Why I Became a Coder After Graduating from Columbia Law School

Instead of taking the Bar exam, I became a software engineer. It was the best career decision I’ve ever made.

In the spring of 2016, I graduated from Columbia Law School. But afterwards, instead of taking the bar exam like most of my peers, I decided to learn how to build software. I’ve got a funny story about that I want to share with you.

They say that the key to any good story is to “Show, Not Tell”. So, in this spirit, I’ve written most of my story in code. But just for the prelude, I hope you’re okay with a bit of exposition. It starts a little something like this…

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Getting into Columbia Law was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. During the application process (I applied twice), I learned a great deal about the importance of risk taking.

When I began studying for the LSAT, the standardized entry test for law school, I noticed that many of my peers had hired private tutors or enrolled in prep courses to increase their odds of getting top scores and into top schools. As a kid from Memphis, TN, one of the poorest cities in the country, I took the challenge of earning a top score personally. I wanted to show that I could scratch that upper range even without those resources.

My first LSAT score, from a December test, was good enough to help get me into one of my top choices, a school located in my home state. But, I believed I could score even higher. So, I signed up to take the test again in February. Countless hours evanesced during those winter months, as I grappled with the test, trying to learn its strange ways. As the test date neared, I was confident that this extra practice would increase my score by at least a few points. But, to my great dismay, I actually scored one point lower on my second try.

Now, by the time I received this second score, I had already submitted a tuition deposit to my hometown school. I could’ve been content with getting into a great school and ended the application process right then. But despite the hurt caused by that second test, and maybe because of it, I wanted one last shot. So, I signed up for the June test. But this time, before even seeing my score, I had to decide whether to confirm enrollment at my hometown school or risk applying again.

If I chose to reapply, the next year would be hard, regardless if I scored higher or not. I hadn’t planned on a gap year. I didn’t have a job lined up. Ahead of me, would be many nights spent crashing on the couches of friends and family. Working late nights as a server. Eating lots of peanut butter sandwiches. All this, while also building a stronger application. And if I failed to improve my score, it would all be for nothing. But not knowing ,one way or the other, would have haunted me forever. So, just like Kobe might’ve with the Lakers down by two and the game clock winding down, I let one fly, from wayyy downtown.

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Later that fall, as I dined on a sweet peanut butter sandwich of victory, I vowed in my new personal statement to “use my J.D to help my clients tell life stories of their choosing.”

But, as I began pursuing this promise at Columbia, I realized that I wasn’t content to just do the standard work of an attorney. I didn’t believe in jurisprudence as a means to help people. Instead, I wanted to make something that helped expand access to justice, access to opportunity. I wanted to create value. As my classmates began joining moot courts and journals during the first year, I found myself spending a great deal of time working on a legal app with a few friends. Although the project crashed, I still believed that any value I could add through law would scale with technology.

So, I decided to give it another try on a different app. I put together a bigger team of budding developers and go-getters. And on weekends, we’d get together to try and go get it. During this time, I found myself in my natural habitat, working with other like-minded creatives to make something cool, something that would create value. But much like the first app, we hit a wall. My team crumbled. The project crashed and burned. In the second semester of my second year, I fell into depression for the first time.

Just as I had with the LSAT years before, I wondered if I had it in me to make apps, to create value with technology, to tell stories written in code. So, in my third year of law school, I began the process of finding out.

When the time came to decide whether to move to D.C for a legal fellowship or sign up for a coding bootcamp, I remembered the promise I made in my personal statement to law school. I realized that to fulfill this promise, I would have to first author my own story with unbridled creative license.

Today, in 2021, I run my own digital agency at https://rumble-x.com. I help small business owners, entrepreneurs, and creatives improve their online presence with digital storytelling that generates results. If you’re interested check us out!

*This article was originally published here in Fall 2016 on Linkedin*