Introduction

Stories about lawyers often tout intellectual prowess, larger-than-life personality or ‘going for the jugular’ advocacy. However, there are many other “lawyering legacies” that students can look to in their communities, within non-traditional careers, in academia, and in other social justice contexts. Ideal “lawyering legacies” can look different for students depending on their life goals and career goals. Lawyering legacies can also involve the desire to prioritize community involvement throughout one’s legal career. At times in law school, students may feel pressured to participate in volunteerism and extracurriculars simply for the sake of putting this experience on their resume.  Volunteerism and involvement should be based on what students are interested in and something that is meaningful – not about simply checking a box on a job application. Like an externship experience, community involvement can go beyond benefiting others and can also bring positive benefits including, building relationships, and developing skillsets that can assist the lawyer themselves. Legal careers in smaller cities and towns can also be very fulfilling and provide great opportunities for community involvement. It can help to hear about lawyering legacies directly from lawyers themselves and what has been impactful within their careers, to expand knowledge related to professional identities.

These excerpts from interviews, editorials, or books present other ways of thinking about lawyers’ professional identities. Some are with more well-known public figures and others are with lawyers working for change in their own communities. 

Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is a now-famous lawyer and professor who has committed himself to racial and economic justice, particularly through the Equal Justice Initiative. Below are excerpts from an interview with Bryan Stevenson.

“I was very nervous about my ability to help someone with my limited law school education, but it was clear to me that being there and talking to [my client] had an impact on the quality of his life. It was the first time I felt like I could make a difference in the lives of people. [My client’s] humanity, his willingness to accept me as someone who might be able to make a difference despite my limitations, really said something to me about a dynamic, a relationship that’s possible… We [as lawyers] have to be more hopeful about what we can do. Hopelessness is the enemy of justice and it’s what allows injustice to prevail. In that respect, we need lawyers and people trained and skilled with the tools that the law can provide—people who are motivated to do things, and to change things…We have to be willing to engage, not just what we know in our head and what we think in our mind, but we also have to engage our heart. I think justice comes when the ideas in our mind are fuelled by the convictions in our heart and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being passionate or motivated or engaged or impacted by the things we do. And this passion-disconnected posture that so many in the legal profession take, I think actually feeds a kind of indifference to inequality and injustice that we need to reject.” (1-6)

Teresa Matich, “Bryan Stevenson on How Lawyers Can Make a Difference” CLEO (1 June 2020)

Jeff Brown

Colleen Caza

Students may also feel pulled to work in a traditional field of law and feel apprehensive about their ability to balance their community involvement and social justice interests. There is a way to do both, which is exemplified by Windsor, Ontario lawyer, Colleen Caza. This piece is based on interviews with Ms. Caza in the fall of 2022.

Colleen Caza is a successful personal injury lawyer at Goldstein DeBiase and is heavily involved in her local community. Colleen facilitated the start-up of the Windsor Lawyers Feed the Hungry Chapter in 2010, along with her colleagues, to help provide food security in the local community. This Chapter has provided over $300,000 over the last decade to programs in Windsor and Essex County, continues to sponsor two meals each month for the Downtown Mission, and provides weekend food packages to children at a local elementary school, as well as direct support and donations to local agencies for meal funds or food distribution.

When asked about balancing her career with involvement, Colleen advised that while it can be tricky to balance a legal career, family, and community involvement, “it helps tremendously when your work environment is supportive of community involvement and encourages it.  I personally feel very committed to giving back to the community and believe that everyone should do so in whatever way they are able.”  Though this doesn’t necessarily mean volunteering simply for the sake of checking a box.  Colleen goes on to say that “community involvement should be meaningful and not done out of obligation.  My volunteer activities add meaning and dimension to my life.” Colleen’s recent volunteer work has included volunteering with her children as “buddies” for the local Miracle League which was both fulfilling and fun for her and her children.  Colleen points out that “community involvement can evolve and change to fit with your interests and time commitment.  There are so many needs in our community which seem to be increasing all of the time.”  Throughout her career, Colleen has enjoyed working with great colleagues, learning new things, and meeting people that she is uniquely positioned to help.

