Legal Fever Dream

When I introduced this series, I was still in the midst of my LPC exams, and navigating (seemingly endless) applications in a quest to qualify. I was fully immersed in the legal world, and the desire to qualify engulfed me, and many of my friends alike. This was at the forefront of my mind.

As it stands today, I have finally secured a training contract that begins next year. Things should be looking up, they are in my career – but it feels insignificant now. I had done what I had set out to do for for almost ten years now, but it felt obsolete.

Celebration felt obsolete, dreams of making the world a better place, dreams of working for a firm that aligns with my values, dreams of working in the UN – felt more like delusions.

I wanted to start the series chronologically, however my life now looks very different than it did before. I can’t really bring myself to start at the beginning, because I’m being consumed by the present. Of all the barriers of entry to the legal profession I outlined before, the one that stands at the forefront to me now is being an Arab in the legal (and more broadly, professional) world in the current political climate.

For the avoidance of any confusion, at the time of writing my first post, the backdrop was still bleak for me and many others back home – and it was a bad time for humanity overall. However, almost ten months later, things have reached a level I could not fathom at the time. My thoughts have concentrated on this issue, looping in circles. When my mind becomes circular, I find the best way out of rumination is writing.

Many of us are navigating the universal challenges in entering the legal profession, alongside a much larger and more unique problem – the ongoing genocide of our people. Although this should concern the whole of humanity, the unique experience of the Arab is being forced to maintain a professionalism, which entails the denial of that very fact. That we are facing a genocide.That assertion alone is enough to end a training contract before it begins. That alone can have a candidate passed up for an opportunity. That alone can entail a young professional is denied adequate pastoral support at work, despite countless D&I initiatives.

For those who are yet to secure a contract, they are plagued with the task of researching firms both for preparation, but also for their conscience. Is this firm’s main client a company that is built on our destruction? Is the partner racist? Are those tweets from the CEO to be taken in jest? Are those Linkedin posts representative of the whole company? Am I welcome here?

For those in the midst of their exams, they are not only trying to grasp the intricacies of tax law. At the best of times, they are navigating constant updates from back home. Are they ok? Was that strike nearby? How many killed? Back to Wills. Repeat. At the worst of times, they are navigating the lack of updates from back home…

They sit alongside their classmates at university, and colleagues at work – feeling isolated, and hypersensitive to every flippant mention of what’s happening back home. Comments from those who have never been to their home, and don’t wish to. They don’t wish to educate themselves, nor are they open to being educated – but they still remark.

The University complaint’s and concessions procedure doesn’t include a box for genocide – would that fall under procedural defect or bereavement?

Is it a procedural defect on behalf of the university, for failing to acknowledge this suffering? Or on behalf of the so called ‘peacekeeping institutions’ we were taught about in law school?

Procedural defect on the part of our governments for sending billions of pounds for weapons to exterminate our families, whilst threatening to deport us for objecting?

Procedural defect on the part of the law, for not prosecuting such evil?

Procedural defect on the part of humanity, for allowing such inhumanity.

Does bereavement count when you can’t even quantify the suffering because bodies are being incinerated without a trace?

Does bereavement count when it’s to your people, but not to you?

Does bereavement count when you are kept in a state of anticipatory grief for friends and family who could be next at any moment?

Does bereavement count when it’s your homeland? The only home you’ve ever known?

Does bereavement count if it’s your homeland, one you’ve never had the privilege of knowing?

Does bereavement count if your deceased father’s grave is bombed like the others… or does that not count?

Does bereavement count when you no longer feel the same life inside you, the same hope you once did?

Keep calm and carry on – say the universities and our workplaces.

Have you tried puppy yoga?

Did you know you can get the Headspace app 10% off once you’ve been with the company a year?

Did you hear there’s free pizza on Fridays?

Why aren’t you coming to the company’s fundraiser? Did you hear about what’s happening in Ukraine? We’re having a fundraiser!

We’re ordering shawarma.

I no longer dream of a career in law.

I dream of a world where the legal industry embraces people like me.

I dream of a world where we are not just taught human rights, but experience them first hand – across the whole globe.

I dream of a career that can help make that dream a reality, or at the very least – I hope to work with others who dream the same dream.

Ironically, my journey into the legal industry is teaching me the same lesson that made me want to be a lawyer in the first place – the world isn’t fair. Our legal industry should be the vehicle to change that, but it is failing.

Perhaps this is a lesson I needed to re-learn. I needed to face more obstacles to understand the magnitude of the issue at hand, if I ever had hope of changing it.