“Anything short of perfection is failure.” This simple quote has guided my life for the better part of my memory. Initially, my quest for perfection was limited to the sport of basketball. Every night before dinner I had to make consecutive baskets from every concrete slab in my Brooklyn backyard court before I could eat. My parents, four sisters, and two brothers begrudgingly waited for me until I could reach this mark of perfection. Every night, I tried to make them wait less than the night before and eventually I could achieve this task without much effort.

This quest for perfection on the basketball court continued throughout junior high school, but I realized in high school that my height would prevent me from becoming a basketball star. I searched for my next venture, in which I would seek perfection. Sophomore year in high school in a class called “Justice for America” was where I first engaged the law and knew that I found that area. By engaging case law such as Brown v. Board of Education, I was struck by intellectual zeal involved in the legal profession and the power that law can hold in our lives. Simply put, I was hooked. In my juvenile view of the world, law was based upon an inherent sense of competition between parties and perfection for an attorney was achievable. An attorney simply had to win every case they tried. I jokingly thought to myself, that I might be successful in a court after all. Not a basketball court, but rather a court of law. This newfound interest in the law helped spur a wider interest in academics. I made school my medium to practice my motto that, “anything short of perfection is failure.” I strove to get an A on every exam, because that is what defined success; An A was perfection.

In college, I continued this quest for perfection. Refusing to sleep until I knew that every assignment I handed in was the best work that I could put forward. Whenever I questioned why I upheld these practices, I thought to my law courses and internships. They gave me the motivation to keep improving. I realized my recent academic success was necessary if I wanted to enter law school.

It was in these endeavors that my juvenile interest in the law, based initially off a love for competiveness and a definable mark of perfection, was shown to be quite misguided. Studying law was not centered on winning cases, but rather dealing with more intangible ideals such as justice and interpretation. Furthermore, I learned that the law was no longer this perfect tool for achieving any goal. However, eventually the law is an essential tool for change. By recognizing this facet of the law, I could see the law for what it really was - an imperfect, yet necessary tool.

It was this discovery that drove a deeper appreciation and curiosity for the law. I became enamored with the law due to its subtle nuances and complexities. Court cases aren’t decided upon simple yes or no questions but rather questions that delve into the gray areas of interpretation of statutes and common law. While competiveness is a useful motivation for an attorney, elements such as striving for justice sometimes cloud the desire to win at any costs. This more complex, and complete view of the law was much more interesting than my earlier caricature of the profession. My Saturday mornings became dominated by the sound of Supreme Court oral arguments on oyez.org instead of America’s Top 40.

This deeper, more mature understanding of the law forced me to reconsider the quote that has guided me and initially sparked my interest in the law. Like the law, one cannot define one’s activities into the two stark categories of perfection and failure. Despite this realization, I still regard the quote as my imperfect, yet necessary tool. It drove me to an interest in the law. Although the reasons for this interest were misguided at first, this motto taught me how to study hard and strive for what I want. The law helped me gain a better understanding of the world and myself and has provided me an intellectual stimulation that I never knew before.