Get to know employment law and fall in love.
Every fall I turn into a matchmaker.
At the start of each university semester, I warn law students that I want to cause them to fall in love with my friend, Employment Law. They’re about to spend the next 40 years (and an extraordinary amount of time) wrapped up in some field of law, and I want them to choose their “law life mate” wisely. Employment Law is often overlooked, and it shouldn’t be.
Frankly, in a roomful of law subjects, Employment Law doesn’t immediately stand out. Imagine law school as a speed-dating exercise. At the beginning of their studies, many students are uncertain about what field of law they will devote their professional careers to, and so they spend some time with a variety of subjects to see if any intellectual sparks fly. The competition for students is pretty stiff, and some students are completely swept off their feet by other law subjects that seem more alluring than my friend, Employment Law. As examples:
Many students are enamored with Corporate Law. If Corporate Law were a person, it would probably be a wealthy Ivy League graduate. Stable and sophisticated, Corporate Law sits confidently in the corner of every law school, sipping a soy latte and leaving the impression that anyone who falls in love with it will have a pretty darned comfortable life.
Other students fall head over heels for Intellectual Property Law, the hip, Silicon Valley inspired, Birkenstock-wearing highbrow with a noticeable rebellious streak. Intellectual Property Law is brainy in a computer science kind of way, and that’s a turn-on for some.
A large segment of every law school class gravitates to Criminal Law, the dark and brooding but always magnetically dangerous and exciting life of every law party. Criminal Law is the car accident you would like to turn away from but can’t take your eyes off. It offers something for everyone: intellectual challenge for the legal theorists; courtroom advocacy for the self-declared orators and high school debating champions; human behavior intrigue for the would-be police detectives and forensic psychologists; and a principles podium to work from, whether as a defender of the public interest or a savior of the damned. Criminal Law gets lots of dates with students, and I can see why.
So, in a roomful of interesting and attractive law life mates, why fall in love with my friend, Employment Law? The truth is that Employment Law is the perfect “Renaissance Person” amalgam of other law subjects. It’s cerebral and intellectually curious without being stale or pretentious. It loves people, but not just the deeply flawed ones. It’s empathetic, but not emotionally exhausting. It’s socially conscious and it keeps up with the times. With Employment Law, you can sit at the country club or at McDonald’s and have a philosophical discussion about changing the world for the better. But you can also have a few laughs. And when you’re away from Employment Law, you always find yourself thinking about one more idea that you want to discuss.
In its own unpretentious way, my friend Employment Law earns more attention than it gets. Consider this: unlike some other law school suitors, Employment Law personally affects almost everyone in our society as well as the whole economy.
To the law students, I say this: If you’re looking for a dynamic, open-minded, and socially conscious subject to fall in love with, spend some time with Employment Law.
