The Thursday Ramble: Finding my way in the world

I am sometimes asked how I ended up working in law and aging.  And it was a bit of a curious path. 

I worked in the homebuilding industry for 15 years before going to law school.  My thought was that I would practice real estate, construction defects, planning, zoning, and land use law.  In law school I was a property law geek, reading everything on the topic I could get my hands on. 

I could hardly get an interview with the firms that practiced in those areas of the law.  I was older and experienced, they seemed to be looking for young and teachable.  

The law school required 30 hours of volunteer service to graduate.  The summer between first and second year, I volunteered at the local legal aid office.  About my second day there, someone said answer the phone while I go look for a file.  The first phone call started with "you have got to help me they are trying to take away my lion."  The lion was her housepet. Code enforcement was demanding something more than a screen door, as kitty was now about 250 pounds.  

The office did a lot of family law, and domestic violence work.  I spent days searching for a clear answer to a vexing question.  "Is a waiver of parental rights in an adoption, valid, if the waiver is a condition of a plea bargain in a criminal case?"  At that time, there was no clear answer.  The criminal case, was a sexual assault on the child who was subject of the adoption - the man had raped his child.  The facts in many of the child custody cases were stomach turning.  More than once, my recommendation was neither of these two people should have anything to do with raising a child.   Not an answer that they liked.  

I determined that I never wanted to practice family law. 

There was an attorney in the office who only represented clients age 60 and older.  The issues were different.  A mix of simple estate planning, advance health care directives, powers of attorney, debt collection, Medicare, Medicaid, a little landlord tenant law. The clients were nicer, and the attorney took me under her wing, gave me interesting projects, and took me along to meet with clients, and go to court.  

I fell in love with the work.  

That volunteer time, led to a paid clerkship, that led to a job, that led to a job, that ended were I am today.   

Looking back, there were parts of the work I enjoyed, offset by drudgery and needless administrative battles.  Maybe this is the stages of grief after a major life change, but at the moment, I am not sure I liked what I did very much.  I am certainly not itching to return to it.