Taboo Topic? Forum

[Anonymous User]

If i am trying to relay my interest in immigrants' rights reform and i cite my experience working at my parents' store where they hired undocumented immigrants and paid them under the table...would that be incriminating against my parents?

sounds silly but...srs question

[Nebby]

Not incriminating. It's a fine topic.

[Ramius]

Not incriminating. It's a fine topic.

The topic can work, but it needs to be approached sensitively. The way you broach the subject on here, it seems somewhat cavalier. Don't let that carry into your PS. It's an interesting approach and it can help you, but like any statement, the tone has to be right.

[mindthegap]

I agree that it could work but the focus should be on why you want to help reform immigrants' rights and how law school can help you achieve that vs. the fact that your parents employed individuals illegally. As another poster said, you'll need to broach the subject tenderly. In fact, as with any controversial topic, I personally think your goal should be to approach the essay with the knowledge that whoever reads it may hold a totally opposite view.

[thisone2014]

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[lacrossebrother]

Not incriminating. It's a fine topic.

The topic can work, but it needs to be approached sensitively. The way you broach the subject on here, it seems somewhat cavalier. Don't let that carry into your PS. It's an interesting approach and it can help you, but like any statement, the tone has to be right.

Wtf? No. Don't write about you doing nothing as you knowingly observed your parents willfully commit crimes.

Write about wanting to be a lawyer because you find analyzing difficult problems, like immigration and labor issues, to be fascinating and something you're good at. Say that you were exposed to these issues early on due to living in a town where the secondary labor market was not hidden at all for some reason.

Be normal and smart dude. #1 rule of ps writing is don't take risks. Way more downside than up.

[thisone2014]

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[Clearly]

No. Very bad idea.

[lacrossebrother]

I don't even get the virtue here. You have demonstrated an ability to keep your mouth shut so you'll be great at protecting client confidentiality?

Absent an express duty to protect confidentiality, lawyer ethics encourage reporting...brah

[bretby]

I think that, carefully handled, this could be an interesting topic. Looking back on your parents' and their employees' experiences now, do you see the practice in a different light? It's such a complex issue, if you can do it some justice (obviously don't try to 'solve' the problem in a 2 page essay), then I think it might work. Would set you apart from the "being on the xyz team/president of the abc club/working for one year at mnop job" crowd.

[Clearly]

A long time from now, the C+F board is going to get this paper when deciding if you're fit to be a lawyer, remember that.

[dolphinsareevil]

Maybe you could write instead about how your parents had to turn down great workers because a restrictive immigration law didn't allow them to hire the workers?

I would work this as my intro, then go on to talk about other experiences

[ms9]

If i am trying to relay my interest in immigrants' rights reform and i cite my experience working at my parents' store where they hired undocumented immigrants and paid them under the table...would that be incriminating against my parents?

sounds silly but...srs question

I wish I had seen this earlier.

Were your parents immigrants? Did they start their own business and raise you under the challenges of both first generation immigration and running the business as such? Did you help them/see first hand what they endured? What you endured?

That is the topic. Not the legal implication and/or infractions they committed.

9/10 times talking about legal circumstances as a 0L goes poorly in a PS. The story is there, though, just in a different form.