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December 13, 2011
What Do You Do?: Making Sense of My New Profession
December 13, 2011
Telephone Record Theft
What Do You Do?: Making Sense of My New Profession
Posted by: Sean Goodbody
December 13, 2011
Topic: General
"And what do you do?"
Until very recently, I never had a good answer for that question. I've had answers, for sure, but never very interesting answers, and never about anything permanent. (There's only so much people want to hear about my being a student, an intern, or someone "just working here for the summer.")
But since late October, I finally have a definite answer: "I'm a lawyer."
It took four years of college and three years of law school (and a whole lot of tests) to be able to say that. Law professors told us - and we law students told each other - that passing the bar exam and getting sworn in as an attorney would feel wonderful. And it has.
But I've noticed something they never taught us in law school: when you tell someone, "I'm a lawyer," there's a decent chance that they'll cringe, and then tell a joke that begins, "So there's a busload of lawyers driving towards a cliff..."
Alexis de Tocqueville, the French admirer of 19th-Century American democracy, said that lawyers were "the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy." But he also said that lawyers, with a "habit for order" and a "taste for formalities" can "render them very hostile to the revolutionary spirit." "I do not...assert that all the members of the legal profession are...opponents of innovation, but merely that most of them are usually so."
Tocqueville's attitude seems to reflect that of most Americans: lawyers like to see things in order, and in general like to keep things as they are. And when lawyers work for large and powerful entities, as they often do, the maintenance of the status quo often comes at the expense of the common citizen.
But those who cringe at the word "lawyer" often don't recognize the counterpoint: lawyers' "habit of order" and "taste for formalities" are assets that can shake up the status quo, and challenge those who control it. I firmly believe that no important question has ever been answered with, "That's the way we've always done it." This conviction pushed me through law school and the bar exam.
Killian & Davis shares this conviction, and that's why I'm here. The talented lawyers and staff I work with have an impeccable knowledge of the legal process. We use what we know about process, procedure, and justice to challenge the status quo, find a better way, and help people who can't help themselves. Our mission - our business - is to challenge powerful institutions that cut, deny, or ignore the interests of the people in the name of "following the rules:"
-Insurance companies that deny coverage customers trust them to provide.
-Government agencies that use technicalities to shield themselves from liability for injuries they've caused.
-Social Security offices that deny a person's disability after reading stacks of medical records.
-Employers that decline to help their workers who are seriously injured.
All of them have lawyers. Some of them even have busloads of lawyers. But you have one, too. And we don't accept the answer, "That's the way we've always done it."
So what do I do?
I'm a lawyer. And I want to shake things up.
