Hi friends, comrades, and assorted feds,
I'm coming up on the end of a thoroughly wasted undergrad, and it's looking like I'm going to end up at law school.
I know that a better, more socialist society cannot and will not be established through the judicial system alone, but I nonetheless want to contribute in some way through a career in law. So in your opinion, is Labor/Employment Law a valid way of doing this? Representing the interests of Unions or individual employees against their employers?
Would it be better to attack some other aspect of our societal injustice? Immigration law, Civil Rights or so on? Open to any kind of thoughts you might have, I haven't read enough theory yet myself to be 100% sure about this.
We might not be able to Phoenix Wright our way to communism, but helping keep proletarians from being locked up, deported, or abused at the workplace is praxis. Vladimir Lenin was a lawyer.
You as a lawyer might not bring about communism, but the people you keep out of prison and on the streets organizing might.
Labor law is great. Just keep in mind that, as with all things law, the money is in defending the evildoers. You can earn a living defending workers, but you'll probably be paying off your law school debt for a while. But I don't think it would be any different if you went into civil rights law, criminal law, landlord/tenant law, etc. So if labor law interests you, go for it!!
Reagrdless of the area you focus on, oppressed people don't have a lot of money to pay lawyers, and courts normally find for low damages when poor people are harmed. ("His career earning potential was low anyway. Here's $20k. ") By the same token, there is a real need for lawyers in these areas. There are way too many lawyers overall, which is why friends don't let friends go to law school. But if you aren't in it for money, that becomes a totally different story. There's plenty of demand and need for lawyers who will actually help the working class.
I'm going with the law school which has offered me a 100% tuition scholarship, so hopefully my personal debts will be as small a concern as possible. Not only that but many peers of mine who went through undergrad in the same major are are now being hired with obscene salaries at some ghoulish companies, so I hope that my ability to avoid giving in to that temptation means I won't be similarly tempted towards lucre in the future.
That's amazing, congrats!! A law school scholarship is no small thing, regardless of school. You should be very proud!! And with that weight off your mind, I really would say go for whatever area of the law you're most passionate about. The need is there.
I have no idea but I am now going to steal “ Hi friends, comrades, and assorted feds” as a general greeting from now on
This is what I think I want to do. You'll be in debt until the revolution, but you have the bonus of having a hand on the wheel of whatever movement you're working for because radical lawyers are few and far between and it's a worthwhile skill even though we want to render it useless.
It didn't limit itself to labor, but the International Labor Defense (ILD) was a really good idea from the old CP and something like it should be brought back.
Don't forget the public defenders in that list too!
But yeah, if you have legal training might as well use it for good, right? There are a lot of good lawyers out there making real material gains for working people. It's not gonna bring the revolution or anything but going into labor law or public defense already put you in like, the top 1% of comrades doing real shit for people.
Labor law can be good but it will largely depend on the client base and how much control you have over the cases you are assigned.
Consider working in healthcare law and sticking it to health insurance companies as well
From what I've experienced in my short time in the legal field thus far, immigration law and labor law are the fields to be in if you want to genuinely help people. Maybe criminal law too if you can focus on defense.
Thank you everyone for the feedback! I think I will go into things with labor law in mind, but I'll try my best to seek out opportunities which expose me to other much-needed areas of law (public defense, healthcare, landlord/tenant and so on) to make sure whatever area I end up in is what most takes advantage of my abilities.
