[10] humanity

I don't generally write about the work I do because, well, there are lots of rules about such things when you are a lawyer, and I prefer to continue to be able to practice as a lawyer. 

If you know me at all, you presumably know that I have never chosen the easy kind of law. I don't do the kind of law that fights over money between companies that can handle the price either way. I do the kind of law where individual people's futures are at risk.

The thing about doing this kind of law is that, at the beginning, there isn't much at stake because you are new and no one trusts you with much. As time goes on, though, there is more and more risk to every decision you or your client makes, and many of those decisions were made before you ever met your client. 

And sometimes, there is nothing you can do, and you stand next to a person, a person who you have come to know pretty well, while a very large chunk of his or her life is taken away. 

It should never be easy, because that would mean that you have lost some of your humanity.

It isn't easy.