As a kid, I was often told that I'd "make a great lawyer". I always took this as a compliment, but as I've grown, I've learned it actually meant "Wow this little kid is argumentative and loud." Even though I understand now that this compliment was slightly backhanded, I'll take it. Law is an honorable profession. I spent many years as a child, as so many of us have, and while I was a child I developed a passion for politics. I would go to protests with my family during Moral Mondays, a protest movement led by Rev. William Barber here in Raleigh, NC. These protests were focused on injustices in our state like gerrymandering and voter suppression. As a child, I didn't fully understand what we were protesting, but as a I grew, so did my interest and understanding. The more I understood, the more opinionated I got, which only contributed to being called a "little lawyer." As I continued to be told I'd "make a good lawyer", and continued to learn more about politics, specifically criminal justice, I began seriously consider law as a career. The Constitution guarantees a right to a defense, among many other rights for the accused. While many who don't understand the legal system seem to resent this fact, anyone who thinks about this issue will realize how necessary it is. It is incredibly easy for a government (especially one that now has the power of modern technology) to oppress and subjugate its citizens through flimsy prosecutions and abusive police tactics, which we saw in the Jim Crow South, the USSR, China, and modern Russia, among other despotic states. Any democratic system that would like to survive needs a strong legal system, and that means that defendants must have a strong defense and an expert counsel who can lead them through the complexities of the law, or else anyone can be imprisoned. If criminals can be imprisoned without a fair trial, so can innocent people. Without a good public defender, many defendants from poor and marginalized communities would have no way of defending themselves from poorly thought-out prosecutions, extreme or unnecessary punishment, or even false imprisonment. This is why I aspire to be a public defender (despite my family's slight disappointment that I'll only be a lawyer, not a lawyer, and also very wealthy). Public defenders and criminal defense attorneys more broadly, who are widely maligned in media like Law and Order and other police procedurals as obstructing the justice that law enforcement so benevolently seeks, are actually vital to the preservation and defense of justice. I'd set my sights on a career as a lawyer long before the Dobbs decision a few years back, but as our extremist Supreme Court has made that decision and so many other extreme positions law, it's been made more and more clear. Legislators don't truly make the law anymore in this country, lawyers do. Judges, make laws, while congresspeople argue on cable TV. It's now more vital than ever that good lawyers who believe in real justice and freedom are present and stand up to fight for what's right. I hope that when I complete my education, I'm able to improve our world by ensuring that even poor people and minorities in Southeast Raleigh can get the same good defense in court as the wealthy of Oakwood could. I hope that, if the call ever came, I could use my skills to defend what's right and just in the world, and protect our most sacred rights.