made me conscious of the fact that I currently hold two disparate views of the law – and this realization left me uneasy. | >
> | “Columbia Law is where dreams die.” | | | | |
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< | My first perspective on the law – that it is a vehicle to effect meaningful change and to advocate on behalf of those who need it most – may seem naïve, but this was the perspective that was informed by my only actual experience with a lawyer. My sisters and I were raised by a mother who was neglectful at best, abusive at worst. The promise of escape came when I was ten years old and my father filed for divorce. I recall how scared I was of being taken from my dad, how helpless I felt at my fate being decided by strangers in this world of courtrooms, filled with lawyers and judges who spoke a language I couldn’t understand. | >
> | That was what Donna, a NYU Law student, told me when she was attempting to dissuade me from coming to here. It was a ridiculous recruiting tactic, but, in retrospect, she was partially right. | | | | |
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< | I distinctly remember the day when my fears were quelled. Someone stepped in to help, someone who promised that my voice would be heard in that world of courtrooms, who promised that she would represent my sisters and me and protect our interests. When the proceedings had ended, I remember thinking that my lawyer kept her promise. My dad had full custody of my sisters and me, and we were finally safe. | >
> | When I first started law school at Columbia, I thought that I had almost finished accomplishing several of my life goals. My younger brother Kevin, whom I had spent the last year of my life taking care of, graduated from high school and came to Columbia with me to study pre-med. Also, I had fallen in love with Jason, an economics graduate student from Kansas, and planned to marry him during the summer of my 1L year. Regarding my career, I thought that a degree from Columbia, one of the nation’s most selective law schools, would almost guarantee me any job I wanted. For the past several years prior to law school, my career goal was to work for the ACLU’s National Security Project. I dreamed of arguing Supreme Court cases that would shut down Guantanamo Bay, the extraordinary rendition and drone strike programs, and end many other human rights abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism. To me, Columbia represented a new beginning, an opportunity to gain the education I needed to positively impact the world. | | | | |
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< | I knew my lawyer only briefly, and never saw her again following the settlement of my parents' divorce, but the difference she made in my life is virtually indescribable. This advocate – who made sure that my voice was heard when I couldn’t use it myself – freed me from the circumstances of my childhood and changed the course of my life entirely. And so it was this experience that informed my initial understanding of our legal system as synonymous with advocacy and justice. | >
> | One of my dreams did die at Columbia during my first semester (although for reasons completely unrelated to school. After a verbally abusive argument, I broke up with Jason less than a week before we were to make our engagement official. | | | | |
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< | My second perspective on the law is different and more cynical. Interestingly, this is the perspective that has been molded by my experiences thus far in law school, learning the intricacies of the very system I previously regarded as infallible. I struggled with reading and speaking in the legal jargon that fills the pages of every judicial opinion that we read, mostly comprised of words and rules that meant nothing to me just a few months ago. I began to wonder where and how these words and rules originated. Moreover, I wondered why the words are regarded as meaningful, why the rules are regarded as self-evident truisms. Cohen’s piece gave form and coherence to my nebulous thoughts: the magic ‘solving words’ of legal problems are hollow transcendental nonsense; the ‘rules’ are self-referential creations by the law. Thus there is inherent circularity in couching legal arguments in these meaningless terms. Cohen made me acutely aware of the disheartening implication of my other, more jaded musings about our legal system: courts hide behind a barrage of transcendental nonsense while arbitrary factors and undisclosed agendas potentially drive much of their decision-making. | >
> | I am not sure what to do with my career dream, however. I did not find out until after I came here that, not only does the ACLU National Security Project want candidates with Ivy League degrees, they want candidates who made law review and completed multiple clerkships. My performance during my first semester was extremely average, definitely not enough to make law review and secure prestigious clerkships. Furthermore, despite several years of human rights activism experience, the National Security Project rejected my internship application without an interview. As a “risk-averse control freak,” I am extremely worried about focusing on national security law, graduating, and not finding any work to do with my highly-specialized background. | | | | |
