The road to law school was not an easy road to take; I had to face rejection, disappointment and most importantly, I had to face the biggest monster—ethnicity. My journey began in 2001 when I took my first LSAT test; that’s right, the first of three test. You see, in this country, you MUST get a high score on the LSAT along with a high G.P.A. (3.0 or higher) in order for schools to take you into consideration. That is the reality I had to face early on: I had a high GPA but a low LSAT score. I was finally admitted to one of the law schools in Michigan and I moved. Just when you think you are done, you still have to graduate and pass the bar to get a license to practice law—choosing to be an attorney is the most rewarding experience ever; walking into the courtroom to argue your first case is priceless!
A bit of background information on me is that I grew up in a low income household surrounded by lawless individuals, gangs and teenage pregnancy. My high school guidance counselor did not believe I could be an attorney; her exact words to me where “a girl from the valley, never leaves the valley!” Not only did I leave, I never went back. Today, I am tempted to make a copy of my law diploma and send it to my high school counselor—the bad thing is that she is already retired. I feel you need to learn about my background to understand my position on certain issues and to understand any biases that might influence the way I write; I try to keep myself neutral but the reality is that all individuals carry with them the baggage called life and neutrality is not “reasonable” to achieve. I am sure I was not the only student with so much obstacles in achieving their goals; in fact, I know the plight of many minority students is the same—having to face rejection in the form of racism, prejudice and cultural awareness. I went to a law school where the student body consisted of less than 5% minorities. The minorities were later broken down by Latinos, African-American, Native-American and Asian. Less than 5%! Talk about a culture clash for me—I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in California, surrounded by Latinos. I realized here there are not many of us in the legal profession or in positions of power and that could be an indication of why we are so underrepresented. I survived and graduated with top honors—professors would often tell me law students do not earn A’s, but here I was, a Latina girl from the valley, not only earning A’s but obtaining the highest achievement of all—Graduating Cum Laude.
I made my way back to California and I sat to take the bar in the Summer of 2007. I must admit that it was a very tough 4 months. I studied from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. every single day. The only day I took off was for my sisters’ college graduation. I could not miss this day at all. You see, I have three other sisters who are highly educated—Paula has a Bachelor’s degree from University of California, Davis and a Master degree from UCLA; Valeria will obtain her dual bachelors degree in Nursing and Psychology from San Diego State University; and, Eva, who has a Bachelor’s degree from UCSD and is currently working on her Master degree from San Diego State University. I am very proud of my sisters—we are all highly educated individuals with high expectations of each other. But I digress; I finally sat for the bar for three consecutive days, eight hours each day. I walked out the last day feeling drained; my marathon had ended. I took the next flight to Cancun for a week and I forgot about this ordeal. Now I had to wait four months to obtain the results. On Friday, November 16, 2007 I found out that I had passed! Finally, I had achieved the highest goal in my life and I felt as if I had won the lottery. Like always, I had my family by my side, celebrating and making this day a very special day to remember. The most important person there was my husband, Javier, who had been there for me since day one. He is my pillar, my rock and my foundation.
Today, I have had the fortune to practice law in a beautiful city. I have experience in Family Law and Immigration Law. I have decided to jump on the “solo” boat and now I am sailing through the ocean of law! With the extra time that I now have I will finally give back to the community as I always wanted to do; by volunteering my time to several organizations and mentoring new attorney as much as they need. This is my way of saying to them, if I did it, you can too. I also dedicate some of my time in speaking engagements at the local high schools with at-risk students. I have also taken a couple of pro bono cases and I feel they have been very rewarding. With that, I feel is a good breaking point. Remember, these are my own thoughts, and emotions.
My next posting will be on a legal topic related to either Family Law or Immigration Law….till next time!
