As 1L year advances, I find myself asking this question more and more: “What type of lawyer do I want to be?” Speaking to many of my peers, I am relieved to know that I am not alone in experiencing this repetitive self-inquiry—they too ask themselves this question almost daily. Though to be clear, by “type of lawyer,” I am not merely referring to a specific area of practice, but also to the values that I see myself striving to uphold as a practicing attorney. In attempting to answer this question, I tend to reflect on the emphasis that my professors place on applying a critical perspective to the cases and issues we explore both in class and in everyday life. Our job as lawyers in training, so it seems, is not just to understand the letter of the law, but also to understand the motivating forces behind the law, the law’s impact on the judicial process, and the law’s impact on society at large. Why did the court rule the way it did? What are the societal implications of the court’s ruling? Does the ruling complement or negate public policy? How should the court have ruled?
Answering that last question is what I find most compelling about law school thus far. Courts have certainly made mistakes. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a seven-to-one decision that separate but equal accommodations for Whites and Blacks did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and were therefore constitutional. 163 U.S. 537, 551-52 (1896). The Court’s decision was later overturned unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education, which held that separate but equal accommodations inherently violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, thus ending racial segregation and paving the way for the eventual destruction of the Jim Crow Era. See 347 U.S. 483, 495-96 (1954). Similarly, in Hammer v. Dagenhart, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a five-to-four decision that Congress did not have the power to restrict child labor by introducing the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, and that in accordance with the Tenth Amendment, any such power regulating the manufacturing of goods was solely reserved for states. 247 U.S. 251, 276-77 (1918). The ruling was also overturned unanimously in United States v. Darby, where the U.S. Supreme Court held that under the Commerce Clause of the Tenth Amendment, Congress had the power to regulate manufacturing and that its introduction of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which also sought to restrict child labor, was constitutional. See 312 U.S. 100, 125-26 (1941).
Here, we see that courts—including the highest in the country—are not above reproach and can have their rulings reversed by a differently constituted panel of judges. In this fashion, the law is constantly evolving, and just because a court may rule a particular way on an issue does not make that ruling “gospel.” Even within the ruling itself, there are dissenting opinions (judges who disagree with the majority ruling) and concurring opinions (judges who agree with the majority ruling but for different reasons), and it is important to consider and understand all opinions on the issue to best inform one’s belief on whether a court ruled correctly. Lawyers challenged the rulings in Plessy v. Ferguson and in Hammer v. Dagenhart and used their knowledge of the legal system to overturn those rulings, making the world—at least in my opinion—a better place. But law school has also taught me that the law is not an exact science, and consequently, the law does not produce any universal truth. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the rulings in the above-mentioned cases, there is no certainty that the rulings in Brown v. Board of Education and in United States v. Darby are the law’s final answers to those legal questions.
The holdings in each of those cases were the truths that the Court adopted at the time, but a different U.S. Supreme Court could find a different truth regarding those legal issues in the future. See Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 142 S. Ct. 2228, 2310 (2022). What seems to be certain thus far, however, is that law is three-dimensional: it consists of doctrine (the rules that govern our society), facts (the world as it is), and theory (the world as it ought to be). As future lawyers, it is our job to understand the rules that govern our society, apply our understanding of those rules to the world around us, and make the world into what it ought to be: fair and just. In doing so, we can attempt to shape the law to fit our worldview, be it for good or for evil, depending on one’s perspective. However, we must also acknowledge that those with opposing values will fight to have a court adopt the values that they espouse. To that end, while I fervently support the Supreme Court’s decisions to eliminate separate but equal accommodations and to restrict child labor, I concede that my values on those subjects may not align with those of others. There are people who still believe that segregation should exist and that children should be exploited for their labor. But to uphold the spirit of the law, it is necessary that all interested parties voice their arguments in the adversarial system provided by the courts.
We are taught to understand the law and apply it in ways that help us realize our beliefs of how the world ought to be. For some, that might mean using the law to make the most money for their corporate clients. For others, that might mean using the law to bring a criminal suspect to justice for an alleged crime. But returning to my original question, the kind of lawyer that I want to be is one who is able to understand any legal issue from all sides and one who gives his all for his clients, whether they be plaintiffs, defendants, or parties in a transaction. Like most of my 1L peers, while I am unsure of the specific practice area in which I will specialize, I am certain that it will reveal itself in due time.
Justin Sells is a first-year student at BC Law and brand new Impact blogger. Contact him at sells@bc.edu.
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