just one kind of folks. Folks.

Transcript from Access Group's (finished) scholarship video competition advertisement:

AT SOME POINT IN YOUR LIFE YOU DECIDED TO BECOME A LAWYER.

Something happened in one YEAR/DAY/SPLIT SECOND

That inspired you

To make

a CASE

Partner

A living

Your parents proud

A difference

You remember that time when you weren’t worried about

Getting a good internship

Having time to brush your teeth

Passing the bar

Finding a student loan

When hearing Atticus Finch in the courtroom gave you goose bumps

And so did IMAGINING YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE.

When you saw an oil-covered bird on the 11:00 news and it made you go %$#^&*

Or maybe it was in Mrs. Dombrowski’s 4^th grade class

When you were wrongly accused of kidnapping the class

Ferret.

Every Law Student has an inspiration.

I've finished working for the summer and am only waiting for 1L to begin. One piece of my life (employment) has ended and the next (law school) has yet to begin, so I'm paused in a limbo between the thing that was keeping me safe (employment) and the unknowns of law school and legal practice. So this silly ad for a scholarship competition--a competition that I missed--filled up my throat and had me nearly in tears. YES! Those oil-covered birds? They made me go %$#^&*. And Atticus Finch still gives me goosebumps, though I NEVER would imagine myself in his place. And, yes, I am one of those who wants to make 'a difference.'

Many friends and coworkers have suggested that I am, upon earning my J.D., to become a crook; that I will 'sell out'; that I'll give up on public interest work in order to MAKE SOME $$ (doing work we agree I would hate); that I'll be a shark and an ambulance chaser and a snake in the grass.

I don't blame my peers for suggesting these scenarios. The popular image of lawyers has shifted from Atticus Finch to Denny Crane and even the courtroom demeanor of Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men."



I may be naive. I'm like a child idolizing a profession I know little about. But I imagine myself more as the Tom Cruise type (minus his church of scientology obsessions) than Robert Duvall, even if I don't picture myself as a trial lawyer (more on that in a later post). Every lawyer finds her own niche, and mine's out there somewhere. My public-interest, non-profit job will be there in three years, no matter how much student debt I have. I'm here to make a difference, and maybe to grow up a little in the process.

So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something - that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 16, spoken by the character Atticus

Please see my original post here: http://lauramcwilliams.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/just-one-kind-of-folks-folks/

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