How I Knew I Wanted to be a Lawyer

I didn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. When I was in high school I thought I was fit to be a lawyer and was even asked by a number of my classmates caught smoking cigarettes and who were about to be kicked off the basketball team if I could I find a way to get them out of the punishment.

I read through the student manual, and found that there was no such punishment as kicking off the basketball team.

I told them this, and although I thought it was sound advice and was prepared to argue that, they thought that they didn’t want to continue the “appeal” because their parents would get mad.

Although I didn’t quite succeed, I remember that I was thrilled going over the rulebook and manual and finding that particular loophole. It was lawyerly kind of stuff.

And even my high school prediction (there is a program during our prom where we mention the predictions we have for each student), people thought I would be a lawyer.

So in a way it was predestined. And in college I took legal management because I thought I would go on to law school. But by the third year of college I had gotten a bit disillusioned because I went to court a few times and it didn’t work out too well. I had found the system horrible.

So I went into education instead (it was too late to switch majors, I just concentrated all my electives in my third year to teaching) and went to Ateneo Grade School to teach.

I thought that was my true calling in life. And for a few years, as I switched between Beijing, Manila and wherever, teaching all the time, I was happy.

Then some personal stuff happened and my life plan was pretty much ruined at that point. But I remember talking to a friend from Indonesia about the law in the Philippines and saying it was so problematic, and how it doesn’t change. He told me that perhaps the best way to change the law and system is to change it from within. That never left me.

So one day while stuck in Manila and doing nothing (remember my world had seemed to crash at that point) I just took the Ateneo Law entrance exam.

I passed it. Prayed about it. And then realized that perhaps that was why God meant for me to pass the entrance exam. ( I had done NO preparation for it and had taken it on a whim, and didn’t take any other entrance exam). I was meant to be a lawyer. And so I on went to law school.

So in a way it was a confluence of many things that made me go to law school. A feeling of fate and faith. A feeling that God had prepared each moment of my life for this (I would not have survived law school if I had gone on to it straight out of college. No discipline and none of the skills yet like writing etc).

I don’t recommend what I did, because it was very haphazard. Law school is very demanding and is something that one should seriously think about before jumping in. I went into it unsure, but by the first year grew to love the work and the pressure, the feeling of changing the world through the law.

Admittedly that feeling has waned somewhat since I have to split much of my time between law and my dreamgirl, and my dreamgirl obviously winds up winning in the battle for time.

But I cant imagine doing anything else with my life now. Except being a lawyer.

Some Thoughts and Blogs on Entrepreneurship

I like the idea of being self-employed.

One day I hope to be able to run my own business, perhaps even run a law firm (whether as a partner or by starting my own remains to be seen since I am still in law school).

Entrepreneurship has hit the mainstream in a big way. Where once people preferred the protection and stability of a good-paying job, more and more people are now jumping on the entrepreneurship bandwagon or being encouraged to do so.

Of course, running a business isn’t easy. If it was, almost everyone would be doing it. And I guess that’s where the biggest problem is. Fear.

There is a lot of fear involved when one opens up your own business or start your own law firm or even just jump into your own sideline. There is a lot of uncertainty and a large chance of failure.

But that doesn’t stop most people. And it shouldn’t, because the rewards for going into entrepreneurship are amazing. A strong sense of self-control, possibly tons of money (if it succeeds) and an opportunity to do something you like for the rest of your life.

I know one day I’ll jump into the whole business thing myself like my sister did. But for now, I’m just biding my time, studying the law and trying to brainstorm for possible businesses.

Until then, here are a couple of great blogs and websites on entrepreneurship you should check out (in no particular order).

1.) Instigator Blog – the blog of the CEO of Standout jobs, which is a promising internet start-up.

2.) Pinoy Web Startup — a Filipino webstart up I discovered recently. Marie Casas, one of the founders of Pigmata Media, and the author of the Pinoy Web Startup Blog, was even featured in MoneySense magazine.

3.) Open for Business – a new blog by the editor of SME Insight which is published by the Inquirer. New but very promising.

4.) Reflections of a Bizdrivenlife – Wilson Ng is one of the earliest business bloggers I know and runs a successful computer business which distributes to Visayas and Mindanao.

5.) Go Negosyo - the brainchild of Joey Concepcion who is a strong advocate of opening up your own business.

6.) The Brazen Careerist – the ultimate startup for career bloggers and the like. Founded by Penelope Trunk and the Ryans of Employee Evolution, you should check out their blog posts on starting up a business. Really great stuff and offers a different perspective.

(Disclosure: I am a member of the Brazen Careerist Network but I read and enjoyed their blogposts on start-ups BEFORE I was asked to join. So I recommend their posts on a very unbiased basis.)

7.) Guy Kawasaki’s Blog – probably the ultimate web start up guy. He has founded a number of businesses and was even once connected to Apple as one of their tech evangelists. he has also written a number of books on technology and start-ups.

8.) What Would Dad Say – a great blog by G.L Hoffman, an American baby boomer who has successfully founded a number of start-ups. He has a great post on the 100 attributes needed to become a successful entrepreneur.