As a child, I knew all too well how poverty and image affected every aspect of your life. I was the child of divorced parents at a young age, living most time with my single mother. She worked hard, but with only an associate degree from community college, she was unable to find a job that paid higher than $17,000 a year. We had some support from my father, but this mainly went to keeping a roof over our heads. Everything else we bought came from Aldi, garage sales, and Goodwill. As soon as I entered school, it became apparent that this made me different. On top of the poverty we lived in, various health conditions and cheap processed food made me gain a significant amount of weight. I was always bigger than my classmates, in weight and height. This led to relentless bullying that plagued me from the moment I began school. By my 7th grade year, it had gotten so bad that my life was being threatened, I was being physically assaulted on a daily basis, and there were social media pages created solely to encourage me to end my life. I attempted suicide at 13 years old and was, thankfully, unsuccessful. I spent the rest of my middle and high school experiences in and out of mental health institutions until I finally found someone who could help me. My savior was a psychiatrist recommended to me by my school counselor. He didn’t take insurance, so my father stepped up and paid for our sessions. It did not take him long to diagnose me with PTSD from the bullying I was subjected to. With my diagnosis, I finally started taking medications and receiving therapy that helped me. I was also allowed to graduate from high school a year and a half early. I excelled in community college and then at a four-year college. I received my bachelor's degree, and now I am in my first year of law school. My experience overcoming poverty, bullying, and mental health crises has given me a unique perspective on the criminal justice system. I am motivated to become a public defender, as I know that poverty can limit your opportunities in life. I was lucky to have a support system, but I know many do not have that. I want to be that support for others as they navigate the criminal system. My experiences have also given me an increased sense of compassion and empathy. People who are in the criminal justice system and talking to a public defender are usually at the lowest point in their lives. I know how it feels to be that low, where it seems like no one is on your side. I want to be the hope for the people who feel stuck in an insurmountable situation. My experiences overcoming adversity have given me the compassion and drive to help those in underprivileged and minoritized communities. I believe that if I could come back and be successful after my experiences, anyone can.

The final question I was asked during my interview with a public defender’s office I hoped to intern at was one I have answered countless times. It is one I know the attorneys on the Zoom screen with me have answered even more times. “How do you justify defending someone you know is guilty of a crime?” For me, the answer gets to the heart of why I want to practice law. I believe that no matter how horrible the act, every citizen has the right to a fair trial. They have the right to be defended and have their civil rights protected. I believe that is the fundamental core of our justice system. You do not have to like the person, or even think they are a good person, but that does not mean they do not deserve to have someone fight for them. For most criminal defendants, they have reached the lowest point in their lives when they come to a defense attorney. Whether their own actions, society’s injustices and inequities, or a combination of both brought them to my service, I hope to offer my clients something to help raise them back up. Like Bryan Stevenson said in his book Just Mercy, “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” This statement is exactly why I hope to become a defense attorney. As someone who has grown up in poverty, I can relate to the struggles of those who require a public defender. Lack of money is a real hindrance in getting justice for yourself. It was these experiences and my continued struggles with poverty that motivate me to become a lawyer. I am cognizant of the difficulties litigants face outside of the legal system. This also includes struggles with how the law and system disadvantage women, people of color, and people of diverse sexualities. I hope to use my law degree and potential position as a public defender to work towards furthering the rights of those at the compounding intersections of poverty, gender, race, and sexuality. I believe the civil rights of those in these marginalized communities are crucial to a just legal system within the United States. As someone whose own identity meets in the middle of many intersections, it is especially important for me to use the privileges I do have and my potential law degree to help those who have been underrepresented.

As soon as my professor walked in on that tired morning, I knew something big was coming. It was a college Criminal Justice 100 class and even 13 weeks into the semester, I felt I had learned very little. The professor, an adjunct with a long law career and the boundless confidence of a man who had won every debate by talking louder than his opponent, spent most lectures seated atop his desk, giving sermons on topics only tangentially related to the class. That morning, he walked in and drew a large horseshoe on the whiteboard. I groaned internally as he wrote “Alt-Right” above one end and “ANTIFA” above the other. It was going to be one of those lectures. Over the course of 50 minutes, the lecture spanned from his declaration that those who supported fascism and those who opposed it were “really just as bad” to suggesting that the United States government create alligator-filled moats to keep out immigrants from Mexico. It was a wave of vitriol and racist dog-whistles usually only isolated to right-wing internet forums. Those in the class who stood up and left during his tirade garnered ire from both the professor and his biggest supporters. I tried to remain seated and debate their attacks, but after many fruitless minutes, I chose to leave as well. Verbal arguments were not enough; I needed to act. Those of us who had left the class congregated in the computer lab a few doors down. The more we talked, the more I knew that our horror over the blatant racist and anti-immigrant sentiments needed to be directed into action. We were not receiving the education we deserved and our professor would continue to share his destructive ideology if he was not stopped. After a strong emailing campaign to the President’s Office, Human Resources, and Dean of Academic Affairs, we were given a meeting with the Vice President. We ended up getting the professor fired and an apology from the university. We had won the round, but something still ate me up. I had gone into my Criminal Justice class 13 weeks prior with the plan to become a lawyer. Absolutely no question, no hesitation. After all that, I felt differently. Was this really what the criminal justice field was like? Was my professor what most attorneys were like? I became disillusioned and my plans changed. I graduated and moved on to a short career in college Financial Aid. But I never forgot my original plan. I also never forgot about my Criminal Justice professor and what my fellow rabble rousers said to me after our meeting. “Thank you for using your privilege and whiteness to help us get them to take action.” While I did not think I had done very much, it still always stuck with me. It seemed so simple; do what was right and help. Apparently, it was never that simple. It never has been. As time wore on and our country continued to marginalize women, people of color, and members of the LGBT community, those old thoughts of helping and my mission to be a lawyer came flooding back. I felt compelled to do something. That is why I finally decided that law school was my next step. My passion for helping those who have been disadvantaged by the system is my true calling and I knew the law was where I could help. I hope to use my law degree to work towards furthering the rights of those at the compounding intersections of gender, race, and sexuality. I believe the civil rights of those in these marginalized communities are crucial to a just legal system within the United States. As someone whose own identity meets in the middle of many intersections, it is especially important for me to use the privileges I do have and my potential law degree to help those who have been underrepresented. And maybe while one lawyer could enter a class and spew nothing but hate, another could be the solution to making that ideology never fully take root.