Why Law School?

Hello world, I haven't been able to update for a long time.  To give a brief recap of the last year or so...  I graduated from college May 2009, started working at a civil engineering company, and applied to law school.  I stopped working at that engineering company, decided not to go to law school, and am now working at a financial accounting firm.  Before I explain why not law school, I thought it would make sense to first explain why I was interested in the first place.  So, I present to you the personal statement I used on my applications  :)

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My grandparents always pushed their kids to be successful because achievement was one of the few ways that Chinese immigrants living in Saigon could make it out of Vietnam during the war.  Thus, I was surprised to see my grandfather shaking his head in disapproval when I told him I was applying to law school.  There are too many lawyers in America, he told me in Chinese.  Why don’t you do something respectable, like medicine, or engineering?  My grandmother explained that she and my grandfather see lawyers in this way because every lawyer they have met both in America and Vietnam has been greedy and tried to take advantage of them.  She then added reassuringly that there must be some lawyers out there who are good people; my grandfather agreed and instructed me to be a good lawyer, quoting a Chinese proverb meaning “it is what you make it.”

But why would I want to be a “good” lawyer?  Isn’t it quite possibly more rational to act purely out of self-interest rather than within the constraints of morality?  The ethics courses I took in college taught me about morality, but did not teach me to be moral.  We would casually discuss the merits of giving money to starving children in Africa while avoiding any personal moral condemnation by arguing that such actions are supererogatory – commendable, but not morally required.  In the next breath, we would debate whether or not it was permissible to kill babies for fun and whether morality really exists.

Before beginning my college career, I had not expected to engage such a wide range of ethical issues, as all I had really hoped for was to major in something that would make me money.  However, during my freshman year I signed up for a philosophy course that was conveniently located near my other classes, and soon found myself double majoring in economics and philosophy.  I remember humorously noticing the disdain expressed by philosophy majors towards those greedy, ill-principled business majors who care about nothing but money, and then calculating the price tag of a human life using a person’s willingness to pay for safety measures that decrease risk of death as part of my economics homework.  We handled questions concerning truth, justice, and human life in a manner so cold and sanitized that I often wondered whether any of it mattered.

In the summer of 2008, I went to Cambodia on a missions trip with my church to provide assistance for a university in Sihanoukville.  One fact that stood out to me during the pre-trip briefing was that the country of Cambodia is predominately young and uneducated because the Khmer Rouge killed anyone they suspected of being tainted by capitalism.  Our guide took us on a tour of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and we received a first hand glimpse at the cells where thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children were tortured and executed.  In a country scarred by the horrors of genocide, I looked at the wall covered with photos of tortured, defenseless people who would soon be executed, and realized I was looking directly at a picture of injustice.

In the face of such injustice, my convictions are clear: saving the lives of innocent helpless children is good, and right, and killing babies for the sheer pleasure of it is bad, and wrong.  I know how hard it is to justify my position philosophically, and I would often hear in my classes that there is no such thing as good and evil, right and wrong, since these things are presumably just social and cultural constructs.  But I believe that morality is both real and worth fighting for.

Why am I interested in law?  Conscience.  In a Philosophy class, I may espouse the merits of helping the helpless; as a lawyer, I will help the helpless.  If I am accepted to the [insert name] School of Law, I intend to study criminal law, so that I can speak for those who are not able to speak for themselves.  I have no lofty dreams of saving the world, but I will do everything I can to protect the innocents within my reach.  I know that life often ends up being messier and more complicated than my black-and-white ideals, but unless acted upon, my conscience is worthless.

As my grandfather said, “it is what you make it.”  Law as a profession could be the defense of truth and justice, or the bending of rules to fit self-interest.  I will do everything I can to be what my grandfather commended me to be: a good lawyer.