#Legalish #storytimethread🧵
Dear Future Self,
This law degree you’re holding in your hand was not a fly-by-night kind of thing. It’s crazy to think that you’ve come so far. You should be proud to know that you are leaving this chapter of your life with so many new skills…
Dear Future Self,
This law degree you’re holding in your hand was not a fly-by-night kind of thing. It’s crazy to think that you’ve come so far. You should be proud to know that you are leaving this chapter of your life with so many new skills…
You are now a factum writing machine! Alongside that, look at the career you’ve built in hand with your education! Your storytelling skills are off the charts now. Congrats on the new documentary series deal with @netflix. Your story of hope, perseverance and renewal will…
certainly change lives.
With no prior reputation, you saw @RyersonULaw as a place where you could help write a new story as a part of the inaugural class. It was the first new law school in Toronto since 1889. And as a Black man, enrolling in the school made so much sense…
With no prior reputation, you saw @RyersonULaw as a place where you could help write a new story as a part of the inaugural class. It was the first new law school in Toronto since 1889. And as a Black man, enrolling in the school made so much sense…
to you. The other law schools have been around for 100 years. They weren’t built for people like you...It made sense to go to a place that was starting out without all the history of exclusion. Boy were you excited! As a first generation law student…
and a Black Muslim, immigrant from Nigeria, living in poverty with lived experience of incarceration, it was difficult for you to get the loans required for law school. Shockingly, the new law school in town [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED]…
You were forced to put your law school studies on pause. You felt a constant, grinding fear that you would lose everything and be unable to support yourself; that the upward momentum that you had created in your life since being incarcerated and getting into law school would be…
destroyed.
Due to your personal history, you were in a highly vulnerable position. You had survived the criminal justice system. After a number of difficult years, you had successfully turned your life around. Law school was important but…
Due to your personal history, you were in a highly vulnerable position. You had survived the criminal justice system. After a number of difficult years, you had successfully turned your life around. Law school was important but…
self-preservation, your mental well-being, and dignity were much more important. Despite all of this, you approached this conundrum with the same level of determination and commitment you have applied to other challenges in your life and re-started your studies…
You were very interested in changing colonial racist systems that exist. Have you stayed true to that? Which placement did you end up going with in 3L? Were you able to get a placement at the @philadao’s office in the Conviction Integrity Unit? How was it working…
to get innocent people out of life without parole sentences while working with the state at the same time? Must have been challenging. Or did you choose the placement with Bryan Stevenson’s @eji_org ? Representation in the legal field was something you wanted…
to address. Are you seeing representation in a way where it is normal to see Black people in the field and not as “exceptions”?
Some parting advice…
Some parting advice…
1.) I encourage you to not get sucked into the way things have always been done. It’s likely that many will have you enter with the mindset of following a traditional law student path, which requires performing whiteness…
I want you to know that you don’t have to do things the way they’ve always been done. There will be many ways to make an impact…
2.) Remember, the idea of the “prestigious” title that comes with being a lawyer isn’t what interested you, it isn’t why you went to law school. You did not go into law school thinking “who are you going to work for?” You wanted to study areas of law that are human centric…
Keep that front of mind.
3.) Maintain your non-law school friendships and interests. Legal studies are incredibly time-consuming and taxing. You'll spend an incredible amount of time at the law faculty. Other law students will become life-long friends. It may become…
3.) Maintain your non-law school friendships and interests. Legal studies are incredibly time-consuming and taxing. You'll spend an incredible amount of time at the law faculty. Other law students will become life-long friends. It may become…
very insular. So be sure to maintain your non-law school friendships and interests. Law school may seem all-consuming during this season of your life, but it's not, and it won't feel like it forever. Those friends and interests will keep you grounded, balanced, and well-rounded.
I hope reading this has made you smile as big as I have while writing it. This letter is a testament to your perseverance and grit. Also, the love @RyersonULaw has finally shown you since they acknowledged their mistakes has been out of this world…
You’ve been able to be an ambassador for the program you championed from the beginning and love so much and show others from all different walks of life that it’s never too late or too impossible to go to school…
The way you’ve been able to combine work with your loves in life is something so greatly admirable. It’s what you’ve always strove for. It is such an incredible blessing to have all the different elements in life fall together so perfectly.
Keep going.
Keep going.
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