Justice Breyer, by lawyer Neal Katyal

Stories such as the one below by former clerk Neal Katyal highlight other characteristics important to lawyering – this one about Justice Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States upon his retirement:

Neal Katyal, “Breyer’s Legacy of Constitutional Humility” (Washington Post, January 26, 2022), online:

“In the days to come, there will and should be a lot of pieces written about Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s brilliance and influence on the Supreme Court. This is not one of them.

Of course, the justice is brilliant; his opinions will have a deep impact on our democracy for decades to come. But his execution of those rulings, and the way he carried himself on the court, may stand as an even greater legacy still. At this tense moment in our history, where the mere act of hearing someone out is considered betrayal, Breyer points the way to a healthier democracy.

I had the privilege of clerking for Breyer in his second year on the court, in 1996-1997. The justice clearly did not want to appear to be like Felix Frankfurter, another Harvard law professor turned justice. Instead, he tacked in the opposite direction — becoming a listener instead of a pontificator.

I remember a case that had me worked up over a constitutional matter — an issue that, I believed, with all my 26 years of wisdom, represented a deep infringement on individual rights. I produced a 40-page memo to that effect, exhaustively researched.

The justice read it, down to the footnotes, then asked: “Who am I to make such a decision for the entire American people?”

To be sure, the justice wasn’t shy about enforcing the Constitution when the circumstances called for it — protecting any number of marginalized groups over his long tenure. But that spirit of humility informed everything he did. In one of the cases he heard last year, the case of the cursing cheerleader, he openly worried at oral argument about how to write a workable rule for the case. “How do I get a standard out of that?” Breyer asked. “I’m frightened to death of writing a standard.”

Times have changed since Breyer joined the court in 1994. We now live in a world of know-it-alls, catalyzed by a social media engine that brings these forces together. The centrifuge extracts a tribal purity, where if you believe one thing you must necessarily believe 10 others, and those 10 lead you down another 10, and so on.

Instead of learning from those outside this closed universe, you have to stay in it or face attack. And within it, because everyone is egging each other on, facts start to lose their salience. Instead, passion and purity become the new currency.

Enter Breyer. His life’s work stands as a counterpoint to this: that one can hold strong views, and yet retain nuance and the capacity to listen and learn from one another.

His best friend for many years on the court was Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. At first, they appeared quite an odd couple. She, an unreserved Arizona legislator who carried the spirit of the West with her everywhere. Breyer, reserved and Bostonian. Some thought the friendship was strategic, but that’s doubtful — anyone who knew O’Connor understood she wasn’t going to be bamboozled by friendship. It was a true, genuine relationship, forged by people who had mutual respect for each other’s differences.

The same was true with Justice Antonin Scalia, who became Breyer’s frequent debating partner. Scalia and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have had the famous friendship, but it was Breyer with whom Scalia conducted many public debates on matters of constitutional philosophy and statutory interpretation.

At every turn, Breyer remained civil and respectful, even when Scalia went after him hard. I remember after one set of insults hurled by Scalia, I urged Breyer to say something back. He just ignored it, saying he wasn’t going to play that game.

There was, in short, a constitutional humility about Breyer. He didn’t pretend to know the answer to every question. He paid attention to what the other side was saying, and was charitable in listening instead of impugning motives.

But that wasn’t where his listening stopped. A deep part of his listening practice was to pay attention to experts in the field. He often said federal judges are not experts on national security, or the environment, or the economy, and that a deep part of wisdom was deference to expertise. Breyer’s path was to triple check his personal impulses, and particularly so if they conflicted with the views of true experts on the question before him.

Consider just how different that is from the political debates today, where extremist ideology has attacked things that should be noncontroversial, from wearing masks to taking vaccines, from addressing global warming to protecting voting rights.

America stands at a crossroads. On one path is more toxic extremism, the culmination of which we witnessed on Jan. 6. Despite that armed insurrection, the path remains just as seductive as ever to many.

The other path is quieter and more difficult to practice. It is a path forged by Breyer: respect for others, reverence for the law, and most of all, a commitment to listening to and learning from one another.”