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< | After realizing that I do in fact have two perspectives on the law that are seemingly at odds with each other, I began wondering how studying a system I revered as a child could have diminished my reverence for it so rapidly. I think that an explanation lies in the fact that when I was a child, my view of the law was not colored by the transcendental nonsense that pervades my law school studies and informs my more recently formed perspective on our legal system. As a child, the contours of my understanding were shaped by functionalism. | >
> | So, given that information about my background, it’s time for me to address the essay theme: what kind of lawyer I want to become and how law school will help me achieve that. | | | | |
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< | More specifically, my first understanding of our legal system was created by the answers that my lawyer gave me when I asked her questions. While I don’t have memories of specific conversations with her, I know that she was able to convey clearly to me how the judge would decide which of my parents my sisters and I would live with. She was straightforward; she allayed my fears by telling me exactly what was going to transpire in the courtroom. I see now that my attorney was using Cohen’s functional approach to law. Her language was stripped of nonsensical legal terms that mean nothing to a child. My attorney made the world of courtrooms and judges understandable to a ten year old by distilling this foreign universe down to how it would actually, tangibly impact my sisters and me. In so doing she eased my fear at having my fate decided by a process I could not control. | >
> | If I have learned one lesson in this life, it is that life never goes according to plan, so the plans will have to change. That will probably apply to my career plans, as well as my wedding plans. | | | | |
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< | And so perhaps the key to improving our legal system so that it is synonymous with justice, so that it truly does reflect my childhood conception of it, is for more lawyers and more judges to speak and write as if informing a child, as my attorney did for me so many years ago. After all, children do not care about or revere meaningless legal principles and concepts – children seek functional answers. Their inquiries are outcome-based. A shift to this outcome-oriented functionalism in conjunction with a disregard for hollow, amoral legal principles is the only way I can see to bring my childhood perception of the law into accord with reality. A transformation of this type will make room for ethical appraisal of our legal system, and in turn, perhaps someday it will be guided by human values and conceptions of morality. Only then will our legal system actually be worthy of my childhood reverence for it. | | | \ No newline at end of file | |
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> | I think I would really like antitrust law. I have not yet taken any classes in the subject, but I will be interning at the Federal Trade Commission this summer, which hopefully will give me some practical experience in the field. I was extremely passionate about economics, my undergraduate major, and would love to be able to use it, as well as my legal knowledge, in my career. I began college during the height of the 2008 Financial Crisis, and decided to major in economics in hopes of researching how to prevent future economic collapse and suffering. I always viewed economics as a form of helping the community by helping create prosperity. Antitrust litigation also could be a form of service. Through my economics classes and research, I have learned the importance of maintaining competitive markets and would love to help do that. Several classes at the law school could potentially prepare me for a career in antitrust. I have especially heard that Corporations with Robert Jackson, Securities with Merritt Fox, and Antitrust with Scott Hemphill were amazing. Law school could also help me by connecting me with other students following the same career path, who could advise and mentor me. I have met so many talented people at Columbia and hope to be able to work with them in the future.
Maybe national security law could still work out for me though. Opening my own national security practice seems slightly impractical, so I am hoping to try to do well this semester in order to be able to work for the ACLU. I currently serve as board representatives in Columbia’s ACLU and Amnesty International chapters, and hope to continue meeting like-minded activists. I also could participate in Columbia’s Human Rights Clinic and take the Human Rights class with Sarah Cleveland, which I heard was amazing. I also am interested in taking National Security Law with Matthew Waxman. Although I strongly disagree with his views and past actions, I definitely would like to learn the other side so I can one day win against it.
Or maybe Columbia can help me find a new career dream that I haven’t thought of yet. Last semester, I surprisingly developed a strong interest in contracts, which I originally expected to be an incredibly boring class. I plan to take a wide variety of classes over the next two years to explore potential fields of practice.
Even if one of my dreams has died at Columbia, some of them may begin here. Despite my problems last semester, I love Columbia. I love attending school with so many motivated students and learning from brilliant professors. Even if my plans have changed, life tends to work out for the better. I really look forward to seeing where my Columbia Law experience takes me over the next two years. |
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