The Public Interest Career Path Can Seem Rocky and Winding. Here's a Story about Keeping the Faith…
By: Steve Grumm
My friend and colleague Leeor Neta, Assistant Director for Public Interest Programs at Golden Gate University School of Law, has written a nice piece about the varying – and sometimes strange – paths he’s been on during his legal career. The article is entitled “The Most Common Path to a Public Interest Career is Also the Least Discussed.” In it Leeor draws a distinction between the better-understood-but-quite-narrow points of entry, such as postgraduate fellowships and judicial clerkships, and the path that most grads take: shaking every tree, making connections, and staying optimistic until the right opportunity comes along. And even at that stage, the first “right” opportunity generally won’t be the last one. So one job may lead to another and another as a graduate is 1, 5, 10 years out of law school.
The article’s intended audience is law school career services professionals, but I’ve no doubt that public-interest minded students and grads can take much from Leeor’s recounting of his experiences. Leeor begins:
There are ultimately three avenues to a public interest legal career. The first is a postgraduate fellowship with a public interest organization. The second is a judicial clerkship; clerkships demonstrate a commitment to public service that can attract public interest employers. While these paths to a public interest career are certainly desirable, it is probably fair to say that most future public interest lawyers pursue a third avenue: taking whatever comes, maintaining a long-term perspective, and doing one’s best to exemplify a commitment to public interest in the meantime.
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How then do we counsel the countless law students who graduate each year without either a fellowship or a clerkship but still an abiding commitment to the public interest? CDOs need to broadcast the stories of the many people who took a long-term path to a public interest career. When possible, we need to speak from our own experiences. And if you will pardon a minor indulgence, I will do just that: I came to law school with little idea of what I wanted to accomplish with a law degree. All I knew was that I wanted to serve my community, especially those who did not have the same opportunities I’d had….
From there Leeor runs is through his own winding career path. He’s done everything from capital defense to broader indigent defense work in Illinois, to running (after founding) a juvenile diversion program in California. Also falling in there – in fact, his first job out of law school – was a stint doing non-public-interest-but-very-educational work in insurance law. Now, of course, Leeor’s at Golden Gate where he helps students and alum to launch public interest careers.
Leeor’s a very sharp lawyer with some hefty academic credentials (certainly heftier than mine). My hope in sharing his story is that all 3Ls and recent grads can take some solace from the fact that a few missteps and uncertainties along the way are far more the norm than you might think. This post is edging into “too-long-didn’t-read” territory, so for now it must suffice to say that I never envisioned that I, as someone who wanted nothing but to work on public benefits cases in a legal aid office, would not touch a public benefits case during or after law school. But I’m thrilled with the crazy, unforseen way that things have turned out. It happens to most of us.