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October 02, 2007
Tips for Choosing a Career in Public Interest
Periodically throughout the year the CSO will be posting blog entries from guest bloggers about various topics. Please note that the views expressed by our guest bloggers are the personal opinion of each blogger and are not necessarily the views and opinions of the CSO. The CSO guest blogger entries are intended as an opportunity for attorneys currently practicing in the legal field to share their insight and advice with law students.
To continue with our Public Interest Theme Week, our second guest blogger of the year, Elizabeth Lashley-Haynes (class of 2002), a public defender in LA, shares her advice on choosing a career in public interest.
Tips for Choosing a Career in Public Interest
By Elizabeth Lashley-Haynes (Class of 2002)
First and foremost, are you dedicated to this line of work? If you immediately say yes, then you are going in the right direction. If you are hesitant in your answer, then you may have some trouble in the public interest field. I am not suggesting you should not TRY it, of course, experience comes from trying new things. But, if you are not dedicated to the idea of helping others and not being thanked (at all) it is tough.
To those who answer yes right away, don’t be afraid to try a public interest career that may not be exactly what you are looking for. Let’s say you really want to do civil rights work, but a job opens up in the area of homelessness or environmental law. What you will probably find is that the job is fulfilling, and you learn a lot. Additionally, it will give you the opportunity to meet like-minded attorneys, and possibly open up doors in the field you are interested in.
Finally, when you go into this line of work, you need to expect a few things:
1. YOU WILL NOT BE RICH, know it, accept it, and move on. There is something easier to deal with when you accept it ahead of time. Further, when everyone you work with is in the same boat, it becomes like a family...a poor family, but a family. You learn how to deal with the student loans, clothes shopping for sales, and driving a beat up car. After a while, you love it. I mean, after all, I am a public defender - what would I look like driving a new Mercedes? FYI - there has been a lot of legislation about loan forgiveness for public interest lawyers. See College Cost Reduction Act, passed early in September by Congress.
2. YOU WILL NOT BE THANKED, even when you do a good job. This mostly applied to people who go into the area of representing underprivileged people. You may work for days, weeks or months on something, or someone’s case. You may put in an exceptional amount of time, and do your very best. At the end of all that, you may just have a client who walks away without acknowledging anything you did, or worse, tells you off. Further, your supervisor or colleagues may never acknowledge what you do or did. You need to find within yourself why you are doing the job you are doing. You need to be happy with yourself and your work, all by yourself. You will very often not get any praise from anyone on the outside. Learn how to praise yourself on the inside. Everyone once and a while you will be graced with a “thank you” and it will warm your heart and make it all worth it.
3. THERE WILL BE DAYS WHEN YOU HATE YOUR JOB. This is related to #1 and #2 above. We are all human. After months or years of doing a public interest job, being underpaid and feeling underappreciated, you will have days when you will hate your job. Learn to accept those days and look forward to the next day. Make a mental list, or a actual list, about what you love about your job. It is easy to lose sight of the positive side of a public interest job. But, if you really loose sight of how good your job is you may make the mistake I did. I had a time when I felt this way and I left my job with the public defenders office to join a small, private criminal defense firm. I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with criminal defense firms. Yet, if your heart is in public interest, and you leave for more money, you will probably end up feeling unsatisfied with your work. It took me less than five months to realize the private sector wasn’t for me. All I can say is that I felt like “it” wasn’t who I was. I said to myself, I wasn’t just working as a public defender, I AM a public defender, it is the very essence of who I am. Luckily the Los Angeles County Public Defenders Office accepted me back. Now, I am so grateful, happy, and fulfilled.
4. THERE WILL BE DAYS WHEN YOU LOVE YOUR JOB. This one is the most important. Hopefully, these day will outweigh the bad days. Probably the most important thing about working in the public interest field is that you will get to see how your work impacts the lives of other people, or society as a whole. You can walk home at the end of the day proud of the work you do. For me, I know that if I assist one drug addict in finding a drug program that helps them get sober; or help one juvenile get out of juvenile detention and back in school; or I free one innocent person from jail....I am satisfied with the work I do. This is the best feeling in the world. This is why I went to law school.
Posted by kcc17 at October 2, 2007 03:52 PM