The Dignity of Law

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"The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life-to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity."

In 1972, the American poet Archibald MacLeish wrote these words in the Harvard Law Review. In 1997, I read these words. At that point, the challenge and lure of the law crystallized before me, and I now see the ideals of MacLeish's vision as my own.

MacLeish envisions the law as providing a sense of possibility, or hope, and I identify with this. Coming from a financially disadvantaged childhood, I had to put forth serious effort in overcoming financial and personal adversity and focusing on the importance of family and education. Without a sense of the unlimited possibilities ahead of me, my goals would never have been taken seriously-by myself or by others-and I would not have followed them to completion. Through my sense of possibility, I took my place on the Honor Rolls for fall 1996 and 1997 at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. I also served as vice president for...

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