I can not understand why on earth this industry is the only thing i want to do but at the same time has the ability to cripple me, over and over again!
I have been trying so hard to just be content with what i have at the moment but i can't help but want more. I want that job at a big magic circle firm and i want it now. Here is the problem.... everytime i even think about actually applying for something my stomach does back flips and i feel an incredibly overwhelming need to hurl. I just tried again to decide what i should do......... in this industry at this time you need a job.... rite.... rite! But what happens if you can't find a job..... well i thought the one thing i should do is go bac into education so i look up a few courses an LLM here a teaching degree there and i'm faced with this problem........ what on earth do i do next. What really is the best step.
The problem with this industry is you need money.... yea i would love to just apply for an LLM or even the LPC or maybe study in NYC and do the LLM at columbia or something.... but the fact is there is a debt waiting for me at home and i really do not want to add to it, for the fear that i may never be able to actually get a job with all this poxy education and then what am i left with..... debt and certifcate, which are as good as gift vouchers or store credit........ they really do not mean ish!!
I'm perplexed though.... by my ability to do absoluetly everything except what i am supposed to do and so i'm forced to wonder what exactly i am supposed to do in this circumstance.Maybe this makes no sense to you but it makes sense to me......
All i know is life is passing me by and i feel like an observer watchin a bad movie unfold, powerless to change the ending or even press pause and just think clearly about the next chapter in life........
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Can the words: FUN and LAWYER be put in the SAME sentence?
So the answer to this question: Can the words fun and lawyer be put into the same sentence? can provoke a large variety of responses, from hell no! all he way to absolutely!................. I am still in two minds.
At the moment I am currently doing an internship at an organisation in New York that specializes in class actions against the state or city for violations of civil and human rights as well as constitutional rights. My main role is to do legal research, u know find cases to support a potential class action, which at first was extremely exciting.... until the thrill of searching Lexis Nexis totally wore out and I was just left with an overwhelming feeling of boredem and a whopping headache from staring at a computer screen, skimming hundreds of cases at a time.
Anyhu this provoked a train of thought which had never even occurred to me before..... is it really fun to be a lawyer? I mean sure , its a great career, you can make shit loads of money and ... well I've just always wanted to be a lawyer since I was 7 years old! What I failed to ever ask myself was whether I would actually enjoy this career path. (This is another reason you should do work experience before jumping head over heels into a career you know nothing about, except what you read - which is usually misleading)
Anyway after I started drowning in this incredible feeling of boredom I started thinking to myself - what if I actually do not enjoy being a lawyer. Thus i decided to weigh up the pros and cons:
Ok so as an attorney in New York i could potentially have some extremely interesting cases to work on, I'm talking earth shattering, rock your world, landmark cases to work on...... so I can see the potential for these cases to bring a level of excitement that nothing else really can. On the other hand I have come to find that there is a LOT of paper work involved in all cases, more than i could ever dream of when i was in uni.
Collecting evidence is incredibly ....... ummmm, how do you say........ LONG! Contacting claimants and trying to fathom out what exactly happened to them when they got to the welfare office or job centre can be more difficult than completing a bloody Rubik's cube blindfolded! I swear some of these people can talk in riddles, without even realizing they possess such a skill!
In addition, my new research experience has left me with mixed feelings about the task. On one hand you can learn a whole load about the law by simple surfing Lexis Nexis and trying to find a case. Sometimes you find the most interesting information or case, which is great and shows that law and fun perhaps can be put in the same sentence. However, you can spend a whole day searching an extremely boring topic, like trying to find cases on procedural law or rules relating to late filing of applications, which IS 100% as boring as it sounds. (Luckily I haven't been assigned anything that boring as yet and hope such a fate will never meet me, shake ma hand then bludgeon me to death!)
Anyhu.... then i think about the way that I could make a difference, which for me is my idea of fun (and yea, this is why this blog is for law students and lawyers only.... other people will look at this and just assume i'm a totally loser!) Nehu.... I think that there is a certain buzz you get out of being in a court room making a fantastic argument that you know everyone wants to give a standing ovation for (but won't due to those silly unspoken rules of etiquette) Its that feeling ... that no model will ever get, no entertainer will ever get and no athlete will probably ever get that..... ooooooo yea!...... i'm one smart ass motherfucker!... you know ...... that feeling! Like I can run circles round you with my linguistic skills, quicker than A-rod can pop steroids.... ok off the subject nehu.....
