So, Kim Kardashian is Going to be a Lawyer
Of course, there are issues to be discussed that I do not
speak about in depth: Kim has money and support that the average law student doesn’t,
such as accessible childcare. But one could easily argue, why not take advantage of those
privileges for good.
Being a lawyer is supposed to be for good.
Kim Kardashian Esq.
It is no surprise that she wishes to follow in her father’s
footsteps; famed lawyer Robert Kardashian was in the courtroom for the controversial
and lasting OJ Simpson case in the 1990s. Many young lawyers are introduced to
the world of law through family members, and Kim has often spoken about how inspirational her father was to her.
Kim was inspired to study law recently, through her work in 2017 to free Alice Marie
Johnson, a sixty-three year old woman who was serving a life sentence for
cocaine trafficking in 1996. She worked with President Donald Trump to grant
Johnson clemency. This is a process by which the president can ‘swap out’ a
sentence for a lighter one, although the conviction still stands. Johnson was
freed due to time served.
"I would say what I had to say, about the human side
and why this is so unfair. But I had attorneys with me who could back that up
with all the facts of the case." She said. "I just felt like the system could be so
different, and I wanted to fight to fix it, and if I knew more, I could do
more."
Why does this have to be a joke? The human aspect of law is often
undermined: we go into work, see our traumatised clients, go home and have a
few drinks. We are encouraged not to think about how unfair things are for our
clients, but to get the job done. We work in an industry riddled with workplace
stress, a lack of mental health support, and a rising number of suicidal young
lawyers. We do not have time to think about ‘the human side’. But Kim does. Kim
is expressing the passion that we all have, deep down. The passion that took many of us
into the law.
The legal profession is not about money, prestige or intelligence.
It should never be about that. It should be about justice, rights, protecting
human interests. If you removed the human element from the law, the feared AI and
Robot lawyers would already be here, stealing our profession from under our feet. Instead, AI is used
as a glorified search engine, cutting our research time, making us as humans
more productive.
How is she studying law?
Kim does not have an undergraduate degree, but is qualifying
in a perfectly acceptable way in the state of California: eighteen hours of
supervised study each week, shadowing two mentors. This is different to how I will
qualify: Four years undergraduate study, a year studying a diploma, a two year
traineeship. But how I will qualify is different to how American lawyers
studying conventionally qualify: four years undergraduate, three years postgraduate.
There is no right way to study the law, each jurisdiction
has different methods and timeframes. Despite this, Kim’s supervised eighteen
hours are more than the ten contact hours you get in first year Scots law. She
is likely studying more than some students her, because she has to be watched.
Why is this a big deal?
Well. She had a sex tape.
She has a TV show.
She’s not intelligent.
She should stay in her lane.
Is our criticism of Kim Kardashian because she had sexual
intercourse on camera- the old 'slut shame', because she is a public personality, or because we are showing
our age-old biases?
One issue we have is a sense of self-righteousness. What
makes us any better than Kim Kardashian?
The law is notoriously ‘hard’. But that doesn’t mean that we
shouldn’t increase accessibility to it. If people are capable of studying,
putting the effort into what they are doing, and if they are passionate, they
can succeed. This is why universities are widening accessibility: at my
university, students who haven’t achieved the typical ‘five As at Higher’
required by the historical Scottish universities can attend summer school, and
if they pass their modules successfully, they can study the exact same degree I
do, at a university that continues to top the league tables. What is the
difference between these students and Kim Kardashian? I believe academic
supremacy is stupid.
Setting aside the fact we have no idea how ‘smart’ Kim
Kardashian actually is, to parade education and high grades above everyone else
is snobbery at its finest. The law is not exclusive to those who have gotten
straight As since their SATs. The law needs to have a variation of people
working within it, to fully understand it. People are not their academic grades,
and people certainly should not be forced out of a career because they
struggled with maths at high school.
Let’s talk for a moment about Kim’s public personality. Kim
Kardashian is a model; we have seen her nude on magazine covers. Some will have
seen her (illegally leaked, by the way) sex tape, made years ago with an ex-partner. She has a TV
show where she eats a lot of salad, and pulls funny faces. Remember that time
she lost a diamond earring and cried about it? Why does she not ‘stay in her
lane’: this is where she is meant to be. We consume her content. We can’t consume
this content if she’s a lawyer. She’ll be busy writing wills, and stuff.
Well, have you considered that maybe she isn’t fulfilled by
her lifestyle? Like the thousands of others who consider changing careers. Where
we can look down at her lifestyle and call it empty, maybe she is thinking the
same thing. She is thirty-eight, and has spent the majority of her life on
camera, in fashion and entertainment circles. Set aside the fact that she is
running businesses, she has said that she wants to do more. When we criticise
her for living her life on camera, what is the point of criticising her when
she tries to move into something else?
Kim is also a mature student. Kim has three young children,
and is studying away from them. My mother was in the same position with me when
I was very young, completing her studies while looking after me. Obviously, Kim
has access to help and is not shoving North and Chicago in front of a TV with a
bowl of crisps so she can cram for her exams. But her dedication is clear. She
does not need to be a lawyer. She wants to be. Nobody wants to be away from
their children at crucial times in their lives, at the ‘cute’ stages,
especially celebrities and influencers who will make millions from cute pictures
of their children wearing designer clothes. If this was about the money, Kim
would be taking Instagram photos, not sat learning about the Duty of Care.
We need to stop criticising people for having dreams, and we
need to stop showing the world the legal community is insular and prejudiced by
criticising a woman trying to do more with her life, and use her reach and privilege for good. We have been intimidated
by a woman we as society have laughed at, have put down, have called stupid for
years. And in response, we have doubled down, we are trying to push her out. We are supposed to be better than that.
Leanne-Sydonie.
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