Newman Law Firm, PLLC

Why did I become a lawyer?

I come from a house full of lawyers.  Both of my parents are attorneys in Mississippi, so I grew up surrounded by the law.  In an interesting dichotomy, my mom loved being a lawyer, but my dad did not particularly enjoy the practice of law.  Having what I considered to be a clear picture of what law practice looked like, I went to college with no intention of becoming a lawyer.  The reality was I did not have a clue what I wanted to do.  While in undergrad at Southern Miss I changed my major a number of times—political science, communications, biology, and finally settling on marketing.  I figured marketing was a good fit as I enjoyed talking to people, and I figured lots of sales jobs could be very lucrative.

When I graduated, I took a job selling commercial insurance.  It was really a life insurance company masked as a property and casualty insurance company.  I loved interacting with people, but I was not particularly passionate about the product I was selling.  My discontentment slowly turned into misery.  I left my insurance sales job after a couple years and went to work for a construction company (literally) digging ditches in order to pay my bills. Lacking a sense of purpose, I was at an all-time low point in my life. 

I vividly remember the day that I decided to be a lawyer.  I went on a white-water rafting trip with my family to North Carolina in hopes of regaining some sense of equilibrium.  After a full day of rafting, I was sitting on an old school bus with stacks of rafts on top.  Exhausted, I laid my head against the back of the seat in front of me.  At that moment I had an epiphany of sorts—I just wanted to help people.  In an instant decades worth of images of people approaching my parents at baseball games, grocery stores, and church flashed before my eyes.  I could hear and see people thanking my parents for counseling them through their lowest points in life.  I recalled how proud that made me feel, and imagined how fulfilling it must have been for my folks to be offered that level of gratitude.  Sitting on that hot, dingy bus, I decided I was going to be a lawyer and pursue a career in which I could help people at their lowest of lows.  That is why I am a lawyer—I just want to help.