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Lessons After a Year of Law School

-- By NoahJoseph - 03 Apr 2021

Introduction

Starting law school in August 2020, I was unsure of which area of the law I wanted to practice. Eight months later, I am still quite far from making a final determination on this point. Nevertheless, I have gained deep insights into the ways in which I would like to use my license to practice the law, even if I do not know precisely what practice area I will be working in.

Values

As the COVID-19 pandemic upended my plans for 1L and sent me back to my childhood home, I was suddenly presented with the opportunity to reflect more deeply on what truly matters to me. In particular, as I considered the immense loss of life that came with the pandemic, I became increasingly more aware of the limited time I have in my life. With this awareness in mind, I have become more determined not to waste the little time that I have doing something that does not align with my values. In order to avoid such a situation, I have begun to think more closely about which values are most important to me. One of these values can be described as the redistribution of good fortune. Over the course of my lifetime, I have been granted a vast array of incredible opportunities which have led me to Columbia Law. None of these opportunities were the sole product of my own labor, but were mostly afforded to me through factors beyond my control, including the support of my friends and family. Meanwhile, millions of people around the world are suffering from brutal injustices, mostly because they happened to have been born into situations more difficult than my own. While some levels of unfairness and injustice in the world may be inevitable, I want to use my good fortune to temper their effects as much as I can.

Another value that I have is providing for my family. I do not plan on getting married or having children for quite some time, but this is something I hope to do at some point in the future. Since my family provided me with many of the opportunities that led me to where I am now, I want to be able to provide any children that I have with similar opportunities.

Long-Term Goals

In order to put the redistribution of my good fortune into action, I intend to focus my career on social justice. I want to use my legal education and license to remedy some of the injustices that plague our nation. Clearly, these injustices are manifold, so I must figure out which particular issues I want to focus on.

Beyond this, I also want my practice to be adaptable to fit whatever needs arise in my life. Especially if I end up having a family to take care of, I want to make enough money to provide for them, while also having enough control over my time to respond to their needs. I think that the best way for me to do this would be to run my own small firm.

I had the opportunity to observe such a small firm during the summers after my sophomore and junior years of college. Over these summers, I interned with a small business immigration firm in Los Angeles. This firm only had three attorneys: a married couple and their son. Despite the small size of this firm, it is very well respected in its field and it does exceptional work for its clients. The lawyers at this firm seem to have the perfect balance between financial success and control over their time. As such, I hope to use this firm as a template for how I will run my own firm in the future.

There are certain ways in which I would adjust this firm’s model in order to create a firm that fits my own needs. For example, I would like my firm to incorporate more pro bono work than the aforementioned business immigration firm did. Nonetheless, this firm generally seems to provide its lawyers with the type of lifestyle that I am seeking.

Short-Term Goals

In order to meet the long-term goals described above, there is much work that I need to do in the remaining years I have in law school. One of the most important tasks I have is to determine what practice area I would like to work in. I intend to do this by speaking with lawyers working in a wide variety of fields. The university frequently hosts events dedicated to this exact purpose, but I have not attended many so far. Hopefully, if these events are in person in the Fall, I will be able to converse with different types of lawyers to see which practice area best suits my interests.

Additionally, I will be interning at an immigration law firm over the summer, which will hopefully help me determine whether or not I would like to pursue a career in this particular practice area. Moreover, this internship will be in Los Angeles, which is an area in which I am considering living in the future. Thus, this summer may specifically help me to determine whether I would be interested in running an immigration firm in the Los Angeles area.

Finally, another short-term goal that I have is to learn more about what my financial needs might be in the future, and how I can meet these needs. In particular, I want to determine which specific salaries would allow me to live different types of lifestyles. Gaining a deeper understanding of this will help me to make more informed decisions about practically every aspect of my practice, including where I will be able to work and the specific practice area on which I will concentrate.

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