I Have Always Wanted to be a Lawyer

I wanted to be a lawyer long before I ever understood anything else about my life. Long before I graduated elementary school, long before I recognized the life of a lawyer is not how the actors portray them on television reruns of Law & Order or JAG. I had this aspiration I could not explain, this yearning to serve people and it has always been absolutely instinctive. Every single thing that has ever happened in my short life happened in the framework of this profound, embedded understanding that I would earn my Juris Doctorate; that I would some day become an attorney. As a child I spent a lot of time admiring the courtroom, which was primarily due to the fact I begged my Aunt Kim to take me to court instead of daycare. My curiosity began there – a small courtroom full of oak stained benches in Henderson, North Carolina – and I knew right then I could never stop learning about the law.

I was able to address my interest of the law during my undergraduate career at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. I had the opportunity to study courses from American Constitutional Law I and II, Legal Philosophy and Jurisprudence, and finally, the American Constitution and the Criminal Justice System. These courses made me feel alive. I became purely infatuated and I found myself at a new, uncharted level of intellectual curiosity. It is true that the Criminal Justice System class gave me a textbook taste of criminal law, but throughout the course I found myself craving more. I felt like that same little kid again, the one who filled her youth with wild courthouse dreams. My illusive daydream concluded when I acknowledged that it was time to gain real experience before I submersed myself into a law program. By the end of the fall semeste...

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...e other students, as I apply to law school I harbor no disillusion about the true life of an attorney. I understand that it is not a simple profession and I will probably make less in public service than the cost of my legal education, but that is irrelevant. Studying law will provide an opportunity to do something that is deeply etched into the core of my character, a quality that stood out not only through my work with the undergraduate Leadership Minor Studies program at UNCW, but also in the amount of time and service I have dedicated to my community over the years. Joining the legal profession will allow me to strive to be a better person and lawyer by serving the public. In my opinion, the passion, understanding and ambition I have to assist all members of society are what make me an excellent J.D. candidate for the University of North Carolina School of Law.