I also see the potential and inevitable fact that as a lawyer you will lose cases, be maddddd stressed on a regular basis and actually have to work for your money unlike other people! But you'd be stressed as a freekin receptionist, thinkin "if one more pompous snob asks me to make them a cup of coffee im a kill 'em!" And u'd be earning waaaaaayy less money!
Ok so i'm kind of still in two minds, but if you can think of anything i missed or have a conclusive opinion on whether lawyer and fun really are two words to be thrown around in the same sentence... let it be known, and justify your thoughts... if u can.
So maybe my lesson from this work experience, which i actually didn't realize before, is that even when you are a big time lawyer you will have to do a lot of the boring, monotonous stuff that you do as a paralegal or junior associate, but i suppose it comes with the territory! Luckily i've rediscovered my interest in finding cases and reconnected with how important it is to make sure you have as much precedent and ammunition behind you when it comes to arguing a case... so i'm no longer bored... in fact, im staying at work till all hours of the evening just to finish the stuff!
So there you have it......it seems you can't have the excitement without the mind numbing boredom!....... it just is was it is! (and its probably the same for all careers, so i suppose there's no escaping it!)
Cherie Amour
xcxcx
At the moment I am currently doing an internship at an organisation in New York that specializes in class actions against the state or city for violations of civil and human rights as well as constitutional rights. My main role is to do legal research, u know find cases to support a potential class action, which at first was extremely exciting.... until the thrill of searching Lexis Nexis totally wore out and I was just left with an overwhelming feeling of boredem and a whopping headache from staring at a computer screen, skimming hundreds of cases at a time.
Anyhu this provoked a train of thought which had never even occurred to me before..... is it really fun to be a lawyer? I mean sure , its a great career, you can make shit loads of money and ... well I've just always wanted to be a lawyer since I was 7 years old! What I failed to ever ask myself was whether I would actually enjoy this career path. (This is another reason you should do work experience before jumping head over heels into a career you know nothing about, except what you read - which is usually misleading)
Anyway after I started drowning in this incredible feeling of boredom I started thinking to myself - what if I actually do not enjoy being a lawyer. Thus i decided to weigh up the pros and cons:
Ok so as an attorney in New York i could potentially have some extremely interesting cases to work on, I'm talking earth shattering, rock your world, landmark cases to work on...... so I can see the potential for these cases to bring a level of excitement that nothing else really can. On the other hand I have come to find that there is a LOT of paper work involved in all cases, more than i could ever dream of when i was in uni.
Collecting evidence is incredibly ....... ummmm, how do you say........ LONG! Contacting claimants and trying to fathom out what exactly happened to them when they got to the welfare office or job centre can be more difficult than completing a bloody Rubik's cube blindfolded! I swear some of these people can talk in riddles, without even realizing they possess such a skill!
In addition, my new research experience has left me with mixed feelings about the task. On one hand you can learn a whole load about the law by simple surfing Lexis Nexis and trying to find a case. Sometimes you find the most interesting information or case, which is great and shows that law and fun perhaps can be put in the same sentence. However, you can spend a whole day searching an extremely boring topic, like trying to find cases on procedural law or rules relating to late filing of applications, which IS 100% as boring as it sounds. (Luckily I haven't been assigned anything that boring as yet and hope such a fate will never meet me, shake ma hand then bludgeon me to death!)
Anyhu.... then i think about the way that I could make a difference, which for me is my idea of fun (and yea, this is why this blog is for law students and lawyers only.... other people will look at this and just assume i'm a totally loser!) Nehu.... I think that there is a certain buzz you get out of being in a court room making a fantastic argument that you know everyone wants to give a standing ovation for (but won't due to those silly unspoken rules of etiquette) Its that feeling ... that no model will ever get, no entertainer will ever get and no athlete will probably ever get that..... ooooooo yea!...... i'm one smart ass motherfucker!... you know ...... that feeling! Like I can run circles round you with my linguistic skills, quicker than A-rod can pop steroids.... ok off the subject nehu.....
I also see the potential and inevitable fact that as a lawyer you will lose cases, be maddddd stressed on a regular basis and actually have to work for your money unlike other people! But you'd be stressed as a freekin receptionist, thinkin "if one more pompous snob asks me to make them a cup of coffee im a kill 'em!" And u'd be earning waaaaaayy less money!
Ok so i'm kind of still in two minds, but if you can think of anything i missed or have a conclusive opinion on whether lawyer and fun really are two words to be thrown around in the same sentence... let it be known, and justify your thoughts... if u can.
