Thanks in advance.
Admittedly, when I entered college I was ambivalent about which path to pursue regarding my education and eventual career. However, inspiration comes from the most unlikely of places [sentence needs to be eliminated and replaced]
During my sophomore year of college, while taking the prerequisites to a general business degree, I was required to enroll in a class I had heard nothing but bad things about -- Accountancy 201: the Principles of Financial Accounting. However, after the first few class meetings, I found that I had a natural talent in the subject. The course seemed to just make sense to me, and it wasn’t as difficult as advertised. The nature of the ideas presented was stimulating and I instantly realized their applicability in real world situations. On the final day of class, following a particularly persuasive lecture on the merits of an accounting career, my professor successfully persuaded me to change my major to accounting. The challenges the subject presented were interesting and they pushed me intellectually as well as providing me with a promising career path. It wasn’t until the unfortunate death of my grandmother and the subsequent problems encountered that I would have a change of heart.
Upon death, a person’s estate is valued and taxes are levied on everything in the estate that qualifies for taxation. My grandmother’s estate met certain requirements that allowed it to be valued six months from the date of her death, and my family chose to do so. During this time the United States slid into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression and companies throughout the country were failing, with banks taking an especially hard hit. Six months to the day after my grandmother died -- the day the valuation took place -- was a Friday and the stock markets closed for the weekend. The bulk of her estate consisted of shares of a bank’s stock, and over the course of the weekend it was announced that the bank was near collapse. Monday morning, when the stock markets opened, the value of the bank’s stock (and the majority of her estate), fell by 90 percent. Incidentally, the funds to pay the taxes that were levied on Friday were no longer available on Monday. The drastic decline in value presented my family with an interesting tax implication.
Coincidentally, while this was unfolding I was covering the topic of estates and trusts in two separate classes, and was thus able to follow along in class while witnessing the real world implications. It was intriguing to see how the language of the tax laws adapted to cover the unforeseen consequences of an economic recession. An attorney was retained to work alongside the estate’s accountant in an attempt to negotiate with the Internal Revenue Service. I quickly learned, however, that accountants mainly handled the raw crunching of numbers while the attorneys were given the pleasure of solving the complex problems. Upon this realization, the decision to pursue a career in law instead of accounting became much easier for me.
This was not the first time the idea of attending law school had occurred to me. My grandfather received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of XXX School of Law and went on to serve as a Circuit Judge in my hometown of XXX,XXX. Through him, I was able to witness the hard work attorneys perform and the admiration they command, and thus attending law school has always been in the back of my mind. It wasn’t until the death of my grandmother, coupled with the lessons learned from studying accounting that I became confident I have the discipline and desire necessary to thrive in law school and an ensuing profession in the legal field.
