i need more freaks in law
'Freaks' is used affectionately here to describe all kinds of creatives, weirdos, misfits, outcasts, alternative individuals, leftists, queers, furries and all that in a loving way.
Where I live, law has a reputation to be dry, boring, business oriented, full of ex-nobility and wealthy people, and it's not wrong. You'll find lots of well-off conservatives and neoliberals, apolitical people just there to make a big buck and to get clout, and people with some questionable sense of justice.
Makes sense then that most people think you need to fit into that sort of group to be interested or have a good time in law: be boring, be professional, stone-faced, serious, rich, holier-than-thou, capitalism-lover, wear muted colors and perform gender and sexuality in the approved way, be straight-laced and rule-loving.
But honestly, law needs the opposite! Law needs you. I miss you in law. I miss all you freaks. There is space for you here. Your perspective, your input, your boldness, your intelligence and creativity is needed.
There is no need for you to boycott law altogether even though you see it critically. Even if you rightfully acknowledge that lots of law is there to protect wealthy interests, you do better if you understand it. These are still the rules we currently have to live under, which means you're better off understanding, analyzing and utilizing it rather than pretend it isn't there. You cannot protest and change what you do not understand.
Moreover, your own need you. Oppressed groups need you. Consumers, tenants, workers, children all around the world need help with their rights, they need help getting explanations for what's happening to them and how they can fight back in the language that the state speaks. The environment needs you, privacy needs you. Law benefits so much from a critical analysis through a queer lens, an anti-capitalist or abolitionist lens - whatever you want.
You don't have to be a judge, or an attorney, or a lawyer getting people and companies off the hook for terrible crimes, or getting more people into the prison system.
You can instead use legal expertise to help in your local chapters or NGOs, you can work in consumer associations or tenants association, you can help with legal resources for disability rights and domestic violence. You can also work with anti-surveillance groups, with environmental justice groups or civil liberties and racial justice groups. You can become a legal journalist or write about law online on your blog.
I miss you when I go to conferences and other law spaces and there's not a single freak, just a sea of old white men that smell like shoe polish and money, waxing poetic about what scummy pharmaceutical company they helped evade consequences. I miss you when I sit in lectures and my peers argue for why a mentally ill person stealing food in the supermarket should go to jail. I miss you when it's time to discuss transgender laws.
You don't need to conform, you don't need to kiss ass. I'm here too, and I love data protection law.
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