The Sun Shines at UCLA Career Center

Alaleh?  are you available to sit on a panel at UCLA about careers in law? said the message in my Facebook inbox? Sanaz Nabati Career counselor at UCLA was contacting me to invite me to sit on a Panel at UCLA Career Center to discuss Law with prospective law students....

I was sitting in Court waiting for the Judge on a really messed up Murder case. And this message was like a piece of candy after a hard night of drinking... soothing for the soul and invigorating for the body.. I chuckled to myself. Have i ever met a microphone that i didn't like, i asked myself?? Of course i will talk to these students...

So, i show up, to look at a room full of UCLA students, shy, excited, ambitious, apprehensive and thirsty.... thirsty for knowledge, thirsty for answers. And i think to myself, OH MY GOD. they are so young!!!! Was i this young when i was in College? did i look this innocent? did i have this look of awe and thirst on my face when i was their age???

And as i canvass this room, i see this beautiful face sitting in the front row. She smiled like she had swallowed the sun. And, i know. i just know that i have seen this smile somewhere before.

We do what we are supposed to do... As a panel we discuss, we present and and we impart our vast knowledge of the law with these bright-eyed bushy-tailed young students. Sunshine sits in front of me, and every time i glance at her, she is looking at me, with her gorgeous smile... and drinking up the information, as if drinking from the fountain of youth.

The night winds itself down...and I'm surrounded by a half dozens students. They're asking questions.. they are each patiently waiting their turn, to tell their story, to ask their questions and ask if the law is for them.... And i look up and see Sunshine waiting patiently.

Finally, I make my way to Sunshine. And i say: "I know you. Where do i know you from?" And she responds: I saw you several years ago, at Nessah Temple. You were speaking about Juvenile crimes at Nessah Israel with Dr. Orly Saghian, Ph.D. And I didn't know if I wanted to go to Medical School or Law school. And that day, after you spoke to us, i made up my mind that i wanted to become an attorney. You inspired me to become an Attorney"

********

Do you know what it feels like to be washed over with emotions so strong that you feel like your knees are about to buckle? Do you know what it feels like when you are hit inside the pit of your stomach with the realization that you can make a difference in other people's lives without ever knowing or having intended to??

*******

I well up in tears. And all I can think is Oh, My, God! ... I am the luckiest woman on earth. I do what I love, I get paid for I love, and I inspire young women to follow my path. ... Can I get any luckier than this? can I be blessed any more?

I hug her. i am at a loss of words. Sunshine is truly sunshine. She radiates warmth and along with her warmth, she brings happiness.

You know who you are. Thank you for being you, for being there at Nessah, for being here tonight and for talking to me tonight. Wherever you go, may the road rise to greet you. May the Sun be behind you shining on you. And may you navigate life's vicissitudes with ease and wisdom.

Thank you for the gift you gave me tonight. I love you.

Alaleh Kamran

November 5, 2015

UCLA

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The gift from Hell.

"Can't you read the writing on the wall?  Can't you see the law is not for you?  You'll never pass the Bar.  No one will ever give you a job!! Why don't you drop out of law school now, while you're ahead of the game.  You'll be more successful at a truck driving school, than you ever will be as an attorney".

I sat at the Dean's office, peeling the skin around my nails until they were bleeding, shaking my right knee nervously, and biting my lip to stop my self from throwing up.  The tirade was relentless.  I can't remember what else he said.  He was evil incarnate, sitting in a wheelchair, spewing venom...  The words that i do remember have managed to etch themselves in every nook and cranny of my brain and have repeated themselves in my head a million times since that fateful Spring day in 1989.  Every time I came face to face with a challenge and i thought i was going to lose, every time i prevailed and survived; every time i got knocked out of the game, and pulled myself up by the bootstraps and got back in the game, in my head, in my mind, in the deepest crevices of my fears, i came face to face with the words of Dean Gordon Schaber.

 "Can't you read the writing on the wall?  Can't you see the law is not for you?"

 How could a wheelchair bound old man facing death be so heartless?? "YOU'LL NEVER PASS THE BAR... no one will ever give YOU a job".  He hissed like a snake with spit flying all over the room.

And thus, this is how, Dean Gordon Schaber of McGeorge School of Law, in the spring of 1989 told me to get the fuck out of McGeorge Law School and move on with my life, because in his esteemed mind, i was NEVER going to pass the Bar, i was never going to become a lawyer, and no one was ever going to give me a job.  A month before the end of my second year, discouraged, kicked down and beaten to the ground, bloodied up and humiliated like a rape victim on the side of the road, suicidal and heavily loaded up by student debt, i dropped out of McGeorge School of Law.

Twenty-five years have passed.  You see, Dean Gordon Schaber, I went back to law school at night while i worked at the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.  You see, you sexist racist piece of whatever, in my darkest hour, Justice Bernard Jefferson, the first black man to graduate Harvard Law School and the author of the Evidence Benchbook, lifted me from the ground, shook the dirt off of me, wrapped me up in a security blanket, and gave me the courage to overcome my obstacles.

You see, I did pass the bar.  I did become an attorney.  and you know what?  i don't need anyone to give me a job, I GIVE jobs.  And over the last 25 years, hundreds of chapters have written themselves.  I have touched thousands of lives, and in the process of going through victory and defeat with my clients, i have been forged like iron, sharpened, polished and hardened.

 Countless times, the night before a huge hearing, when a person's life and future was resting in my hands, i have woken up, silently screaming, drenched in sweat with my heart pounding, having just fallen out from an airplane, or fallen into a precipice, or having been lost in an airless capsule in deep space... the only words that ever echo, repeatedly are: "The law is not for you".... There is a part of me that wants to damn the soul of Gordon Schaber to eternal hell.  And yet, there is a part of me that celebrates that absolute and utter moment of failure, defeat, and humiliation.  

So why take the pen, and regurgitate the most painful part of my past?  why today?  why now?  Why look back when i am now flying like an Eagle, the wingspan of my practice spreading itself from Coast to Coast?  You see Dean Gordon Schaber... while you were like the black hole and represented nothing but evil ... I, on the other hand, have become the candle that lights a thousand other candles.  Someday, perhaps a lot sooner than later, i will finally write my stories... but for now, i sit at my desk, staring at an envelope that just arrived, with a hundred Thank You notes from a local high school.

And all i did was to stand in front of them... look them in the eye and say:  "Don't let anyone EVER stand in front of YOUR dreams.  Don't EVER turn your back on YOURself.  and To Thine Ownself Be True"...

You see, Dean Gordon Schaber, you tried to beat me to the ground, because you were a beaten man, and while you were sinking deeper into the hell that has now become your eternal resting place, I, on the other hand, elevate and empower those i touch, and raise them to the arches of the heavens.

CDAK, Uncollected Writings. 
Lines, Rhymes and Internal Monologues: 2014

November 11, 2014

Alaleh Kamran, Attorney at Law

A Professional Corporation

15760 Ventura Blvd, Suite 1010

Encino, Ca  91436

ph: 818-986-6222

Lecturer, Radio Host, Citizen Journalist, Blogger

Los Angeles

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