The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

I spent all day wandering around Berkeley, trying to get my summer in order.

Because I finally got a job.

I'm going to be working for a Bay Area legal aid organization on its legal advice line and writing self-help legal documentation. I'll be great at that second part; the first part will involve learning new skills.

It's not QUITE the job I wanted. My dream job would have been to marry tech law with litigation work. But I couldn't quite conjure up one of those opportunities. And even at this organization I would have preferred a position with more case management. Those positions were all filled, so I have to presume that with my actual role I won't get to represent anyone at any hearings and such. This is too bad, because I really wanted to skewer someone else on cross-examination... Of course, if the opportunity presents itself I'll certainly be in the right place.

But there are upsides to this job, not the least of which is that the JOB HUNT IS OVER!!! Who knows, maybe I could have knocked on more doors and gotten something closer to what I thought I wanted. But the uncertainty was sapping me and threatening to undo my semester, as this job search process dragged on and on. I now can focus on my schoolwork for the remaining few weeks of the semester. And then when I'm out in California I'll be in the right place to network for jobs for the following summer (er, career...) Plus I get to remember what it was like to live in the East Bay and test whether I would want to come back here when I'm done with school.

In any case, the summer will be full of opportunities, and it's my job to make the most of them. There should be no more indulging of "what-ifs" about this summer. It's now all about "what is" and "what will be." It's surely untrue that doing this kind of work this summer somehow precludes me from praticing tech law litigation in the future. And I'm sure I'll be keeping a toe dipped into the IP world this summer one way or another anyway. I need to stop worrying that this is somehow a misstep, that there were rules to follow about how to get where I want to go that I've somehow violated by taking this detour into housing and family law. Surely I can still clerk; I can still be a good litigator; I can even still be a good IP policy analyst if I decide I want to be. I'm not going to unlearn any of my expertise in these areas, and a little breadth shouldn't be a bad thing.

No job could offer me any guarantees, anyway. Even 2Ls earning $10,000 for the summer at large law firms aren't guaranteed any interesting work or valuable learning experiences. Me, at least I know that the work I will do will have an immediate and direct impact on people's lives.

I can't think of a better way to spend my time.

Edited and title changed 4/19.