I am very excited for the Harris County Attorney’s Office Legal Symposium because nineteen-year-old me would have ran to register. The first inkling I had of being interested in the law was in high school. I took an elective about law enforcement and enjoyed it. However, I couldn’t picture myself as a criminal attorney, and since that was really the only kind of lawyer I knew about, I dismissed my interest in the law. I think like many people, my understanding of the law was really limited to TV and movies. There were no lawyers in my family, or even somewhere in the web of people I knew growing up. I don’t think I even met an attorney until I was in law school.
In college, I was a sociology major. In my second semester, my advisor suggested that I consider law school. I minored in political science so he thought it was a natural next step, and just as important, he thought I could do it. That advising session was pivotal. He was the first person to explain to me that being an attorney didn’t look like one thing. That’s one of the biggest things I wish I had known a lot sooner. Until that day, I thought all attorneys went to court, or basically only did criminal or family law. I never understood the real scope of the legal profession until law school. I don’t think I comprehended how many practices areas there really are until my second year of law school. Once I realized there were so many avenues that I could take, it was a little overwhelming. I felt all the other pressures that came with being in law school, and then added figuring out what practice area I wanted to be in.
The journey from student to attorney had a lot of lessons and learning curves. As a first-generation college student focused on my GPA and LSAT score, I never could have imagined all the different ways you can be an attorney. For that reason, it makes me so happy to see that two sessions of the Harris County Attorney’s Office Legal Symposium are devoted to networking with attorneys in various legal fields. Our office specifically, shows the breadth of work you can do as a lawyer, and I would have really benefited from that kind of exposure as I started my legal journey.
To learn more about the Legal Symposium: cao.harriscountytx.gov/legalsymposium