The hardest lesson in advocacy: knowing when to step back

From Lost to Empowered

I did not always understand what it truly meant to be a first-generation college student. Stepping onto my undergraduate campus for the first time felt like entering a world designed for those with guidance from parents, siblings, or mentors who had already navigated this path. Instead, I had to figure things out on my own, constantly wondering if I was missing something important.

Thankfully, that changed a few weeks into my freshman year when I was selected for a retention program designed for first-generation and low-income students. At the time, I did not realize how much I needed it.

I once believed success was just about working harder, but this program showed me that access to resources made all the difference. It provided priority registration, free private tutoring, a quarterly book stipend, and, most importantly, a support system. I was no longer just surviving college; I was thriving.

That experience changed me. I realized how many first-generation students struggle not because they lack ability, but because they are navigating an unfamiliar system without the same safety nets continuing generation students enjoy. It also showed me the power of having a community that understands and supports you.

When I applied to law school, I knew I needed that same sense of belonging. I prioritized schools with strong first-generation support, places where students were not expected to figure everything out alone. At King Hall, I found that in the First Generation Advocates program.

When Advocacy Feels Impossible

I wish I could say that I joined the First Generation Advocates Student Board (FGASB), advocated for first-generation and low-income law students, and everything else fell into place. But that would be far from the truth.

Advocating for others is difficult, especially when you're struggling yourself. The truth is that I have struggled from the moment I walked into law school orientation. Law school was unlike anything I had experienced before. Like always, though, I figured things out with time.

But nothing could have prepared me for what happened this past semester.

FGASB had won an important award for its service, and I was chosen to deliver the acceptance speech on the organization’s behalf. I was in my seat, nervously awaiting my turn to speak, when my phone buzzed. It was my brother.

“The landlords have decided to sell the house. We will need to move out soon.”

My mind went blank. For most, this news would be stressful. For me, it was a trigger.

I started spiraling, remembering the times we lived in transitional homelessness, the fear of losing everything again, and the uncertainty of what would happen next. Just as the thoughts became overwhelming, they called our organization’s name. I took a deep breath, walked up to the podium, and read the speech I had written just hours earlier.

I did not ask many people for help after that. I convinced myself I could handle it on my own. Then, a few weeks later, my dad suffered a major heart attack.

No warning signs. No time to prepare. Just a single phone call that changed everything.

I suddenly had so many doubts. I did not know if I would have to drop out in my final year of law school to support my family or if I would even make it to the end of the semester. I did not know how to advocate for myself, let alone for others.

Stepping Back to Move Forward

For so long, I believed that to be the best advocate for myself and others, I had to always be present, always be strong, and always have answers. One of the hardest lessons I have learned is that advocacy is not about doing everything alone. It is about knowing when to lean on others, when to delegate, and when to trust that the work will continue even if you need to rest.

1. Lean on Your Community

Advocacy is a collective effort. Just as I encourage others to seek support, I have to remind myself that I, too, deserve that same support.

Reaching out to trusted peers, mentors, and colleagues when things get overwhelming is not a sign of weakness. It is a way to sustain yourself so you can continue doing the work. 

First-generation advocacy exists because people have built communities that uplift and support each other. It is okay to be on the receiving end of that support sometimes.

2. Set Boundaries and Recognize Your Limits

When you are constantly advocating for others, it is easy to neglect your own needs. But pushing yourself beyond your limits does not make you a better advocate. It only leads to burnout.

Setting boundaries is not about disengaging. It is about being intentional with your energy. This can look like saying no to certain commitments, taking breaks when needed, or stepping back from leadership roles temporarily if life becomes too overwhelming.

3. Give Yourself Grace

One of the biggest challenges I have faced is learning to be kind to myself. When things in my personal life started falling apart, I felt like I was failing as an advocate because I was not able to give as much as I once did.

But advocacy is not about being perfect. It is about doing the best you can with the capacity you have. There will be seasons when you can give more and seasons when you need to take a step back. Both are okay.

Giving yourself grace means recognizing that you are human. It means recognizing that taking a break is sometimes the most responsible thing you can do, not just for yourself but for the people who rely on you.

Lessons for Law School and Beyond

Being a first-generation student comes with unique challenges. Trying to advocate for others while navigating those challenges makes it even harder. But stepping back when needed does not mean you care any less. It means making sure you can continue the work in a way that is healthy, sustainable, and impactful.

These lessons are not just about surviving law school. They are about building the resilience and awareness necessary to be an effective advocate in any setting, including as a future attorney. The best advocates are not the ones who never struggle. They are the ones who recognize their limits, know when to rest, and understand that advocacy is a long-term commitment that requires sustainability.

As I move forward in my career, I know that the same principles will continue to apply. To serve clients, support communities, and create meaningful change, I have to balance my dedication with self-care. The ability to step back when necessary is not a weakness. It is a skill that ensures I can continue advocating, not just for others, but for myself as well.

Bringing your whole self to work when you are not standard issue?

