The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19
I Always Wanted to Be a Lawyer Jane Moore
“Y
ou can’t do anything with a Ph.D.,” the man sitting beside me said. We were in a small bar on Ralph Abernathy Drive in Atlanta. “You should go to law school. Three years and you’re out.” I can’t remember who the man was or what he looked like. He started talking to me when he heard me tell my roommate, Lisa, that I thought I’d get a Ph.D. in anthropology. “With a J.D., you can do anything,” he continued. “Work for yourself, or a big firm, or do other things, like work for a corporation. There are so many kinds of law you can practice—family law, corporate, tax, criminal. Law is wonderful like that because in each area there are always two sides, so there are always more jobs for lawyers.” I sat there, drinking and thinking. Whoever he was, those words burned themselves into my mind, long after I met him. Well, for at least a month or so. “With a J.D., you can do anything.” Those words reverberated. What could I do with a Ph.D. in anthropology? Go on digs, but where? I was sure the best places, the most scenic spots, were taken or dug to death. Only three years to get a J.D. How long would it take to get my Ph.D.?
28.
Just to finish the coursework would take four years, at least. Then I’d have to write a thesis. Didn’t that take another three to four years? How would I survive? “We’re not learning anything here,” Lisa complained about our jobs at the prison law project where we worked. “This researcher title is ridiculous. We’re doing what we did in college, looking up stuff and writing the equivalent of term papers. We have to get better jobs.” Based on that one conversation with a man I saw once, and the complaints Lisa and I traded about our jobs, I decided to go to law school. “I like to read, nonfiction as well as fiction,” I told Lisa. “I enjoy arguing with other people. I can be a good lawyer.” Lisa was reading. She looked up from her book, smiled, and nodded her head. That confirmed my decision. The other thing about becoming a lawyer was I heard they made a lot of money. My parents had Ph.D.’s, but we grew up poor, compared to the doctors and lawyers who were my parents’ contemporaries and friends. They didn’t mind that their friends had big cars and new houses while we lived in faculty housing, older places that needed
