Fordham university school of law - Law

Grad's guide to graduate admissions essays - Colleen Reding 2015

Fordham university school of law
Law

“Attention on the concourse: Continental Airlines flight 1285 to Washington, DC will be delayed an additional hour due to technical difficulties. We thank you for your patience.” I found myself sitting in the Houston airport, waiting for the flight back to DC that now signaled the end of my workweek. The delay meant missing a friend’s birthday party and spending my Friday night alone in an airport. Working as a paralegal in the Department of Justice hadn’t exactly turned out the way I had anticipated.

This wasn’t the first time that I had questioned my decision to leave my former job managing a cupcake shop. At that moment, I would have traded anything to worry about whether or not we had enough chocolate cupcakes to make it until closing instead of lying awake and wondering if I had made enough copies of our exhibits to publish to the jury the next day. It had been difficult leaving an exciting job at a rapidly expanding business where I managed more than 50 employees. But here was an opportunity to work in a field that I had become passionate about, having been exposed to both the judicial and the legislative sides of the law in several internship roles during my undergraduate years, at both the federal and state levels.

Traveling each week was but one of the unforeseen challenges my new role would bring. My team was understaffed and underresourced and it quickly became apparent that I would not receive any training. I took it upon myself to learn the ropes, determined to excel quickly. After working for 6 weeks, I prepared my attorney coworkers for a 3-week trial with nine defendants. In addition to being away from home every week, having the weight of a federal trial on your shoulders was, to say the least, a bit overwhelming. However, I found that my organizational skills and ability to assess any issues or obstacles that arose in a logical and timely manner were essential to achieve what seemed to be an impossible goal. I learned quickly to adapt to last minute changes and to pay attention to the details, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

Despite the incredible stress inherent in working on a federal trial for the first time, the experience of sitting at the counsel table and watching the prosecutors firsthand was inspiring. My respect for our justice system, which at times still frustrates and disappoints even the truest of believers, grew tremendously, as did as my respect for the attorneys I worked with night and day to ensure we presented our case in a manner worthy of the federal courtroom where we spent each day. I gained an enormous appreciation for the gravity of our work and its potential for impact on society as a whole.

Through many late nights in the courthouse, my motivation never faltered. In retrospect, I believe that the isolation of living in a strange place for five nights each week, and yes, even the anxiety of the entire experience, was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to help my concentration as I was transitioning into a new job that involved matters of such enormous consequence. After the guilty verdicts were read, and our chief litigator wrote to DC claiming that my drive to succeed was an indispensable part of the end result, my exhaustion was replaced by exhilaration and a profound motivation to do it again.

As I prepared myself to board my flight back to DC that Friday night, I considered all of the events that I had missed back home and the friends and family members that I hadn’t seen in months. Despite the sacrifices I’d made, I knew there was no going back from this invaluable experience. I had found a challenging and unique position that kept me driven each day and inspired me to work harder. As I boarded the plane, I knew that I would be on the flight back to Houston on Monday morning, eager to begin work on our next trial.