It was wide open.  I was excited because it was the first deposition I would be able to attend as part of my summer legal internship.  With the deposition halfway done, the attorneys decided to take a break and everyone took the chance to stretch.  I and some other interns from various law firms went out into the hall to wait the rest of the break out and small talk about where we went to school and where we wanted to go to law school, really trying to impress each other.  At about the time I was in the middle of some brilliant story about how I traveled abroad and what a life-changing experience it was, the attorney I worked for came walking down the hall.  He stopped as he was just about to pass me and leaned in to whisper, “Your zipper is open.”  At first I thought he was lying.  When I realized he wasn’t, I saw my former audience become my current critics as they all noticed in tandem the subject of the whispered message.  Red-faced, I made sure it was closed on my way back to the conference room to resume the deposition.

            Though there are many things I like to have open, my zipper certainly is not one of them.  My hobby as a photographer has taught me to have open eyes, always looking for the perfect image that really captivates.  My faith has taught me to have an open heart, ready to serve and help those who sometimes cannot help themselves.  Most of all, my education has taught me to have an open mind, hearing every idea, sifting it for truth.

            I could list my academic achievements as being the aspects of my education for which I’ve worked the hardest: being on the Dean’s list, graduating magna cum laud, studying in Europe, among many others.  While I’m certainly proud of those achievements, they are not the accomplishments that I feel define my academic career.  The one achievement that has made my educational career distinct is learning to keep an open mind to all thoughts, concepts, and ideals expressed to me. 

            I hope that my impartiality is not the lip-service that habitual thinkers give to a noteworthy cultural ideal.  Nor is it, as J.W. Sire mused, “a mind so open everything falls out.”  I cannot be so open-minded that any idea is acceptable.  However, the open-mindedness I embrace is the kind that is compulsory in an age when contradictory philosophies, value systems, and theories all compete for the same level of truth.  How can we better ourselves and the lives of those around us whom we are to serve if we are not open to that which may help us best?  While realistically it may be impossible to divorce ourselves from our biases, we all must strive for such an ideal.  In my experience, those who try, come closest to that standard towards which we all should strive than those who give no effort at all.  I must be a person who at least tries.

            This endeavor towards tolerance and openness is especially important in the classroom—not just a student’s unbiased thinking towards what is taught from the lectern, but a professor’s impartial thinking toward what is taught from the desks.  Beyond points, answers, and grades, all of us learn the most we can when we learn in an environment that is open to all manners of thinking so that the best ideas may rise to the top to help all of us be the best we could ever possibly be.

            Is that not why society confers upon some of its members the permission to practice law?  To make the world a better, safer, cleaner place to be?  For that reason I want to be an attorney and I know that ________________ Law School will afford me the chance to learn the law in as open an environment as there can be.