UCI Law is a law school that really wants us to get good jobs when we get out.
I’m sure all law schools are like that, but this is especially true
of UCI, since it is new and really feels like it has something to prove.
This is good in many ways because the school really focuses on giving
students the resources they need to succeed. But the drive for success,
and the self-promotion that it requires, makes for an uneasy tension for
those of us who want to practice public interest law. Is it always
possible to simultaneously serve the public and serve one’s own career?
I came to UCI because it places great emphasis on service and pro
bono work, and it really supports its public interest students. UCI has
been everything I had imagined it would be, and now in my second year my
desire to practice public interest law remains as strong as ever. Who
wouldn’t want to have a job helping people? It sounds simple enough,
right? It’s true that public interest lawyers do not make as much money
as other lawyers, but the job satisfaction usually more than makes up
for it. In a strange way, it feels good to say, “I’m taking a pay cut to
help save the world.”
So what is the problem then? It is hard to grapple with the law
school culture of ambition, and this does not go away even if one wants
to be a public interest lawyer. Public interest students have ambitions
just like anyone else. If you can get the “good job,” you can make huge
positive differences in the world. Some cynical observers might say this
is just as much about maximizing one’s own moral superiority as it is
about serving the public. And while I would disagree strongly with such
an accusation, it still lurks underneath. Public interest law is about
serving the public, but many of us perhaps unintentionally serve
ourselves in the process because doing this kind of work is what makes
us feel good. Is it contradictory for us all to be clamoring for all the
great jobs, while at the same time saying that we’re just in this
because we want to serve others? I often ask myself, “If I feel like
other people would be better difference-makers than me, wouldn’t it make
sense to just yield and let them go and achieve a better outcome for
society?”
There are not that many public interest jobs out there. Public
interest organizations do not have a lot of money, and there is a great
deal of competition to do this kind of work. Offices are also
constrained not by having a lack of clients, but rather by a lack of
funds to hire everyone they would want to hire to serve those clients.
For every person that gets hired, that’s one qualified person that
doesn’t. So to get the jobs we want, are we supposed to just step on
whomever may be in the way?
To quote Robert Duvall’s character from the movie Thank You For Smoking,
“if you want an easy job, go work for the Red Cross.” Indeed, it is a
luxury to feel good about yourself and your job. When I worked at a
grocery store, I didn’t feel like I was saving the world, but I did feel
proud of myself for keeping the recycling room at the store clean. And
so anyone who says that the only jobs worth doing are the ones where you
help people demeans all of the people who are working hard at whatever
job they can just to get by. I was lucky because my parents did fine
financially and my grocery store income was just supplemental. Many
people are not so lucky. Everyone wants to be that person who took that
case all the way up to the 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court and won a
great ruling that will help everyone. Not everyone wants to just be good
at whatever job they have. But this is really what is more important.
Justice Benjamin Cardozo once said, “In truth, I am nothing but a
plodding mediocrity—please observe, a plodding mediocrity—for a mere
mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a
distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from
courage, fidelity and industry.” The plodding mediocrities are the
people who make the world go round.
I wish that the law culture gave us room to be mediocre. And by this I
don’t mean lazy. I want nothing more than the opportunity to work as
hard as I can, and to define success on my own terms, rather than be
boxed in to someone else’s definition of success. Is it possible to have
a job that helps people, while at the same time turning away from the
culture of ambition that is so prevalent at law schools? Is it possible
to get where you want to go, but not have to step on anyone to get
there? Ask me in five years.