When I was kindergarten age, I got a teacher fired.

Based on parental retellings, I pieced together that I was enrolled in a summer course intended to strengthen students’ reading ability. On the first day of class, the teacher laid out piles of books in the middle of each cluster of desks…and that was all.

I noticed several of the kids did not know how to read, but time was left to pass. So, one day I showed myself right to the principal’s office—and I tattled. I told the principal about how the kids who did not know how to read were not being helped and that it was wrong for them not to be assisted. The principal observed the class, and let the teacher go.

I picked up an intuition for right and wrong at a young age. Instances of unfairness bothered me. So, despite being low on society’s hierarchical ladder, I developed a stern voice to wield against inequity. This is similar to Campoverdi’s description of herself as the protector of her family in Chapter 3 of First Gen, except I tried to be protector of all. As “M” states, I, too, believed “if I don’t do it, no one else will.” 

Until recently, I felt pride at having such a voice. But interactions with legal institutions have caused me to question whether this feature—one I believe is central to my identity—can be used freely in the workplace.

At the end of Chapter 3, Campoverdi considers that she may need to take steps to protect herself moving forward. I find myself in a similar position, but do not like how protecting myself might equate to burying a piece of my identity.

Before law school I was a paralegal at a highly ranked law firm where I worked hard. I was on-call around the clock and worked past midnight on numerous occasions. In a review a senior attorney noted, “…R is always a pleasure to work with, even when faced with difficult tasks or tight deadlines. I can also rely on her to flag issues before they arise or that are missed by junior attorneys….”

This acknowledgment that my feedback was sometimes more useful than that of people with advanced degrees bolstered my sense of utility and value, and was reinforced by overwhelmingly positive reviews from other surveyed attorneys.

So, when I was denied a summer associate position at my old firm, I was surprised. Was my advocacy a factor?

At my old firm the paralegal program is two-years, but paralegals are hired every year. I was part of the class of 2021. There were four of us: three women and one man. When I was hired, I asked if the salary was negotiable due to studies showing women are less likely to negotiate their first salaries, leading to income disparity. I was told it was not negotiable, because of a lockstep pay scale. A female colleague in my class, “Gideon,” was told the same.

The following year, a man hired with the 2022 paralegal class was able to negotiate his salary. He was accelerated onto the step of the pay scale my class was earning after our first-year promotion. Adding insult to injury, he started in June (I had started in August), so he was brought into the company making more money than I was—even with my year of in-company experience. The male paralegal who had started with my class left the firm early for a master’s program. This left three ivy-league educated women getting paid the same or less than a new, male paralegal with less relevant experience.

Perhaps there was more nuance to the situation, but the circumstances closely approximated gender discrimination. So, I approached my manager about negotiating a class-wide raise. I maintained a professional tone while advocating for my colleagues and me. Despite a response along the lines of “I wish you guys wouldn’t discuss your salaries,” I convinced management to award my class an additional bonus that year.

This was not the only time I was forthcoming with management about my perspective on fairness.

When our department was hiring the 2023 paralegal class, three internal referrals were handed down to our manager. My manager reviewed their resumes, conducted screener interviews, and then had us conduct secondary interviews. Our, paralegal, interviews were followed by attorney interviews. There was no public job posting for the duration of those events.

The candidates were fine, but not stellar. Despite this, my manager thought the referral candidates should receive offers to keep hiring simple. This did not sit right with me, because it exemplified the privilege of pursuing law in the footsteps of one’s family, or with the advantage of having family friends positioned to provide access to opportunity. “Lawyers have parents who are lawyers at a rate 18 times the rest of the population”—a strong indicator of inherited advantage.

We did end up making a job posting and interviewing additional candidates. But only because Gideon and I maintained that we should widen the pool of opportunity. Gideon and I came from similar backgrounds—and we were hired from the resume pile. We did not have someone to discreetly hand our resume directly to the person making the hiring decisions. There were no lawyers in our family tree nor a legacy of wealth for us to fall back on. Our families had made the crawl to middle class within our lifetimes.

Gideon and I wanted to serve as the bridge allowing access to law for others with first generation and low-income backgrounds.

To the extent I stood up for fairness in my first job, I was entirely myself. I argued against gender pay disparity and in favor of widening applicant pools to include candidates beyond those cultivated by nepotism. But, despite glowing reviews, I was not welcomed back.

Within our class we have read about how law school prepares students for the hierarchy and seemingly arbitrary decision making that occurs in a law practice. Was I rejected because I did not fall into place at the bottom of the hierarchy? Because I could not accept the firm’s decisions when they were not just seemingly arbitrary, but also wrong? Does thriving in a private firm mean being complacent to procedures that effectuate “closing the door” behind me?

I hope to find that the answer to all the above questions is “no.” I want to be the kind of lawyer my younger self would be proud of—and she was never a fan of caving to intimidating forces out of fear.

