1. Social justice is what matters most to me in life, and it has guided me to the path of becoming a lawyer. Growing up as a black male has been a formative experience in learning about our country’s torrid history and its lasting impact. When I was 12, the shooting of Trayvon Martin had an immense effect on me. Although I had been aware of my race, it wasn’t until this tragedy and the resulting acquittal that my eyes were truly opened to racial injustice in our country. In the years following, I became more educated about other institutional inequalities ingrained in our society and continue to disadvantage minority groups, despite the appearance of progress through legislation and perceived acceptance. This is what helped me develop my political identity and my eventual career path. My high school and college coursework introduced me to the field of constitutional law, allowing me to trace the path toward our civil liberties and civil rights through previous court cases. Although many have debated Supreme Court Justices’ adherence to stare decisis in recent years, it is still an essential guiding principle. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to me that cases are brought to the bench that could potentially grant protections to historically disadvantaged minority groups. At the same time, enforcing Supreme Court decisions can be difficult, and it only takes an act of Congress to enshrine or negate them. This is why I believe that interest groups and non-profits like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center for Justice are important, as they also lobby lawmakers to support beneficial legislation. Working with one of these groups in my legal career is one of the best ways I can help fight injustice. In the poetic form of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s speech taking responsibility for his own indifference during the Holocaust, he states, “First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist…Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.” In our modern political environment, fraught with various attacks on marginalized people’s livelihoods and existence, there is a consistent pattern in how people are dehumanized and scapegoated for causing societal issues. The playbook used to denigrate one minority is often used to disparage another. It is crucial to ensure that these tactics cannot turn the tide of public opinion as they have in the past. We all have a duty to prevent the prosperity of injustice, and that is what has brought me on the path to law school. 2. I have learned immensely as I proceeded through the law school application process. Although there are similarities to applying for undergraduate schools, choosing a law school requires considering a multitude of factors, namely career outcomes and debt consideration. While applying for law school, I have learned about balancing these different interests and how to be the most successful. In applying for law school, having knowledge of my career plans guided me toward making my final decision. Making the calculus between debt and my potential career outcomes has prepared me for similar choices I will have to make when attending law school. In addition, it exposed me to the importance that networking will have on my legal career. As I embark on my tenure in law school, it will be essential for me to form lasting connections with the university’s faculty and lawyers alike, as this will help me secure opportunities for employment and find colleagues that will be able to vouch for my work ethic and legal skills. Furthermore, given that I plan to transition from the private sector to public interest work, building relationships will allow me to successfully make the shift and hopefully leverage existing connections to effect change. Another insight I’ve gained from applying for law school is the importance of preparedness. As I continued through the law school application process, I found myself continuing to come up with questions that would illuminate my decision-making, and I will undergo a similar strategy during my legal education. Law school will require an entirely different level of preparation than college to ensure my success and thorough understanding of legal issues. Many students discuss parsing through different cases' dense language and rhetoric to find pertinent legal issues and precedents. Furthermore, I will need to actively engage with legal texts so I can ask questions and form connections between different decisions. Applying for law school has been a very eye-opening process for me, especially as I began receiving acceptance letters and deciding where to continue my education. I do not know any lawyers personally, so I entered the process without any knowledge of what was most important about choosing a law school. However, thanks to the research I’ve done and events that I’ve attended, I understand that the focus is not only on my education but also on finding my career, so I should plan ahead as far as possible to ensure that I can achieve my goals. Additionally, I must work hard and be socially and academically prepared to support this aim.