Candidates' backgrounds (not just those w/ offers)

[counselor95]

In my years of experience dealing with judges in state court, my informal observation was that a disproportionate number of the judges were first-generation attorneys (i.e., first in their family to earn a law degree and pass the Bar), of relatively modest economic backgrounds, who had worked very hard to become attorneys and then judges, taking great pride in the work as judges.

I was wondering how many of us fit that mold?

Thanks for any who care to respond! This is very unscientific as there is not even a definition of "modest economic background" --very possibly the perception of growing up in a modest economic background is more determinative than the reality. (You notice I didn't add queries as to the hard work and pride aspects -- I am sure all of us candidates satisfy that!)

[crazybroad]

My father has a high school education and joined the Navy to fight in WWII. When he returned he worked in a factory that made pipes and returned to the Navy during the Korean War. He worked several side jobs including bartender at a country club, town treasurer and American Legion treasurer. My mother did not graduate 8th grade as she had to leave school to get a job to help support her family. I am the youngest of 5 children with only one other sibling graduating from college. Don't get me wrong, my sister is a bank manager and my brother is the plant manager of a small printing company with HS educations and my other sister attended college but quit. They are intelligent people just preferred to work rather than learn. I spoke to my brother today after informing him by email that I didn't get an offer and he told me that he was proud of me nonetheless and he has been since he's been able to tell others that his little sister is a lawyer (first time he ever said so).

[justfoundthisboard]

Interesting question. My dad grew up on a farm, and dropped out of high school to join the Marines before Pearl Harbor. When he got out after the war, his family had moved to New York, so he went there and became a taxi driver. He eventually went to a vocational school on the G.I. bill and became a dental technician. He never made more than $10,000 a year in his life, but we all knew we were going to college and becoming professionals. When I became an Army JAG he was really angry - first of all, it wasn't the Marines! Then, he wasn't thrilled with the idea of women in the military. Finally, he thought I was wasting my education by going on active duty even though I believed in serving my country because that's what he taught me. He has been gone for more than 20 years now. I think he would be really proud to know I was becoming an ALJ.

[nonamouse]

I'm the first with a professional degree in my family. More than 30 members of my family including all 4 grandparents came from all over the country to see my law school graduation. It was quite the huge deal since I'm the oldest in my generation with more than 20 siblings/1st cousins looking at me for guidance. Quitting was not an option even when law school was sucking the life out of me. The entire extended family has pulled themselves from a lower economic group to upper middle class in 2 generations. In large part this is due to the men of my father's generation joining the military and stressing education for all of their children and their younger siblings.

Neither of my parents had college degrees. Dad joined the USAF right out of high school (early Vietnam era) and had his family while young. Mom went to a couple of years of junior college while still living with her family (and me) until Dad got back from an overseas assignment. They always told me that a solid education is something that cannot be taken away from you.

We used to collect pop bottles when I was in elementary school and save S&H Green Stamps for the extras. We frequented the thrift stores and went to the gas stations that gave a free gift with purchase like dishes. We had a garden plot on the base where we had to haul water in buckets for our veggies that we grew to stretch our budget. My father wore himself out working a 2nd and sometimes 3rd job in addition to being on active duty so that we would not be the "poor kids." We qualified for free school lunches and food stamps when I was little, but my father was too proud and hardworking to take them. My mother would scour the newspaper for free events in parks or free admissions at museums so that we never felt like we missed out due to a lack of money.

My entire family is so excited at the possibility that I will become an ALJ. My only regret at not being selected this round is that they were so excited. My last living grandparent (86 years old) has told me that she is hanging on (with cancer) just to see this happen for me. This was nothing that she ever imagined could happen in her lifetime. I lost 2 really close relatives during this process, so I would hate for her to miss this experience too. She would have made an incredible attorney if she had been born in my generation.

[okeydokey]

Boley!!!

Did I just discover I had a long lost step-sibling?

[Propmaster]

My grandparents (on both sides) were retailers. Oddly (for the time period), my paternal grandmother was the most educated of them, with a Masters degree.

My mother also had a masters degree, my father did some law school (but not enough ). Although my extended family has some lawyers in it (about 5), I'm the only one on my branch of the family tree.

[mama]

My parents are both immigrants and I am the first to go to law school. My brother followed. My siblings include a draftsman and a teacher.

I am the first to get past college, and the first one in my family ever to have a secretary. I have several family members who still farm in the old country, have no running water save the spring God put in the ground. I have many relatives who cannot read.

I really wanted to send my parents a picture of me in a cheap black robe, but maybe next year!

