This column was originally published in the Purple Sheet on September 26, 2008.
MY LIFE THUS FAR
—or How to Find Your “Home”
In the 8/29 Purple Sheet, I wrote a column entitled, “My Career Thus Far—or, Why Where You Work is Not the Rest of Your Life.” In this edition I want to focus on how geography and family, among other things, may affect your career decisions now or in the future.
Another subtitle could be “How a New York City Boy Came to Love a Town of 150,000.”
After graduating from college in Boston, I returned to my home town of New York for law school. I probably was more excited about coming “home” and being closer to my mom and brothers than I was to be in law school. I mean, law school was a good experience, but being near family was more important.
You see, during a 16-month stretch in college—from my sophomore fall to my junior spring semester—my father and both grandmothers died. All of them lived in New York. By the time I was 20, the only parent or grandparent I had left was my mother—also in New York. Both brothers and both half-brothers were still in the New York area. Looking back, I likely would have returned there even if I had not started law school. But it was convenient—and frankly, emotionally necessary—to be “home” at that point, especially while earning my Juris Doctor.
During law school, I worked for a small union-side law firm for my first summer and then for a large general practice firm during my second summer—both in New York. I even lived with my mom for my 3L year rent-free. After graduating and taking the Bar Exam, I started work at the big firm, fortunate to begin a focus on media law, copyright litigation, and antitrust.
Clearly I would be one of those people who grew up in New York and never left. I was enjoying my life as a first-year associate at a big city firm, although the hours often were quite long. I figured I would spend a couple of years there and then move to a smaller firm. I was happy being “home.”
So what happened?
I fell in love with someone who was still a 3L in law school. We got engaged, and within a year I was working at that smaller firm—but in Los Angeles, where she had her job already set up before we started dating.
Fast forward a few years—a return to New York, and a move into law school administration there. Both of my brothers left New York for Boston. Then the opportunity came for me to run a career services office, a great professional move. I left New York again, this time for Richmond, Virginia, and this time for good. That was three years ago.
Along the way, we had a couple of children. Then last year my mother died at the family home in New York. Then we had a third child. Then one half-brother moved to Michigan. I had no more parents or grandparents alive, and only one half-brother was left in New York. And most importantly for my kids, their only remaining grandparent—my wife’s mother—was in Portland.
Oregon.
When I learned of the opportunity here at the law school, I was excited, not only professionally but also personally. Life sometimes throws curve balls at you. I never would have guessed when I started law school 15 years ago —at “home” in New York—that I would be in Eugene now. But priorities change. I love it here, at the law school and in this quirky but cosmopolitan town about 1/50th the size of New York. But with my wife, kids, and their grandmother around, this is now “home.”
So how is this relevant to you and your career?
According to my colleagues in the Admissions Office, over 60% of students here are not from Oregon. We in the Career Services Office view you holistically—as whole people, with issues of geography and family in addition to career plans. We are committed to helping you get wherever you want, not only in terms of employer type or type of practice, but also in terms of geography.
Perhaps you want to return to your home town in California or Alaska. Maybe you want to spend a few years in a Portland or Seattle before returning home to a Bend or a Yakima to be near your parents as they get older. Maybe Las Vegas is calling. Or Reno. Or Washington, D.C. Or maybe your “significant other” is from Chicago and you need to move there.
We are here to work with you, no matter where you want to go.
And if Eugene is your home and you want to stay here, come in, too. But forgive me if after we discuss your career plans, I then ask you for recommendations on good restaurants. After all, this is my home now, too.
