You lost contact with your greatness. I know. It’s been a while since you walked about with the force of your full self. And it might be that this test inserted itself in what had otherwise been a steady life-path of unquestioned competence. The thing is … no one is going to give it back to you. No one is going to give you permission to take it back either. You must harness it and then bring it forward on the exam. It’s the first thing you do that really qualifies you as a lawyer.
When I went to law school, you might have known me as the lady in the red windbreaker. I wore it every day, essentially to hide. I got to law school after some significant disruption in my path that ironically created an opening. It might not have looked like an opening from the outside. I was 34 when I went to law school and had a son. I was newly divorced and never intended to be a single mother. I had ZERO academic history in my youth and only got into college because the State of Pennsylvania did not have my transcript from the High School of Performing Arts; otherwise, I would have had some trouble. Let’s just say I had no academic prowess or even an understanding of why it might matter. My youth did not foster those ideals. So my “openings” came from what ostensibly were a lot of closed doors.
Oh, I cried so much in law school. What was this place? Why did I have to be so unlike everyone else there? Some days I had to bring my son to classes when I did not have a babysitter. And if you’re an entitled, appropriately aged law student, you probably looked down on me. A lot. In fact, I can cite some direct instances. Before and after classes, I went to work at a car dealership and then cleaned offices in between. Some people at the car dealership were not kind. Some of them scorned me just because they could. Sometimes I wore the same clothes several times in a week.
The thing is, despite my painful origins and these disruptive experiences of loss, I did not lack self-love. In fact I had a small voice that, over the years of my whole life, got louder. “You have greatness in you.” I was grateful to hear that voice, even when there was no evidence of that truth in my direct vicinity. The truth is, we are all divine. We don’t make that true. We only recognize it. Now to be clear, there was nothing external validating this sense I had of my divine nature. Sometimes I had to fight hard against what refuted that voice in my physical environment every day. But the more I moved in its direction, the louder it became. And it persisted. “There is something you must serve.” So I moved every single thing out of its way and cleared the impediments one by one until it manifested. By the time I took the bar, I was ready to live into what it promised.
Now, in the early days of my first job as a lawyer, I remember feeling like the questions my “clients” asked were somewhat shocking. I was in-house in a government entity where the client could be any range of department heads to the mayor himself. I really had no basis for my legal opinions, and to be honest, that someone was asking me for my opinion in such important matters was a bit disorienting. My brain had not quite caught up with the aspirational part of my spirit. But the truth is, it’s irrelevant in that setting whether you believe in yourself. You literally just have to perform anyway. So I started exercising that muscle, “Do X.” “Don’t do Y.” And eventually even I started to believe in my opinions. But not at first. At first, all I had was a powerful self-love, a law license, and some idea that my minimally competent answer could not be worse than someone else’s. I had a good head on my shoulders, lots of life experience, and I was otherwise a proven entity. When you make those calls in the early days, you must assert your best position and then also be willing to defend it if it faltered. Hey, maybe I would wind up in court over it. And I was ready. Did my legal knowledge catch up? Eventually I gained an expertise. But in the spaces in between, literally all I had was a powerful belief in my right to do this thing, the willingness to own what came of it and a law license. And the law license now makes sense, because to make the best use of it, you just must know and exercise your power.
In recent weeks I have heard a lot of you talk about feeling inferior to others who have their license and yet the same education. Maybe you are working as a paralegal or a law clerk with others who treat you like you are less than they are. Listen, is it up to them to give you your power? No. And I assure you they will not. It defies human nature — especially among lawyers, whose general inclination is to order people according to some perceived hierarchy.
Well, thank God, they don’t get a say. And I am not saying it does not hurt. Believe me. I know. But so much power is available to you for wanting something better for yourself and for recognizing that your divinity is no one’s to take from you. But it is up to you to recognize it and put it to use. Go in there and be that person to yourself. That will be your first act as a qualified lawyer and the thing you draw upon most in your work. Radical self-love. Radical self-belief. And a law license. That’s what it takes.
Deborah Sanders is the owner of Bar-None Prep and has taught the bar prep method she created for her own bar exam for over twenty years. She is based in New Jersey. In addition to a regular column on NationalJurist.com, she is writing a book on “The Spiritual Path to Passing the Bar.” You can contact her at passthebar@barnoneprep.com.
