Over the past few weeks, I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet with many of the Planned Parenthood attorneys one-on-one to hear more about their careers. Everyone has been so generous with their time and has been more than willing to answer all my questions. Considering how busy things always are and how much work we are doing, this has meant a lot to me and I really appreciate this opportunity.
Most fascinating has been realizing that there truly is no linear path to end up in this type of work. Many of the attorneys have been doing reproductive rights work since before law school. But many others came from public defense, plaintiffs-side firms, and more. In many ways this was extremely refreshing as there can sometimes be a sentiment in reproductive rights that you have to dedicate your entire career to this issue in order to find a job. While I am of course extremely passionate about this work and would love to spend my career advocating for people’s reproductive rights, it is still helpful to know that I can explore other options. A lot of the conversations with attorneys proved to me that careers are long and I would love to explore many different issue areas throughout my career. In many ways, I think this is one of the greatest strengths of a team like this one – everyone is coming from such a different perspective that they have different strengths, different thoughts from other movements, different ideas about strategy.
It has also been particularly interesting to realize how different people’s approaches are to reproductive rights, and thus what intersections are of most interest. While I personally got involved in this issue purely from a gender and women’s rights perspective, I have learned that in many ways reproductive rights is the intersection of so much more than that. For some attorneys, it is closely related to topics of sexuality. For others, it is actually a racial justice issue. For even others, it is instead a subset of health law. And the best part about this situation is that no one is wrong. I love that this team brings all of these perspectives to the work as it helps ensure that no component of this work is being left behind. Yes, we are fighting for reproductive rights throughout the country, but it is essential that we incorporate all of these intersectional areas into this work as well.
The conversations I had with the PPFA attorneys have given me so much to think about, and I am so glad I took the time to talk with each of them. No matter whether they went to HLS or elsewhere, clerked or not, were early or further into their careers, they all were able to give me genuine, helpful advice on how to approach my career.
All of these conversations compounded on the amazing lunches that the PPFA internship coordinators put together throughout the summer. Over the weeks of our internship, we had multiple brown bags where we discussed different areas of public interest law. This included public defense work, pro bono work within law firms, plaintiffs firms, the Hill, and so much more. It was so helpful to have experienced lawyers sharing this insight into different types of legal careers that are still within the public service realm. In many ways, I spent 1L trying to figure this out on my own, so it was such a relief to have someone explain these areas to me in more detail. Furthermore, these talks centered not just around the high-level description of the work, but also the day-to-day experiences, and the softer side of things relating to hours and culture.
While of course I will not be relying exclusively on this information as it was just the perspectives of a handful of attorneys, and we were not able to speak to someone who had done the work for all of the industries, it was still extremely helpful. I know that as I look forward to options for next summer and beyond, these conversations will help shape my decisions. As someone who felt quite overwhelmed going into the summer about potential legal career paths, these talks were an essential part of my internship experience. For my first ever legal work experience, I doubt I could have gotten such an informative and helpful experience.
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