ok this a revision. burn this down! like before. again id rahter hear it from you than get the small envelope. thx!!! Forum

[Bitisinc]

The settings are immaculate. Mise en place rituals have been performed. The guests arrive. They shyly mispronounce some of today's offerings as they probe for, and receive information about tonight's menu offerings and wine pairings. The clinking of glasses, tinkling and scraping of cutlery, and the small bursts of discrete laughter throughout the dining room give way to the silence of another evening of concluded service. I am a restaurant server, and I love what I do for a living. Why law school? I concretely believe that the reason to work hard, and become excellent at any given endeavor, is to arrive in a position to be of best help to others. For me, that position of best help is in the provision of legal services.
I've been in the restaurant industry for nearly twenty years, and during those years the tug toward practicing law never went away. I always told myself, "just one more year, then law school". Eventually I grew in the industry, and life went on uneventfully, comfortably. I gained the respect of colleagues and restaurant guests who would become regular customers and subsequently personal friends. While I relish the instant gratification of meeting needs of my customers, the call to another career has been undeniable. The fire in my belly would not be put out. What makes me good at waiting tables is that I study the craft of service to ensure a wonderful dining experience. I aim to sync my inclination toward service, with my ability to pull disparate factors together to meet needs. I want bring these things to bear with eyes toward a legal education and eventual practice.
I remember while earning my bachelor's degree, I took two courses on the Supreme Court's decision making processes. These courses were the roots of my deciding to pursue a legal career. One of the courses dealt with the Constitution as it concerns the tension of power between the “many states” and federal government over one another. The other course was about the reducible nature of governmental power to the individual citizen. Those courses as a tandem, crystallized that I knew very little (read: near nothing) about the law and the mechanisms our society uses to create order. It was humbling, because I am a fundamentally curious person who likes to consider myself generally well-informed. It was like looking through a keyhole into broader world, and I knew that I wanted in. These were the conversations that I wanted to be having. The notion that I could be a part of helping others navigate a byzantine legal structure to achieve fair outcomes resonated strongly. Those courses taught me how ask better questions and raised more questions with every answer I received.
The first inkling that I knew I would be good lawyer was when I worked together with an employment attorney to secure repayment of my, and my co-oworkers, wrongly-taken wages. I took the lead in the lawsuit, gathered documents, and helped form a class for a successful settlement. My employer at the time underestimated what a group of "lowly waiters" could do with a focused will and organization. As I was working in an "At-Will" state at the time, I was fired with great dispatch soon after the disposition of the case. Nonetheless, it felt good to get redress, and the work I did with lawyer was instinctual; it felt important. It was reassuring to know that the arena of law could be a place where fair is fair.
In my years in the restaurant industry, I've become a leader who installs service cultures based on mutual respect. My work centers around teaching both ownership and and lower-level employees that the gulf between the two camps is not-so-great of a distance. Currently, the training program that I've created has garnered my team a nomination for D.C.'s Restaurant Association Outstanding Service Award.
Adding value to the opinions of those may feel least likely to affect change drives the vision of how service teams have been successful under my leadership. I find that parallels can be drawn between the working environments I foster in the restaurant industry, and what I feel the law can achieve. Fair treatment for all regardless of their background should be the aim of a just system. A shallow dive into legal outcomes statistics proves that equal treatment is yet to come. The thrust of my legal career will be working to correct the balance. I am confident that I will be helpful in that space.
The personal draw for me to xxx Law is the Civil Rights and Equality Pathway, or the Public Service/ Public Policy Pathway offered at xxx. There is no more a fundamental protection that a society can offer to an individual than an equal opportunity to the benefits of membership. The most fundamental of those benefits is the vote. In my studies in Political Science, I gained an appreciation for the power of the franchise. Stopping the de facto contraction of the vote is where my leaning is the strongest. Since Shelby v. Holder was decided in 2013, fourteen states passed more restrictive voting laws which doubtlessly shrank minority enfranchisement. My purpose in practicing law is to staunch this, and to work with those who were silenced to regain their voice; and more strongly at that.
If I were to shrink away in this space where I am called, I would feel complicit in continuing the pattern of underrepresentation and silencing of citizens. Simultaneously seeking redress for wrongs committed, while continuing to assert previously confirmed rights, resonates with me. The Holder decision evinces the idea that civil rights battles which were hard fought and ostensibly won, are not over. This is why chose xxx Law. I am an older student, and xxx Law has few peers as it relates to those of my circumstance. I am a minority student, and xxx Law's commitment to minority communities draws me toward this legal program.
I am a server, and I love what I do. I am great at it. The best part of what I offer is making people feel welcome to the hospitality and expertise with which I conduct the craft. I study flavor profiles of food in conjunction to exacting wine pairings to foster a more complete experience for all of my guests. Similarly I want to study laws, and open doors for those who may have the imbued right of their citizenship taken by being wrongfully denied the right to vote. My goal is to extend a feeling welcome to redress via the legal system. I want to ply my hands to study the law, and be of best help to those who have been previously ignored. Upon degree completion I will follow my passion by serving in this area. I want to learn that at xxx Law.