So maybe my lesson from this work experience, which i actually didn't realize before, is that even when you are a big time lawyer you will have to do a lot of the boring, monotonous stuff that you do as a paralegal or junior associate, but i suppose it comes with the territory! Luckily i've rediscovered my interest in finding cases and reconnected with how important it is to make sure you have as much precedent and ammunition behind you when it comes to arguing a case... so i'm no longer bored... in fact, im staying at work till all hours of the evening just to finish the stuff!
So there you have it......it seems you can't have the excitement without the mind numbing boredom!....... it just is was it is! (and its probably the same for all careers, so i suppose there's no escaping it!)
Cherie Amour
xcxcx
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Freshers, isolation and the key to going places.....networking!
Ok, so the aim of this is prevent people like me, who want a career in law from making the same mistakes i did. I suppose my moto is you live and you learn so this was my first, or one of my first, lessons.
I will start at University. I went to King's College London, which is in the UK and is one of the best universities for law, in the country, i think its ranked number five or something like that. They tell you that once you get into a top uni like this its plain sailing. Hell they made out like i'd be snapped up before I even made a job application - Please note: this is NOT the case - PEOPLE LIE, or misinform whatever you wana call it. Its bloody hard to get a training contract or vacation scheme, or summer internship! They make you jump thorugh hoops so be prepared and consider yourself pre-warned!!
Anyway I managed to get straight A's at A-level and thus was accepted. So i get in, go to the first few lectures and realise ..... no one here, out of the 500 other bodies that were sitting in that lecture theatre, no one was like me. So stage one, of what you may feel when you first embark on you journey to being a lawyer or attorney, is isolation!
I was isolated in sooo many ways. First of all i could only see 2 other black people in the vast sea of freshers. This was extremely unaccommodating; made me feel from the start that the odds were stacked against me and totally confirmed the initial feeling of not belonging. It may seem silly to some but when your one of the only Black people in a room of 500 you become very aware of this fact. Not that i wasn't used to it (in primary school i was the only black girl in my year, except one mixed race gurl and the same in secondary/high school). Anyhu the result of this was that it made me quite introverted (not sure if that a word but i have said that English is not my strong point - bare with me!) Anyways I felt isolated, became introverted and resigned myself to going in and out of classes and lectures with my hood up, last in, first out, avoiding all contact with anyone else on my course.
To be honest it was cos its hard to try and fit in when everyone is soooo damn different. What on earth do i have to say to someone who listens to rock instead of r'n'b, wears Chanel instead of H'n'M and speaks with an accent that is posher than e Queen's! That shit is intimidating - do not ever get it twisted! And if u av other frineds outside of your course its really easy to just stick to what you know. But the thing is you need to have friends in all walks of life - the people you used to hang with can only help you soo much. They don't have the notes you may need to copy when u miss a lecture, they don't know the deadline for assignments and they definately do not have the connections you need to get ahead.
Anyhow I continued to live this way for most of my first year until i stumbled across some other Black and Asian students that seemed a lot less alien to me than the rest, who i eventually became quite good friends with.
Anyways my lesson looking back on it all, was that just because you are thrown into what seems like an alternate world you have to assert yourself in your new condition. I mean really put yourself out there and take risks. My number one reason for not speaking to people was because 'i'm not a beg friend' (someone who sucks up to people and begs for people's friendship). Anyway I can see now, being older and slightly more mature that communicating and mingling with others, making an effort to get to know people is not being a begfriend - its called NETWORKING! Yea you may think that it sounds strange - networking... with other students?! But here's the thing, when they leave university they are NOT going to be students anymore. They will be people with training contracts or junior associates, or pr queens or maybe just socialites either way they are your key to connecting with others and in this industry, just like the entertainment industry - you are nothing with a contact or two! Take it from one who knows.
I've always had this belief that i can make it 100% on my own. You know? I don't need anyone because my hard work and determination is enough to get me through. Well let me tell you now, and take it from someone who has been there, that is NOT the case. You can NOT get to where you really wanna be without a contact or two. Yea, it sounds terrible, it goes against all notions of social mobility and those American dreams, that if you just keep trying you will get there,but at the end of the day it is what they forget to tell you! I have this view that people already in affluent families, or those with an aunt or uncle in the industry know this stuff - its just us first timeers that don't know how important it is to network - just wtach some of the freshers or people in your year. You will notice some of them are PROS!! So you better step ur game up!
Anyway I could talk about this whole networking thing forever but the lesson of this experience is that no matter where you go, or what you wana be you have to network. Socialise your butt off because at the end of the day there are thousands of students who have great grades, speak well, and were presidents of the debating society so how do these big firms choose? Contrary to the message they send, it always helps if you have a little contact, who can give your profile that extra boost and means that you get that job or that internship etc.
