Holy Shit, I'm Going to Be A Lawyer

I have not been a very good bloggist this week. I'm finding it a bit frustrating to find things to write about because all I have on my brain is work stuff which I can't discuss due to confidentiality, which is probably a good thing because good gracious, the stuff I could tell you after just 2 1/2 weeks. This is the first time I have helped low-income people get through the court system and the stories they have to tell are unbelievable. Sometimes heartbreaking. Sometimes empowering. Sometimes so incredibly frustrating. We're helping people with child custody and support cases and many of them also involve domestic violence of some degree.

We've gotten to sit in several judges' courtrooms and observe how they conduct court and what goes on behind the scenes between cases. After hearing one particularly horrifying case of child abuse being brought before a judge, I was struggling not to cry in the middle of the courtroom listening to the judge give the order she was entering to try to keep these kids away from their abuser. "Keep your shit together, keep it together," I kept repeating to myself. "There's no crying in law school." That's a myth. There's A LOT of crying in law school.

Anyway, the other law student I was with that day and I left the courtroom about an hour after that case and the dad and grandma who were fighting to protect those kids were still around waiting for their paperwork. The grandma stopped us on the way to the elevators. "Are you studying to be lawyers?" she asked. We told her we were. "I've been fighting for my grandkids for months," she said, "when you become lawyers, do good." I don't know why those words struck me so particularly. I've always intended to try to do good with my law degree. But I had just witnessed this woman burst into hysteric tears, give everyone in the courtroom hugs and raise her hands and praise Jesus because a judge had just given her hope that her grandkids would be okay.

I'm just so glad that I've chosen to take this path. I'm so glad that hopefully I'll have the tools to help people have justice and help people have hope. I hope I don't ever forget how I felt when that grandma told me to "do good." I hope I don't forget the feeling of hope and justice that swelled in the courtroom that day. And I really hope that I don't read this in 20 years and think that I used to be a such naive idealist and now I know better. I hope that I always appreciate moments like that, that I will always have to remind myself to keep my shit together because lawyers shouldn't cry in courtrooms, even though sometimes they really want to.