Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and admission ceremony

- 3 minutes read - 481 words

It has been nearly a decade now since I graduated with an LLB from Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand. In a few years it will be a decade since I later became an enrolled barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. To most people I have met for quite a few years these may be surprising facts as to many people I am just “Morgan, the Web Developer”.

A photo of me

A photo of me listening to Justice Gendall, from my Admission ceremony March 30 2015.

From Law to the Web

I am proud of these achievements even though I have not been doing law as a career and instead doing Web Development since 2016. As part of my legal education I read a lot of cases and discussed hard problems with a lot of people. I got enormous joy out of the intellectual exercise of the degree.

I spent the majority of my University time working to become a lawyer and then did post graduate examinations called PROFS to become enrolled as someone who could have been hired and then given a practicing certificate in New Zealand. Only when you currently have a practicing certificate can you call yourself a lawyer in New Zealand.

So how did I become a web developer, working in tech for the last six+ years?

I changed jurisdictions from New Zealand to Georgia, USA and my credentials were not as accepted and I started to realize I was not a good fit for the kinds of work I encountered. Made the career change pivot plan after several months of trying to get progress with my legal credentials in Georgia and finding it difficult. I did not want to go back to school for law again.

I investigated the process for getting a legal education waiver in Georgia and received a letter from a Professor in Georgia suggesting that my education was comparable to that of an ABA-approved Law School that would have supported that application.

For the effort and consideration that went into that letter by Professor Natsu Taylor Saito I am deeply grateful.

However, I had already started to make up my mind to move towards technology.

Approximate timeline:

  • Preparing to become a lawyer 2008-2015, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Date enrolled: March 30th 2015, Dunedin Law Courts
  • Returned to the USA to help my brother, ended up staying 2016
  • Signed up for tech bootcamp: 2016, Atlanta, GA, USA
  • Started working remote doing web development May 2017-> Present

I realized quickly given a choice that I wanted to work with technology. I wanted to work remote. I found web development.

I have more I plan to write about how law influences my technology career.

Planned items to cover include:

My LLB was time well spent, even if not a direct career path. Wouldn’t go back and do things differently.