My lesson is that you should not let the appearance of this legal industry daunt you and intimidate you. Take control of your destiny and do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed and pushed to the sidelines. From the first day you get to university mingle. Yea, you might hate every minute of it but get to know who you need to know and it will be one of the most lucrative investments you ever make!
xcxcx
I will start at University. I went to King's College London, which is in the UK and is one of the best universities for law, in the country, i think its ranked number five or something like that. They tell you that once you get into a top uni like this its plain sailing. Hell they made out like i'd be snapped up before I even made a job application - Please note: this is NOT the case - PEOPLE LIE, or misinform whatever you wana call it. Its bloody hard to get a training contract or vacation scheme, or summer internship! They make you jump thorugh hoops so be prepared and consider yourself pre-warned!!
Anyway I managed to get straight A's at A-level and thus was accepted. So i get in, go to the first few lectures and realise ..... no one here, out of the 500 other bodies that were sitting in that lecture theatre, no one was like me. So stage one, of what you may feel when you first embark on you journey to being a lawyer or attorney, is isolation!
I was isolated in sooo many ways. First of all i could only see 2 other black people in the vast sea of freshers. This was extremely unaccommodating; made me feel from the start that the odds were stacked against me and totally confirmed the initial feeling of not belonging. It may seem silly to some but when your one of the only Black people in a room of 500 you become very aware of this fact. Not that i wasn't used to it (in primary school i was the only black girl in my year, except one mixed race gurl and the same in secondary/high school). Anyhu the result of this was that it made me quite introverted (not sure if that a word but i have said that English is not my strong point - bare with me!) Anyways I felt isolated, became introverted and resigned myself to going in and out of classes and lectures with my hood up, last in, first out, avoiding all contact with anyone else on my course.
To be honest it was cos its hard to try and fit in when everyone is soooo damn different. What on earth do i have to say to someone who listens to rock instead of r'n'b, wears Chanel instead of H'n'M and speaks with an accent that is posher than e Queen's! That shit is intimidating - do not ever get it twisted! And if u av other frineds outside of your course its really easy to just stick to what you know. But the thing is you need to have friends in all walks of life - the people you used to hang with can only help you soo much. They don't have the notes you may need to copy when u miss a lecture, they don't know the deadline for assignments and they definately do not have the connections you need to get ahead.
Anyhow I continued to live this way for most of my first year until i stumbled across some other Black and Asian students that seemed a lot less alien to me than the rest, who i eventually became quite good friends with.
Anyways my lesson looking back on it all, was that just because you are thrown into what seems like an alternate world you have to assert yourself in your new condition. I mean really put yourself out there and take risks. My number one reason for not speaking to people was because 'i'm not a beg friend' (someone who sucks up to people and begs for people's friendship). Anyway I can see now, being older and slightly more mature that communicating and mingling with others, making an effort to get to know people is not being a begfriend - its called NETWORKING! Yea you may think that it sounds strange - networking... with other students?! But here's the thing, when they leave university they are NOT going to be students anymore. They will be people with training contracts or junior associates, or pr queens or maybe just socialites either way they are your key to connecting with others and in this industry, just like the entertainment industry - you are nothing with a contact or two! Take it from one who knows.
I've always had this belief that i can make it 100% on my own. You know? I don't need anyone because my hard work and determination is enough to get me through. Well let me tell you now, and take it from someone who has been there, that is NOT the case. You can NOT get to where you really wanna be without a contact or two. Yea, it sounds terrible, it goes against all notions of social mobility and those American dreams, that if you just keep trying you will get there,but at the end of the day it is what they forget to tell you! I have this view that people already in affluent families, or those with an aunt or uncle in the industry know this stuff - its just us first timeers that don't know how important it is to network - just wtach some of the freshers or people in your year. You will notice some of them are PROS!! So you better step ur game up!
Anyway I could talk about this whole networking thing forever but the lesson of this experience is that no matter where you go, or what you wana be you have to network. Socialise your butt off because at the end of the day there are thousands of students who have great grades, speak well, and were presidents of the debating society so how do these big firms choose? Contrary to the message they send, it always helps if you have a little contact, who can give your profile that extra boost and means that you get that job or that internship etc.
My lesson is that you should not let the appearance of this legal industry daunt you and intimidate you. Take control of your destiny and do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed and pushed to the sidelines. From the first day you get to university mingle. Yea, you might hate every minute of it but get to know who you need to know and it will be one of the most lucrative investments you ever make!
It would be great if someone can let me know if this is helpful btw. I'll keep writing either way but feedback is welcomed.
Cherie Amour
xcxcx
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