By: Jett Watson & Elaine McCardle
I didn’t come to law school with big dreams of helping people. I simply wanted to get a better job than I had. A decade before, I had joined the Navy – again, feeling clear-eyed that I wasn’t necessarily going into the military to help people, but out of a desire to attend college. (I went to the U.S. Naval Academy.)
Things change.
In a training course early in my Navy career, a senior ship captain came to give my class of young officers a sort of hype speech, and we were highly encouraged to come up with questions. I felt rebellious at the time and asked him what his greatest failure was, and how we could avoid the same. He frowned and told us the stories of several of his former sailors whom he had given less-than-honorable discharges for misconduct. One had committed suicide. Two were homeless. One was in and out of prison. And those were only the stories he knew of, out of a dozen or so in his decade of commanding ships.
A bad discharge is worse than a criminal record, he told us, and much harder to overcome. Since junior officers act as a sort of representative for their sailors in disciplinary proceedings, he encouraged us to think hard about whether or not the crime fit the punishment.
His advice stuck with me, though I fortunately never had to follow it, since I never had to discipline anyone that severely. However, his story did trigger a change in the way I looked at military service, and my role as a young officer: while a nebulous “mission” hovered above us at all times, on a real level, my sailors and I maintained equipment on a ship test platform in California.
We weren’t sacrificing ourselves to some noble cause, or liberating oppressed peoples, or doing evil for that matter. Like me, most of the people I worked with had chosen the Navy as a means to improve their lives, particularly once their Navy days were over. I wanted every single sailor put in my care to leave the Navy better than they came in.
Unfortunately, whether it was a luxury of my own unique service or because that captain didn’t get a chance to speak to every young officer in the United States, even a peacetime military tends to be a meat grinder for its personnel. When I left the Navy, I certainly felt chewed up, and I longed to put that time behind me. Eventually, I found my way to law school, where I gave very little thought to “helping people,” let alone veterans.
In my first semester 2L year, I signed up for the Veterans Legal Clinic for selfish reasons mixed with a little bit of veterans’ guilt: I could obtain a lot of credits doing clinical work instead of being in a classroom, and it seemed like all the other veterans did it. After I was medically discharged from the Navy, I hardly wanted to dig through piles of federal regulations for my own benefits, let alone other veterans. But again, things change.
From my first day at the Legal Services Center (you should commute by bike, the trip is lovely in the fall), I felt at home. I learned that there were lawyers – law professors, even – who did things and helped people. After a year of studying legal doctrine that, at times, felt completely untethered from the real world, the idea that we could write some words on paper, go to a courthouse, present our arguments, and maybe change someone’s life, was thrilling.
It was also terrifying. My first assignment was to help an advanced student, Charlie Bernstein ’25, as he prepared to argue a motion a few weeks later for class certification of a group of veterans, in Suffolk Superior Court. My year of legal education fled my brain; I barely knew my password for Westlaw. However, my instructor-colleagues and student-colleagues (because they will treat you as such) gave me plenty of gentle nudges. It was like being tossed in a pool to learn to swim, as they stood nearby with water wings within throwing distance.
After a baptism by fire, watching another student argue in court in front of a judge against a real lawyer, I thought, “Hey, that’s pretty neat.” We were pushing for class certification to inform hundreds of Massachusetts veterans that they were eligible for a state benefit program that would grant them cash payments for wartime service, combat deployments, etc. Our clients, and the class they represented, included individuals who had seen the worst of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. They had not necessarily left the service in better shape than when they entered it, but they had all served honorably for at least one enlistment prior to some later events that resulted in less-than-honorable discharges.
After the hearing, we expected to wait a little while, hopeful that we would receive a judicial order certifying our class and then work from there.
In January of this year, that didn’t happen. By then I was in my second semester as a clinical student, and I had become the “advanced” student. I provided additional information to the court to assuage various concerns it raised, and I filed a supplemental motion for class certification to insist that we did, in fact, meet all requirements of Rule 23. Thankfully, our instructors, Jack Regan and Dana Montalto, paired me with an incredible student, Kyra Du’25, who knew much more about legal research and writing than I did. With our instructors cheering us on, we managed to produce some persuasive court documents. Who would have thought?
We filed our motion in May, shortly after the end of finals. We didn’t expect the hearing to be scheduled until the fall (if at all), when it might even be another clinical student’s treat to handle. Justice moves relatively slowly, right? Our wonderful instructors kindly kept me in the loop when the court ordered a hearing on the motion in early July – right in the middle of my internship at a law firm. And they asked if I might be interested in arguing the motion, just like I had the previous fall. Surely I said no, right? Surely I was too busy doing Big Law deals and restructurings and debt financing amortizations to go to court and argue a case I hadn’t thought about for six weeks, right?
Dear reader, you may underestimate the average Harvard student’s desire to say yes. Now, one moment – I forgot to mention that the class had become rather personal to me. One of our class representative plaintiffs was also my client in an appeal to the Army Discharge Review Board to upgrade his final discharge status, so that he would receive an honorable discharge. I guess I just had too much skin in the game, because I immediately petitioned my firm to give me a bit of breathing room to handle the motion. Part of me thought they might say no, which worried me; part of me thought they might give me an enthusiastic yes and pair me with one of the firm’s litigation mentors, which worried me more, since I was eager to work on my own. Thankfully, they chose the middle ground of allowing me to do it in my own time where possible – no complaints here.
Now, look, the experience wasn’t like the montage of a 1980s movie, where I jogged up the steps of the Adams Courthouse in Boston with a backpack full of heavy legal briefs. My clinical supervisors Jack and Dana didn’t cheer me on while I practiced my right hook on frozen … legal briefs. But the Clinic came together and supported my research, provided moots for the hearing, and gave me, metaphorically, a horseshoe to hang above the courthouse door for good luck. When the day came, I knew I’d be ready!
Ready to . . . walk from my law firm’s office on a cool day, yet absolutely cover myself in sweat, and feel like I hardly knew my own name, let alone the arguments we had practiced. For the uninitiated, the good news is that everyone at court is uncomfortable. The buildings’ thermostats tend to be set to either flambé or arctic freeze (we were fortunate enough to have the latter), and after going through the security line, everyone wavers between Very Important and Very Silly. At the end of the day, it’s fine, just take a breath and talk like a normal, mildly smart person. More importantly, listen, and know when to not talk. For example, if the judge uses your arguments from your briefing materials, just agree that he’s right and let it go. We all know that everyone wants to hear more from Harvard Law students, but sometimes, just maybe, fight that urge.
Anyway, you’re probably wondering if we won, right? Well, yes, we did get the class certified. I will be spending a lot of time as a 3L, in my final two clinical semesters at the clinic, making sure that this group of veterans knows about and receives their benefits. Did the experience change me? Well, yeah. This case, all the cases I have, all the clients I’ve worked with, and all my colleagues at the Legal Services Center have impacted me dramatically. I now want to be a legal aid lawyer. I want to stand up and speak for those who aren’t given a voice. I didn’t come here planning to be so taken with this work, but I’m mighty glad I found it.
For more on the Veterans Legal Clinic: HERE