Esther's Column: The Beginning

March 2016

In 2008 I left the practice of law to live more creatively. This column explores my journey from prosecutor to artist.

On May 16, 1992, I graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Biology, a job, and a statement: “I will never open another book again!” To study, that is. Fast forward to November 1992, a mere six months later I was desperate to enroll somewhere, anywhere to ensure my future did not look like my present.

I was working for an environmental consulting company in Auburn, Alabama doing field work on pesticide fate studies. Translated: grunt work. During the summer I collected water, soil, and invertebrate samples from simulated farm ponds. In November 1992 the field season had ended and I was spending 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month inhaling denatured alcohol with my head bent over a microscope tediously pulling every last strand of algae from insanely small insect larvae. I didn’t have the advanced degree the company required to actually identify the larvae, and so I sorted them, instead.

Toward the end of the summer, a new hire had joined the small field office. He was 30 years old, had a master’s degree, and made, I assumed, more money than I did, but in reality we were in the same situation: working a temporary job for very little pay with no benefits, sick or vacation time doing mind-numbing work that had no future. I knew one thing at that moment: I would not be doing “this” when I turned 30. It was this reality check that sent me scrambling to examine what I really wanted to do when I grew up.

As an undergraduate, I’d worked in a graduate lab with masters and Ph.D. students at Penn State. I knew that they dedicated their entire existence to their degree-required research project, nights, weekends, holidays, every day. I did not want that kind of life. Looking back I find that ironic because I chose law school instead: different topic, similar work load. Life is funny.

I didn’t just choose law school; in reality, it chose me. Two perspective altering, life changing events sent me open-armed toward the hallowed halls of justice. First, I read a profile in the Sunday paper’s Parade Magazine about Marion Wright Edelman. She obtained her Juris Doctor in 1968 from Yale Law School and was the first African American woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar. Through her passion for social justice she founded the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973, which advocates for underprivileged children. What struck me about the article was that Edelman saw racial injustice happening all around her in the South and decided that she was going to do something about it. Her chosen avenue of influence was the law.

The second life-changing event was a newsmagazine television program that chronicled Quincy, Massachusetts’ success in reversing the homicide rate attributed to domestic violence. The Quincy Model, instituted in 1986, developed a pro-intervention strategy that trained personnel who encountered victims of domestic violence regularly, from doctors to pediatricians, nurses, police, and teachers about the warning signs of domestic violence. After seeing that program, I decided to go to law school, like Edelman did, but to affect change in domestic violence, as opposed to racial injustice.

Eight months out of college with a bachelor’s degree in Biology, I called my parents and told them I was applying to law school. Their response? “You’re doing WHAT?”

Sources:

Marion Wright Edelman Facts:
[http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marianwrightedelman/p/m_w_edelman.htm]

The Quincy Model:
[http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/studies/3076?paging.startRow=826]
[http://stopabusecampaign.com/what-is-quincy-solution/]