Any tips/suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your time!Moving my pen as quickly as possible across the page, I was in absolute awe of the magnitude of what I was writing. I did not want to miss a single word. The speaker, a recent law school graduate himself, addressed the courtroom but not under the traditional role one would expect. The session I was attending was not a criminal trial; instead it was a drug treatment court graduation ceremony. The speaker was one of five graduates honored and could not hold back his tears as he thanked each individual member of the drug court, in particular the court’s attorneys. The graduate’s story was somber and chilling: he began using drugs to help cope with his brother’s death. He described at length how the court’s attorneys did not view him as a criminal but instead as a human being and helped him reclaim his sobriety. Sobbing, he exclaimed, “You guys saved my life!” The experience of conducting a comparative summer study on drug courts strongly affirmed my own reasoning for wanting to attend law school.
The prospect of becoming an attorney never crossed my mind before March of my freshman year in high school. Seated in history class, I watched as the class bully progressed through his daily routine of tormenting the new student. The fact that the new student in our class possessed a severe form of autism did not deter the bully in the slightest regard; that day he etched on the chalkboard a grotesquely derogatory, homophobic poem that ridiculed everything from the new student’s voice to the way he dressed. Without saying a word, I walked up to the chalkboard and erased the poem. The few laughs circulating the room immediately subsided.
The bully and I were also in the same gym class. By the time the three class periods between history and gym had passed, the entire grade had become familiar with what had transpired earlier. Class was almost over, and I sat on bleachers, a stack of books in my hands, as I waited for the bell. The bully approached me, and insisted that, since I was such a “tough guy,” that I throw the first punch at him. When I declined, he immediately reared back and delivered a direct blow to my right eye. I’ll never forget the sound of my books hitting the wooden floor.
I spent a great portion of the next three weeks in the optometrist’s office. My right eye suffered permanent internal damage as a result of the punch, but, fortunately, I did not lose my vision. I was forced to wear an eye patch for the next month and, surprisingly, was ridiculed to a great extent. Within the first week of wearing my eye patch, I became familiar with seemingly every pirate/eye patch joke ever conceived. Concerning the bully, he received a mere two day school suspension and was not fazed in the least bit. My disdain was ineffable; clearly, I had done the right thing, but it seemed as if I were the one being punished.
Six long months later, I anxiously opened a sealed envelope from the Trumbull County Family Court. Per the bully’s plea of “true” to an assault charge, he was ordered to wear an electronic ankle monitor for 60 days. The bully originally contested the charge, but, after his first meeting with the county’s juvenile prosecutor, changed his plea. I was also present at that meeting and could not help but compare the actions of the prosecutor and my own. Just as I was there to stick up for the autistic student in history class, he was there to advocate for me. The bully offered an array of different justifications for his actions, but the prosecutor flawlessly discredited each. After a single meeting with the prosecutor, the bully only had one option.
I adamantly desire to study and one day practice law so that I can be that attorney who restores justice to a crime victim or whose efforts save a life. Though, on the surface, my own victimization may appear to have been a tragic happening, it brought forth the best epiphany I have ever experienced. Attorneys shape the lives of individuals and society as a whole in manners that cannot be paralleled by those outside the profession. My passion to be an attorney whose actions make this world a better place makes me the perfect candidate for law school.
