The e-mail from the D.C. bar telling me I’m running out of time to complete my mandatory ethics course for new lawyers (or else they suspend my license) alerts me to the fact that it’s been almost a year since I’ve been sworn in.
I took the bar in February of 2020, right before the pandemic hit (I wrote about that experience here. Contrary to many people’s bar exam experience, mine was inexplicably one of the most beautiful of my life). I never expected that it would take longer to get sworn in than it would to get through law school, but life comes with all sorts of unexpected lessons.
About a year and a half after my character and fitness hearing of alternately waiting on pins and needles until I felt I might die and checking in with my lawyers, to forgetting about it out of psychological necessity, it was a year ago that I got an automated e-mail from the D.C. bar congratulating me for completing the requirements for admission to the bar. My lawyers soon confirmed it was in fact, real, and not sick joke, or bureaucratic snafu.
I was never sure what swearing in as an attorney would be like, but the reality, at least my reality, was something I couldn’t have guessed: swearing in in absentia, in a rural bank with a puzzled teller who was a notary, and my wife by my side, on April Fool’s Day. Perhaps fitting, perhaps foreshadowing, perhaps too early to tell.
A pretty anti-climactic end to what is typically a three year journey for most people, but for me was a fifteen or sixteen year one, depending on when you start counting. Much like the proverbial dog catching the car they had been chasing, I was initially perplexed by the array of buttons and switches and pedals that I now found myself confronted with: setting up my law practice, finding office space, getting malpractice insurance, so on and so forth. I’m a first-generation lawyer, and prior to my own experience as a criminal defendant, becoming a lawyer had never been on my radar. Nevertheless, and as with every other challenge I’ve ever experienced, I’m extremely grateful to the array of people who have gone out of their way to show me generosity with their time, their efforts, and their labor.
And then, of course, there’s paying the bills. My career has always been weird and idiosyncratic, many highs and lows. I was never sure how being a lawyer would go, but as it turns out (at least so far, knock on wood), it’s gone well. Of the people I’m most grateful for, it would be hard not to consider my clients to be at or near the top of that list. I kind of figured that once I became a lawyer, the music would swell and the credits would roll and that would be that. But as it turns out, it’s a job. One I’m exceedingly grateful and privileged to have, but a job nonetheless. The people who love me don’t love me any more, and the people who hate me don’t hate me any less. It can be mundane, exciting, grueling, terrifying, it comes with a new set of challenges to navigate, so on. Ups and downs, wins and losses. And such is life.
And one that has kept me incredibly busy. My writing here has been sporadic because my time has been consumed with other endeavors, but I intend to become more active. I enjoy writing, and while over the last few years one of the only emotions I could access in writing anything personal was anger, that’s fading as I think I’m entering a new stage of healing from a particularly challenging and painful chapter of life. Also, I have at least two (2!) paid subscribers, and I feel like if nothing else, I at least owe them their money’s worth.
I am working on several projects and cases that I’m sure, or hope, would be of interest to readers here. Owing to lessons learned, I keep my cards closer to my chest these days, but perhaps that’s not a bad thing. But there are things moving, if slowly, and even if I’m not ready to talk about them yet.
I turned 40 last November, and I find that I’m still learning, and still growing. Both as a human being, and as an advocate. People older than me tell me I’m still young, but my bones don’t believe them. But check in with me later, and perhaps—if I am lucky—I’ll understand how correct they are.
In sum, to the people who have been there for me in all sorts of ways, who took chances on me, who have trusted me, to my parents, to my wife Stefanie, my lawyers who (excellently) represented me before the D.C. bar, and to my friends, to those who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, to the character and fitness committee who provided me the opportunity to testify and present evidence and ultimately made the decision that occasions this very post: I am grateful beyond measure, somewhere beyond the ability the vocabulary with which I am presently equipped with to express. Grateful, as well, to Judge Pamela Goodwine who, instead of sending me to prison, allowed me to go to law school. I sent her a letter last year, and received a very generous response I keep in my office.
Also, speaking of projects, just this week, I filed my first amicus brief in the Texas Third Court of Appeals on behalf of Texas Voices for Reason and Justice in support of an appeal challenging the application of location-based living restrictions on people with sex-related convictions. I hope it’s helpful, and am proud to do work on behalf of both a worthy organization and a worthy cause.
And now, I suppose I should complete that course.
You definitely write well and I always enjoy reading them. Congrats to you on all levels