One of the more astute things I learned from an experienced lawyer as I was coming out of law school three and a half decades ago was this: It’s much more interesting and revealing to look at what people are doing five to ten years after graduation that what they do right out of the gate. What he meant was that people’s first choices often reflect how much debt they’re trying to pay off, or a first poorly-informed guess at what will work for them in a profession with many different avenues to pursue. Give it a decade, he was saying, and people will start to reveal themselves, their preferences, and their potential.
This observation has proven itself true more times than I can count.
Some of my law school classmates (many of whom I didn’t know at the time because of the size of the class) have gone on to fame, fortune, and all manner of unpredictable careers. There’s a former Assistant U.S. Attorney turned Congressman turned House Impeachment Manager in the first impeachment trial of former President Trump. There’s the consummate professional serving as a federal agency’s Inspector General who would suddenly be in the news by being part of Donald Trump’s purge of career Inspector Generals. There’s the committed internationalist who would become Dean of Princeton’s School of International Relations and work in the Obama Administration’s State Department. There’s the quiet, studious young woman who went on to become Dean of the Harvard Law School and then on to the Supreme Court.
And then, in a class by himself, is Bryan Stevenson.
As a young and talented African American graduate of Harvard Law School’s Class of 1985, Bryan Stevenson could have pretty much written his ticket into any law firm job he wanted anywhere in the country. But he had other things in mind. He was determined to do something meaningful with his law degree – and unlike most of the rest of us – not mess around with training grounds or money making before getting right to it. No stop at a high-paying law firm; no learning at the heels of senior lawyers. No, Bryan went straight to the Deep South to work on death penalty cases. Alone. With no funding. No infrastructure to support him. No safety net. Gutsy? Crazy? Both?
Over time, he would expose the deep structural racial bias in the criminal justice system, proving the innocence of the wrongly convicted in case after case. He earned the release of capital convicts who had been wrongly imprisoned and placed on death row for years — in some cases for decades. He would argue the case before the Supreme Court that would lead to the abolishment of the death penalty for minors.
In time, he would found the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. He would document and memorialize the hundred year terror of lynchings in the South. He would be honored with a MacArthur “genius” grant. His Ted Talk would go viral. He would write a book called Just Mercy that would be turned into a movie. He would become one of the most sought-after speakers in the country.
I wish I had known him before he became famous, back when we were all just law students trying to figure out what to do with our lives.
Decades after being classmates, our paths would eventually cross, but just briefly. I contribute to his organization, and I marvel at what it has accomplished, against terrible odds. But most of all I am just gob-smacked by the enormity of his contribution to this world, by what one talented and passionate person can accomplish with perseverance and a large dose of courage.
As we celebrate “Black History Month,” I tip my hat to Bryan Stevenson, HLS Class of 1985.
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