Thank you for taking the time to check out Spark Justice Careers and see how we can help you as you pursue a legal career in civil rights. I thought it might only be fitting to start a series of blog posts on the topic by letting you know how I got here.
I grew up in a suburb of New York City raised by a single mom with an older brother fascinated by complex sciences. I, on the other hand, enjoyed the art of rhetoric and argumentation.
Ever since I can remember, my family’s nickname for me – “Law” – was both a thickly accented shorthand of my name – Laura – and an unspoken acknowledgement of what my future career would be.
While I had always known in some sense that I wanted to go to law school, I had no idea what lawyers did. I have no lawyers in my family and not even a family friend who practiced in law. So when I got into Harvard Law School of all places, I had no idea what to expect.
It was almost lucky how ignorant I was or else I think the experience would have been too intimidating from the get go. I went to law school with the children of famous and influential lawyers, none of whom I had ever heard of.
In fact, I was so ridiculously naive that I remember having a conversation with a 3L friend of mine about halfway through my 1L year that went like this:
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- Laura: Hey, so I’ve been thinking about things, and I wonder if there’s any way you think I could reach out to Justice Ginsberg and see if maybe she needs help researching and writing her opinions. I feel like that’s just a lot of work, and I would absolutely love doing work like that. Do you think she might read my letter and consider giving me a job doing that?
- Friend: Um, so that’s called “clerking.” It’s actually a really prestigious position with any federal judge, but if you want to clerk for Justice Ginsberg, you’re going to need to get onto Law Review and even then, it’s a crap shoot.
- Laura: Wait, what? This is a thing? That people actually want to do? Because they actually like researching and writing?
- Friend: I’m not sure it’s a thing people really want to do, but they at least want the position because of how prestigious it is. Because of that, all clerkships are hard to get, so if you want one, make sure to get good grades and start building relationships now for recommendation letters.
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I was flabbergasted. Other people were competing with me for jobs they didn’t even want for status points?! I was supposed to “build relationships” now for a favor I planned to maybe ask down the line? Who was I even supposed to build a relationship with?!
I should say, the only reason I had a friend who was a 3L is because this friend and I went to undergrad at Brandeis together. And while she ultimately went straight through to law school, I took two years off.
I should also say that when I raised this point about clerking for Justice Ginsberg, it was well before the growth of notoriety that has surrounded her in recent years. Back then, it was just us very nerdy (mostly female) law students who admired her so immensely.
Back to the point of the story: I was more than a fish out of water. I knew absolutely nothing about what it took to graduate from law school with the opportunities that would eventually open doors for me.
Click here to read Part 2 of My Path to Becoming a Civil Rights Attorney.