The First-Gen Disconnect
Imagine being dropped in a foreign country with no contacts, a poorly drawn map, a slight knowledge of the language but everyone assumes you’re a local. You spend countless hours navigating your surroundings and trying to join a community despite apparently having all the instructions to do so in front of you. Desperately you watch those around you and try to blend in, learn their customs and join their community. But just as you think you’ve figured it out, someone presents you with a situation that leaves you questioning everything you’ve learned so far and leaving you scrambling not to expose your vulnerabilities to everyone. This pretty much sums up the average first-generation lawyer experience.
The legal sector is rooted in connections. Connection to people. Connection to resources. Connection to support. The list goes on and on. It is a luxury to understand how to establish these connections and even more of a luxury to know how to maintain them. When it comes to first-generation lawyers, there is an inherent disconnect that cannot be avoided. While there is an immense amount of support, love and pride behind you, the harsh reality is that it might not always feel like enough to prepare you for what is in front of you.
You struggle through law school with no one but your peers to relate to; peers who have families that can understand and reminisce on their own experience with finals and the Bar to reassure them. Applying for internships and jobs brings the phrase ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ to life, and you feel like you are the only exception. And when you finally catch your big break into the professional world, you find yourself more lost than ever, surrounded by people who appear to have been commercial awareness trained and professionally polished since age 5.
It isn’t a complete divide. After all you are just as educated and just as qualified as those with lawyer parents, grandparents, siblings. You completed the same applications and exams, and you earned your place regardless of how lost you may have felt while doing it. But there is still that disconnect. You will never ever have the same abundance of reassurance that may come from having a family with a legal background.
So maybe things would be easier if you were dropped in a foreign country with Google Maps, an aunt with a home and a business there, and a schedule of customary events. Maybe you would quickly blend in. But that’s exactly the point: you would blend in and nothing more. You would connect seamlessly, and you would never have to discreetly battle your way in. Being first-generation is not easy, and there is that dreaded disconnect, but maybe it isn’t a detriment. That disconnect teaches resilience and humility. It teaches you to reassure yourself, locate your own resources and find the confidence to make connections by virtue of your own communication and skill. These are qualities that make for a successful, self-assured lawyer, one who doesn’t depend on a door being opened for them but builds their own door from scratch. A lawyer depending on nothing, but their own skill set. A lawyer making their own impressions and alliances. Perhaps the first-gen disconnect is the one thing helping first-gens become so connected.