Further, if the answers are “yes,” breaking into law will continue to be difficult for “First and Onlys.” I know that adopting behaviors such as “passing” and “dodging” are necessary for some to protect their peace. But I have tried to accept all aspects of myself growing up, including my proclivity for clashing with authority where I believe it necessary to stimulate positive change—and I do not want to give that up. 

Should I?

It’s time to organize (part II: inspirations)

Inhale (deep breath, an inspiration). When I posted my first blog, I featured a photo of myself standing at the apartheid wall that separates the West Bank from settlements in occupied Palestine. I didn’t expect that what this visual represents would take such a center stage for so many so soon. Since starting to draft this third blog, the collective conscience of the world has been fracturing. These are the only words I can use to describe watching the horror of escalated genocide and ethnic cleansing unfold on our phones daily while we continue to move between the day to day tasks of law school and life. Despite the anguish, rage, grief, our student body has been pushing onward, with as much care as we can muster. Unless folks have remained willfully uninformed, I haven’t seen an area of the law school that hasn’t been affected by the ongoing genocide in Gaza that is in large part funded and supported by the US.  

 

In the past month, I have been constantly reminded that our legacies matter so far beyond individual “successes” but more meaningfully toward what future we are creating. We get to (and must) choose the paths forward. This is why the American Bar Association messages standing against repression matter, the National Lawyers Guild unequivocal support for liberation and critical engagement matter, why I’m so proud of my own LSA (law student government) for the statement we released on October 24 after intentional time hearing from students, having multiple meetings and votes in order to support our community and call for a ceasefire. I’ve been so inspired by my mentors, my friends, my community, students, laborers, journalists, people of conscience. Right now, especially, it feels like we’re looking for inspiration. Inspiration to do the “right” thing, to do the hard thing, to do anything.

 

In my previous blog post, I briefly mentioned a few inspirational folks in my journey who I never met: Assata Shakur, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr. I felt inspired by a former classmate’s post about how Tyler the Creator influenced her college journey, and I planned this follow-up post to continue to explore the inspirational folks that we look to as we organize as law students (or whomever we may be) for better futures for all. What I had planned to share when first writing this post was about the legacies we engage when we look to our inspirational leaders. What I have instead is these musings and by way of my original topic, I’ll highlight an elder of conscience who I continue to look to in times of political chaos. While celebrity culture is not something I endorse, we see that folks who have become idols in popular culture can certainly use their platforms in meaningful ways (shout out to Kehlani, to Macklemore (?!?!), to Kid Cudi, Jamila Woods, and so many more folks who have decidedly chosen to speak out against ongoing atrocities in the past month in such ways as Artists Against Apartheid). What I wanted to talk about was living into the legacy of people like the namesake of our law school. What I am saying is that we still have the opportunity to do so.

 

The elder of conscience I wanted to highlight who influenced my journey is Angela Davis. The night this photo was taken at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC, I was in the throws of wanting to drop out of school to become a “full-time activist.” I was advised by beloveds that this was not an “actual career plan,” and encouraged rather that sometimes we should stick to the status quo. Having the honor to enjoy a pastry (my favorite thing) in conversation with Angela Davis, I asked her thoughts on whether I should stay in school. When I shared that I had only one semester left until graduation, she said, unequivocally yes, finish out if it is right for me. So I stayed, and I graduated, and I hurt and I learned and I grew, and here I am, cultivating a path on which I deliberately include organizing, activism, art, joy, my passions and people I care deeply about. This is in small part because of the conversation I had, but in larger part because of the ongoing learning from mentors and community and from leaders like Dr. Davis. The revolutionary author of Freedom is a Constant Struggle (relevant for our current times) as well as a number of other essays and books has consistently shown the true nature of not only a revolutionary, but also an activist-academic. I recently hung a timeline of Dr. Davis’s life to date on the wall in my office that I got as a souvenir from an exhibit at the OMCA. I wanted a reminder that the time we spend matters. 

 

I’ve been privileged to continue to witness and learn from activist-academics in practice (starting from my own mother) through mentors I have gained while in graduate school. What I am currently considering is that facing down the worst parts of what our humanity is capable of is not disconnected from what we puzzle over in the classrooms… atrocities we read about in textbooks are not just thought experiments, there are human lives connected to each loss, each law, each choice. The devastation in the world weighs heavily on my heart and mind, but/and I’m privileged and grateful to be where I am right now, working toward the legacy that stops these kinds of atrocities in their tracks before they can be carried out against anyone else. 

We can choose who we take inspiration from. We can become inspirational. More on this next time. As I continue to think through this moment and what it means for all of us, I’ll end with an excerpt from the poem that starts Assata Shakur’s biography, as an exhale (breathe out):

 

Affirmation

“I have been locked by the lawless. 

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if i know any thing at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

 

I believe in living. 

I believe in birth.

I believe in the seat of love 

and the fire of truth.

 

And i believe that a lost ship, 

steered by tired, seasick sailors, 

can still be guided home

to port.”