PathSource - CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY, IN-DEPTH: I Love The Opportunity To Make People's Lives Better

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CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY, IN-DEPTH: I Love The Opportunity To Make People's Lives Better

About this video

Meredith goes in-depth with her story about being a Civil Rights Attorney, sharing what she likes most about her job and what she finds most challenging. She also describes why she decided to go to law school. Meredith also provides solid advice for those wanting to make a difference in society but can't find a paying job in the field of their choice.

Degree: Public Policy

Job Title: Staff Attorney, Racial Justice Program

Employer: Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights

Job Summary: Lawyers

Job Description

Lawyers advise and represent individuals, businesses, or government agencies on legal issues or disputes. Lawyers, also called attorneys, act as both advocates and advisors. As advocates, they represent one of the parties in criminal and civil trials by presenting evidence and arguing in court to support their client. As advisors, lawyers counsel their clients about their legal rights and obligations and suggest courses of action in business and personal matters. All attorneys research the intent of laws and judicial decisions and apply the laws to the specific circumstances that their clients face.

On-the-Job Training

None

Additional Info

Becoming licensed as a lawyer is called being "admitted to the bar" and licensing exams are called "bar exams."

To practice law in any state, a person must be admitted to its bar under rules established by the jurisdiction’s highest court. The requirements vary by individual states and jurisdictions.

Most states require that applicants graduate from an ABA-accredited law school, pass one or more written bar exams, and be found by an admitting board to have the character to represent and advise others. Lawyers who want to practice in more than one state must often take separate bar exams in each state.

Quick Facts

Average salary

National Statistic Change Location

Confirm

$55,000 - $170,000

Projected Job Growth

10 to 20 percent

Typical schedule

Full-time, Long hours

Typical workplace

Office, Indoor, Military

Personal Qualities

Detail oriented, Problem solving skills, Analytical skills, Written communication skills, Verbal communication skills, People skills, Public speaking ability

Educational Path

Education Requirement

Doctorate

Recommended Education Degree

Doctorate

Recommended Majors

Law
Political Science
Public Policy
Business
Economics
Finance
Mathematics
Statistics
Real Estate

Related Careers

Judges
Mediators
and Hearing Officers
Paralegals and Legal Assistants
Postsecondary Teachers.

View Detailed Career Data

PathSource provides free English transcriptions for each of our informational interviews on video which will appear here after you have signed in. Our advanced transcriptions are highly interactive. They scroll down automatically as the video plays and users can jump to a specific part of the video by clicking on any word in the transcript.

For a small fee, we offer transcriptions in different languages, making PathSource a great tool for English Language Learners. This feature is currently available for customers in the education field only.

Please contact us at support@pathsoruce.com if you have any questions or would like to get a price quote for advanced transcripts offered in a second language.

P3.instances[0].transcript.parse_transcript_data({"transcript":"I love that in my job I get to work with a lot of different people. I love working with clients to help them overcome issues they're facing in their lives. I love working with my co-workers and our community partners. And I love the opportunity to help people, make people's lives better. Probably the most challenging thing is when we're unsuccessful. Trying to regroup and continue on with the fight. And I definitely learned that change doesn't happen overnight and a lot of the time you don't win the first battle, but you have to keep fighting. For example, we're working on a case to protect people's voting rights. And we didn't win the first time around, but we're regrouping. We're looking for new ways to continue on because we think the issues are so important. I think the key step was taking a look at what things I felt I was best at and things I most enjoyed. And for me that was reading and writing and working on problems to help make folks lives better. So once I figured out my passions were then I could really focus in on that area. And it seemed to me as I began to do some work after college and while I was in college, I realized that all of the people whose jobs I wanted had law degrees. And that's how I decided to go to law school. And I think that can be a helpful way to pick your career path. See what other people who you are interested in their jobs, see what they've done. And that helped me to pick a career that would make the best use of things that I'm best at and make me really happy in the work that I do every day. I think that the key is to be really determined and to always look for ways that you can do the work you're interested in even if it's not your primary job. So if you have to start out in another area, but you can volunteer for example in the kind of work you want to do. That's a way to always stay connected to the work that you're passionate about. It can be hard to find a job in your field, but I would say what you do is you never give up. And with this work where you're working in nonprofit, you have to always be looking for ways to support yourself and make it easier. Look for things like scholarships and other kinds of opportunities that you can make work in nonprofit work for you. Work-life balance is always a challenge especially when you're lucky enough to be working in a field that is your personal passion. It can easily kind of take up your whole life because it's something that really gets you up in the morning and it's what you're thinking about at the end of the day. But I'm a mom and I do think it's really important to have time with my family and have time to pursue other things because that helps you be more successful when you are at your job. So in my work I try every day to make that time for my family and for myself and I do think that makes me more energetic and more able to do the kind of things for the community and for the organization that I want to be able to do. ","file":{"id":314557,"video_id":"2867804914001","name":"1487-Meredith-p-CivilRightsLawyer2 In-depth","duration":197184,"thumbnail_url":null}});