After my first semester of law school, I accepted a hard truth: many of my classmates would be better lawyers than me. They were intelligent, exceptional students. But that was not what led me to this conclusion. I realized early on that I was hoping to gain something different from my legal education than those around me. Lucky for them, they were in the right place for what they were looking for. But was I? As we read cases and worked through doctrines, I felt the ever-growing disconnect expand. In cold calls and class discussions, their answers tracked the law as it was, while mine kept drifting toward what it wasn’t, what it lacked, or what it could be. They were much closer to what professors were hoping to hear in response to their questions. I was somewhere else entirely. In my second semester, public law courses started to shift something. The same analytical skills were required, but for the first time, there was space for the way I thought. As I engaged with the …