Celebrities, Law Schools

Amal Clooney's Advice For Aspiring Attorneys

Here are four insights from the celebrated human rights lawyer.

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(Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

(Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

“It’s silly, no? / When a rocket ship explodes / And everybody still wants to fly?  / Some say a man ain’t happy / Unless a man truly dies, oh, why?” – Prince

Last week, the Lebanon-born and U.K.-raised barrister Amal Clooney held her first speaking engagement in the United States. Although it was her first official speaking engagement here, she has spent a significant amount of time in America. She obtained her LLM from NYU School of Law, interned for then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor at the Second Circuit, worked for a couple years at Sullivan & Cromwell (on the infamous Enron case, among other matters), and spent last spring as a visiting professor at Columbia Law School.

After practicing law internationally at the highest levels for the past fifteen years, Clooney made her first-ever visit to Dallas to speak at a sold-out event, which raised more than $1 million to combat international human trafficking. Even though her list of feats is rather impressive, she still feels like she has quite a bit more to accomplish. So what can we learn from the famed human rights lawyer’s most recent speaking engagement?

Here are four bits of wisdom law students and young lawyers can take away from Clooney’s event:

  1. If your nonprofit or pro-bono work can make a difference to just one person, the work is worth it.
  2. People who are passionate are good at what they do.
  3. You don’t need to start your career with a long-term plan, it’s better to see where the work takes you.
  4. No one is above the law.

Doing meaningful work and being passionate about the work you do was a recurring theme throughout her conversation with television anchor Shelly Slater. Clooney advised the audience to scrap their ten-year plan and to trust in the journey. And to remember that no one, no matter how powerful or successful one becomes, is above the law.

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Clooney’s line “it’s better to see where the work takes you” reminds me of Viktor Frankl’s philosophy in his magnum opus, Man’s Search for Meaning. In his book, Frankl writes that the specific meaning of life at a given moment matters much more than the meaning of life in general. And to think about what matters primarily in general abstract terms is comparable to asking a chess champion “what is the best move in the world?”

There is no such thing as a best move. Every move is necessarily derived from a particular situation in a game and the particular personality of one’s opponent, according to Frankl. There are no silver bullets.

“Everyone has his or her own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment,” Frankl writes. “Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.” It is up to us to assign meaning to our work and careers.

Clooney’s passion motivates her work in human rights. “The reason I’m doing the cases I do is because I’m emotional about them,” she said. “I don’t think a woman should apologize for that any more than a man should.” She spent only 24 hours here in Dallas, but I have a feeling it was anything but a typical day for those in the audience.

#PrinceRIP

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Renwei Chung attends SMU Dedman School of Law. He has an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and a MBA from the University of Chicago. He is passionate about writing, technology, psychology, and economics. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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