[aaa]

My parents divorced when I was 4 months old and my mom never remarried. I am an only child. My dad remarried 3 times after that. He really wasn't too involved in my life. He paid $15 a week in child support until I was 21. Mom never tried to raise it although he was an engineer at NASA. The flip side was I never had to go visit. Mom worked in aircraft factories and some retail and worked for 13 years to get her Bachelor's Degree to be a teacher. Neither of her parents finished school - my grandmother went through the 8th grade and my grandfather went into the Navy and was then a pressman for the newspaper until he died. My grandparents were wonderful people - I have only the very best memories of them. When my mom first started teaching, her salary was $5000 per year (around 1966). She had me, a house payment, and a car payment. She loved school - after getting her BS in Education, she very quickly earned 3 Masters (Education, Political Science and Administration of Justice). She taught government and history for almost 40 years at the high school and junior college level. Now that she is retired she is still an avid reader. She is thrilled for me. She always stressed education to me and says I told her I wanted to be an attorney when I was 5. That wasn't my plan when I went to college though. The law school thing happened a couple years after college and progressed from there. The opportunities I have been afforded have been tremendous - that is something I never want to forget or take for granted.

[testtaker]

All four of my grandparents were Russian immigrants. They fled to this country in the early 1900s, as our relatives were being killed by Cossacks. I only knew two of them while growing up and they died by the time I was 10.

My father was a medic in the Army during WWII & was stationed in Europe. He had vivid memories of passing through a concentration camp a few weeks after liberation. He wanted to go to college when he got back, but had to earn money to help out his family, as his dad did not make much money as a tailor. He started working in an optical store and later passed the test to become a licensed optician. He worked hard for others all his life, standing on his feet all day fitting glasses, grinding lenses and the like. He worked at home at night, doing piece work late into the night in our basement, soldiering broken frames back together that were sent to him in the mail. Before he died, he said his only regret was not having gone into business for himself and opening his own optical store. My mother was a secretary. She took a break while raising two kids, but then returned to work in the 1970s when I was in junior high, to help make ends meet.

My Mother's sister married my Father's brother, which cuts down on the number of cousins I have, but out of that small group, I am the only one to have graduated college, no less law school. My brother never even graduated from high school. My parents always stressed the importance of education and of having a vocation. I think I blew my Dad away when I went to law school, because he was always stressing that I should become a dental hygienist or a paralegal. I guess he underestimated my ambition. I actually think it was feminism that drove me - - I was not going to be "someone"'s assistant - - I was going to be the "someone"! Another catalyst was my brother, who was a torture to my parents and myself. He was always in trouble with the law and quite a violent guy. I wanted to make up for his shortcomings, so my parents would have something to be proud of. We were night and day. He was lawless and I always revered the rule of law. His life of violence and trouble ended in 2004 when he was killed. As they say, violence begets violence.

I wish my Dad had lived long enough to see me own my own business (although it is a blessing that he died before my brother did). I hope my Mom lives long enough to see me become an ALJ at some point in the future, although she told others she hoped I failed in this venture, because she didn't want me to move away from the area where she lives. Yeah, she did that. I believe part of the reason I didn't make the grade this time was indeed my limited geographic choices. I'm the only one here for her. I do intend to widen my choices as soon as OPM allows, as I will not be detered! There's always hope for the next cert!

Sorry, this got more cathartic than I thought it would. I'm just so proud of how hard my parents worked to help me get to where I am today. (And thanks to the student loan folks, too.)

[thankful]

Everthing I am and ever will be I owe to God and my mother. She was an amazing woman. Mom and Dad divorced and my mother always managed to make ends meet. I did not find out until years later that we had gotten food stamps at one point. Mom started out as a GS-2 for the IRS and retired as a special agent, GS-13 - the same grade I attained as an attorney and she did not even complete her 2 year college degree. My mom always encouraged me to get a good education and take care of myself. She worked 3 jobs to help me get through law school. By the way, that was the first time in my life I ever felt at an economic disadvantage because I could not afford to buy a study guide for every class.

My parents did re-marry after law school and my Dad has always been a part of my life. I am from a very middle class background and the first person in my extended family to get a college degree. My Dad is bursting with pride. I know my Mom would have been so proud to see me as an ALJ but more importantly she was just proud of me. Some of the last words she said to me before she died of breast cancer two years ago were "I am so proud of the person you have become." That means the world to me!

[Pixie]

Thankful, that is a very touching story. In fact all of them are good stories, except Boley's and he is just plain bad. I enjoyed reading them. Pix.