Over the years, I’ve constantly joked that I wanted to become a lawyer just because I was bad at math. But that’s actually not really the reasons why.
My father was a lawyer and I always looked up to him. He had been practicing in Fort Worth for over 30 years, got started in 1981. He had a very reputable practice and no shortage of clients. I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to follow in his footsteps just yet. That wasn’t the driving force for my decision to practice law. No less, becoming a lawyer was just always in the back of my mind as a career option since I had that early exposure.
I attended Texas Tech and started taking political science classes. I became interested in how the law related to our government, politics, and so on. Building on my interest in law and justice, I sat for the LSAT and was lucky to remain at Texas Tech for law school. After earning my undergraduate degree in three and a half years, I decided to go for my MBA as well.
There’s an entirely different thought process with business education and going for your MBA than there is for attending law school, or college in general. MBA degrees are far more focused on efficiency, namely the ends instead of the means. People flock to MBA programs with a specific job or goal in mind. In contrast, a liberal arts or political science degree is less about the specific ends and more about the means: getting an education first and then seeing which doors it opens.
Having earned both a political science degree and an MBA, I feel I got a really broad perspective; which helped in law school and in my practice. Being able to see the difference in the means and the ends, and understanding the motivations and thought processes of others as a result, helps me make more informed observations about people as well as more informed decisions. Not all legal processes have efficient ends in mind like an MBA, and crafting a defense can be more about the means depending on the facts of the case.
Having both ends and means in mind is the way I bring something different and crucial to the field. So, that’s why I became a lawyer.
