Flipping the Script

I was debating whether to write about this, since it's possible the subjects may read it. More likely they won't. And, even if they do... it's true and I could use a reckoning.

So there is this group of people in my class who spent all of last year talking about "public interest" jobs and campaigning for a viable Loan Repayment Assistance Program. They held events, they circulated fliers debunking peoples' excuses for working at large firms. They worked in clinics like I did this summer.... and come late August, they donned black suits and started fighting tooth and nail for these large firm jobs. One, who is also a friend, told me today she thinks she wants to go in to copyright. Um. Excuse my french, but what the fuck? I can't imagine spending as much time as they did on public interest/LRAP stuff unless I felt passionately about it. I can't imagine abandoning something I felt passionately about at... well... the first opportunity.

The thing really isn't their working at a big firm, I have nothing against that. Ok, really I do, because I have this silly feeling like my life should have some social utility and want my job to reflect that. But honestly, there are plenty of people who have said big firms are where they want to be from day one and have reasons why. And that is really ok with me, I don't understand it, I don't agree with it for myself... but it's their prerogative and god bless.

The people that are irking me lately are the sneaky ones, the ones who have been dishonest somewhere along this route. The ones who told us not to work for firms and then suited up at first call. Perhaps they are the biggest gunners of all and we've been fooled by an elaborate hoax... ? Hmmm... I don't want to totally alienate them. I'll be toiling away at my silly social justice issues and using my law degree to improve peoples' lives... and maybe they'll take me out to dinner. I'll be so hungry. So very, very hungry.