Returning to Law School in the Fall

-- By GillianHo - 05 Apr 2023

The Question Itself

Over the course of the semester, Eben has consistently challenged us to think of whether we would return to law school, and if so, why. I used to scoff at these statements. In what realm would I not return to Columbia Law School? After committing two years of my life to a law firm, countless hours to the LSAT, and suffering through bouts of anxiety throughout the law school application process, how could I ever forgo the heights I scaled to gain a coveted spot here? How could I give up the promise of an income of $200,000-$250,000 a year and a stable immigration status? How would I meet my family’s eyes, after they had shown so much pride and happiness at this achievement? No. After I complete the grueling 1L year, I will return to enjoy the fruits of my labor for two more years before committing my life to Big Law, where I will inevitably undergo sleepless nights and frustrations. But it will be worth it.

However, when Eben opened office hours with “What can I do for you? Why are you here?”, I was taken aback. Somehow, all my reasons for attending law school dissipated in my head. I grasped for the thesis for my application to Columbia and other cookie-cutter responses I was accustomed to giving, but they suddenly rang false and unconvincing. I gawped at him, unable to answer the simplest question demanded of any law student. Suddenly, I was forced to seriously confront the question of why I was here, let alone why I would even come back in the fall.

Overcoming the Fear of Confrontation

After office hours, I tried to bury these questions and continue with my studies as I had last semester. But it was unavoidable. I soon found myself sitting in my doctrinal classes asking why I was even there. Compounded with a reminder of life’s brevity through my grandmother’s deteriorating health, I realized that I could no longer set aside the question in the hopes of some miraculous revelation.

Origins of My Fear

I was terribly afraid. Afraid of unboxing years of neatly packed boxes that had given me a nice framework for my life, a tested path of checkboxes that I had to tick and move onto. Eben had called it a gilded cage. But why would anyone wish to leave a gilded cage, a known evil, to confront the looming depths and unknown malevolence of the unknown? There was no telling what I would find if I unboxed the various selves I had hidden away, but I was also no longer comfortable with ignorance.

The Confrontation

In interrogating the underlying motivations and influences of the reasons I typically gave to “Why Law School”, I was soon confronted with the realization that many of these reasons were a result of what I had been told that I should want. The ability to give back to my family after all the time and financial support they had given me, recognition from my peers and my parents’ peers for my abilities (as signaled by institutions attended and jobs held), the demonstration of productivity, amongst others. Yet none of these reasons had anything to do with what I wanted. Even if they felt “right”, these were values or desires that had been passed down to me, through my family’s thinking and the cultural ideologies that surrounded me. I finally realized that after twenty-five years of life, I have no idea what I want or where I want to go. Preoccupied with checking boxes, I had been chasing so many versions of what I could or should aspire to be that I had never fully considered what that path would lead to. I did not know why I was at law school, or why I should return in the fall—but at least now I knew to start asking the question instead of blindly checking boxes that I didn’t want to.

My Return

I will return to law school in the fall. But with two years left, I intend on trying to find my own reasons for being at Columbia Law School and use that knowledge to craft my future practice, whether in law or outside of it. Through taking classes and participating in clinics that use the law as a window to other aspects of life, I hope to better understand the range of possibilities that lie outside of the checkboxes Columbia has neatly laid out for us. Through speaking to more legal practitioners about their own practices, I hope to start formulating an idea of what my practice (whether in the law or ultimately not) should look like and how I can begin planning for it.

More importantly, I would like to take law school as a time in which I can communicate frankly with myself before life begins laying more distracting checkboxes that I will inevitably be tempted to tick without thinking. Law school had been appealing as a prestigious and practical (albeit expensive) time during which I could buy time to figure my life out. I had hoped that some truth or realization would come to me during this “bought time”, and if not, while I plugged away at the Big Law job Columbia would line up for me. As a multi-faceted individual, I would like to put the different facets of myself in conversation with one another to truly understand what would make me happy. My largest takeaway from Law in Contemporary Society is that happiness and satisfaction are not equivalent to comfort and security. The easy route posed by Columbia’s Big Law path COULD be a way to happiness for me—but instead of settling for it because it satisfies what I have always been told is preferable, I should understand why it would satisfy and reconcile my different selves.

This draft is the midpoint. From now on, whatever you write is not about the decision to open your mind, but about what comes afterward. The process is not linear. The size of steps is not measurable. There is no certain direction. But we change. Writing not only records how, but becomes part of how. A therapist and a reader are clear different things, as a king once said. But when you read yourself changing, the art finds its point.

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