I didn’t expect that a film would inspire my internship blog post. But then again, I didn’t expect a lot of things about law school either. I certainly didn’t think I’d be given the opportunity to work at the Quebec’s Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission (Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, CDPDJ) during my first summer as a law student.
I couldn’t sleep last night, so I re-watched Jerry Maguire. Jerry writes a mission statement about how his business has lost its way. The main takeaway from that statement is the same one I carried away from my summer internship: “The key to this business is personal relationships.” Because ever since I started law school, the one word I keep hearing over and over again is networking. It sounds like it’s the background music of our profession.
When I started my internship at the CDPDJ, I thought I would mainly develop my research skills. In many ways, that’s exactly what happened. I spent my time reading hundreds of cases, on everything from the duty to accommodate, to discrimination based on gender or handicap, to racial profiling in the context of police interventions, to access to services with assistance animals. Through that process, I dipped into the Code of Civil Procedure. I got familiar with articles I’ll study in class this year, and seeing them in practice already helped me understand how they work. Finally, I read a few cases under the Youth Protection Act, which allowed me to understand the legislation.
Now, in full transparency, my most valuable internship lesson wasn’t about legal rules or procedure. It was about people.
On my last week, the team went out for lunch together. I sat down next to a lawyer whose career I admired. She had spent several years working internationally with the United Nations before joining the CDPDJ. All summer, I had been waiting to ask her : How does one land a job like that? What should I do now, while I’m still in school, to set myself on that path? Her answer came down to this: you have to know the right person. It confirmed what I was already thinking: in law, doors often open not just because of what you know, but because of who you know.
That theme repeated itself throughout the summer. The lawyers at the CDPDJ were friendly, down-to-earth and open-minded people. I could see the bond they had whenever they were in the office together. Because of their remote work days though, most of my daily life was spent with the three other interns. As we shared the cubicle area, they made the work so much more meaningful. We swapped stories, shared frustrations, coffees and bagels. We sometimes joined forces on one person’s mandate. This collaboration was so rewarding because I learned so much from each of them. The two Bar interns, in particular, gave me a glimpse of what lies ahead. All three became my teammates and my friends.
And so I came back to Jerry Maguire. His mission statement stuck with me because it summed up exactly what my internship had taught me : personal relationships truly are the key to this business.
What I take with me is the lesson that the practice of law is built on relationships. Relationships between lawyers and clients, between colleagues, and yes, between interns working around one table for twelve weeks.
So, if I were to write my own mission statement after this summer, it would go something like this:
The key to this profession is not only the cases we research. It is the people. My mission is not to treat networking as a tool, but as a practice of genuine connection. To seek out conversations not only because they might advance my career, but because they might broaden my perspective. If the key to this business is personal relationships, then the kind of lawyer I want to become will not just build a career on them, but a life.