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Scott McIntyre
Washington Post
Most popular course ever at Georgetown Law? How to fight for justice.
More than 300 students signed up for ‘Lawyers as Leaders,’ the largest
enrollment for a course in the history of Georgetown University Law
Center
By Susan Svrluga
November 6, 2020
In her third year of law school, Maxine Walters expected to have
everything in place: Her job locked in, her career path mapped out.
Then the pandemic hit, and economic uncertainty, and protests erupted
over racial justice and tensions flared over the presidential election
and transition. Her summer job with a firm evaporated, and with it the
hoped-for offer of a permanent position by the time classes resumed for
the fall.
But her school year began with an unusual class — one created to mark
Georgetown University Law Center’s 150th anniversary and shaped by the
realities of 2020 — that has, for many students, upended their ideas
about rigid timelines for success, their expectations and even their
aspirations.
Instead of a traditional course focused on an area of law such as
contracts or torts, the school’s leaders crafted a more personal,
broad-ranging look at leadership. It was a recognition that the
tumultuous times are forcing a reckoning, and leaving many students
yearning to have an impact.
Clearly, they touched a nerve: More than 300 upper-level students
signed up for “Lawyers as Leaders,” the largest enrollment for a course
in the history of Georgetown Law.
“This is definitely a time where the ground is moving,” said Max
Lesser, a 28-year-old student from New Jersey. “Everyone realizes that
the old paradigms of politics and justice are kind of breaking. …
Lawyers have a real role to play in what path we take.”
For the online course, students submit questions about assigned
readings and then listen to a conversation between Georgetown Law Dean
William M. Treanor and a faculty member. He asks them to talk about how
to move forward to confront “the great issues of this terrible time.”
“This is a time when we’re all grappling with so many crises” and profound challenges and losses, he said.
The conversations held each Sunday — now available to all on the
school’s anniversary website — have been topical, even urgent. Students
have heard from Lawrence Gostin about health-care policy during the
pandemic, such as vaccine distribution and whether the government
should mandate mask-wearing and social distancing.
Neal Katyal, who has argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme
Court, spoke about the contested 2000 election, in which he was
co-counsel to Democratic candidate Al Gore, and about electoral
integrity this year. Randy Barnett, a libertarian and self-described
contrarian, talked about the constitutionality of health policy, recent
Supreme Court nominees and the importance of seeking out opposing
viewpoints. And Rosa Brooks talked about her work examining whether
norms will hold fast in the aftermath of this contentious election, or
whether the country could face a constitutional crisis.
The conversations have been challenging, insightful, sometimes funny
and surprisingly vulnerable. Gostin spoke of his difficult childhood,
and how that had helped shape the optimistic outlook he’s known for. He
shared his tips for the best way to make popcorn.
Katyal told students to do something that was uncomfortable for them,
especially early in their careers. He said he had recently taken rap
improv classes to improve his ability to think on his feet, and found
it terrifying.
Katyal also shared how his father faced discrimination and was unfairly
fired, but had his dignity restored by a civil case, inspiring Katyal
to go to law school. He told how he always asked his children’s advice
the night before a Supreme Court case, and shared some of their tips on
how to stay calm when facing the justices. (Once: “Think of a cute
pig.”)
This is a time when shared challenges make people more comfortable
talking about vulnerabilities, Treanor said. “I don’t think we would
have these same conversations if we had this class two years ago.”
Hillary Sale, an associate dean and professor who helped design the
class, agreed. The stress of the times is making people introspective
and reflective, she said, “in ways that are probably really good, and
probably wouldn’t happen without that outside pressure.”
Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor, challenged students to
rethink the justice system, which he argues is not weakened by a few
racist bad-apple police officers, but is “broke on purpose” and working
the way it was designed to work.
Butler told of his searing experience decades ago when he was arrested
while he was a prosecutor on a case accusing a U.S. senator of
corruption. As he wrote in his book “Let’s Get Free,” Butler was
charged with simple assault after a neighbor falsely accused him of
pushing her after a dispute over a parking space. Police officers
cursed at him. At the courthouse, he was led, handcuffed, through the
inmates’ entrance — when, as a prosecutor, he normally could breeze
through the main entrance without needing to go through a metal
detector.
At his trial, he said, he listened to a police officer lie on the
stand. After he was acquitted, he felt the weight of how easily the
false accusation could have destroyed him, if not for the skill of his
attorney.
A Yale- and Harvard-educated prosecutor, Butler had once felt different
from the Black men he prosecuted, he told The Washington Post. But, he
said, “I certainly wasn’t different in the way police responded to me.”
He wanted students to think about the inevitable setbacks and traumatic
experiences they would face, and how they would confront those with
integrity. “The main thing I wanted students to think about,” Butler
said, “is justice.”
Maxine Walters, a third-year student at Georgetown Law. (Sarah Kodres O’Brien)
Maxine Walters, a third-year student at Georgetown Law. (Sarah Kodres O’Brien)
For Walters, a 23-year-old Black student from Mobile, Ala., the
leadership class initially sounded like a welcome break from typical
law classes — in which professors grill students with tough questions —
during a busy fall when she is also applying for jobs. But Walters, who
is president of the Georgetown Law Black Law Students Association, has
been struck by a number of the conversations, including Butler’s.
“It has been inspiring to have this class,” Walters said.
As faculty reflect in the class on their own life choices, the odd zigs
and zags of their careers, the abject failures that turned out to be
gifts and the pinnacles that unexpectedly fell flat, the stories
resonated with other students confronting their own imminent decisions.
People are definitely more stressed about careers this fall, said Luke
Bunting, a student from Indiana who has worked for Republican members
of Congress and is now in his second year at Georgetown Law. He hopes
to work for a firm and make an impact, and hearing from people with
such different backgrounds and approaches made him more confident that
was possible, he said.
Kristin Ewing, a student from Nebraska by way of a musical-theater
career in New York, gained an interest in health-care policy when she
saw how performers were affected by their lack of insurance. She said
it was reassuring to hear professors talk about career pivots.
Rujuta Nandgaonkar, also interested in health policy — an inclination
cemented by the pandemic, she said — was struck by Barnett’s advice to
surround yourself with people who disagree with you, and an idea
several people shared about getting past the inevitable bumps in the
road. “Those are important lessons for these times,” she said.
“This is not the greatest time — but there is hope,” Nandgaonkar said. “That’s the string that runs through it.”
Lesser, a high school teacher for four years before law school, isn’t
sure what he wants to do after he graduates. But he is considering
options that tie into his interests in democracy and criminal justice
reform, such as working in a prosecutor’s office, judiciary committees
in Congress or for the military.
After hearing Brooks talk, Lesser said, “her lecture reinforced that
having a functional modern democracy is a precious thing, and it can
get lost easily if people aren’t willing to perfect it.”
The class has been grounding, Lesser said.
“It reminds you of why you’re doing this. That’s important, especially
when our country is being tested, our field is being tested. You have
to reconnect to the values” that brought people to study the law, he
said.
Walters had gravitated during law school to apply to firms because she
was worried about paying off student loans. But after a summer of
protests following George Floyd’s killing in police custody, she
witnessed people paint messages about defunding the police near the
White House, and was struck by the role public defenders were playing
in the community.
The new economic uncertainty and the idealism reinforced by the class
reaffirmed her original commitment to go back to the South — where she
grew up not seeing Black lawyers, she said — and work as a public
defender.
“I’m kind of grateful to be able to do what I’m passionate about,”
Walters said. “I think it would be great to go back there and try to
make it the best place it could be.”
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