For Unit 3 of my Stories class, we learned about a man named Joseph Campbell who created the idea of a heroes journey. The idea was that the hero goes through 12 steps, 1. The ordinary world, 2. Call to adventure, 3. Refusal to call, 4. Meeting with the mentor, 5. Crossing the threshold, 6. Tests and Enemies, 7. Approach, 8. Ordeal, 9. Reward, 10. Road back, 11. Atonement, 12. Return. For our last action project, we had to use these steps with a fictional character that we like and also apply them to a hero/idol in our actual lives. The fictional character that I have chosen is Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow from the TV series Arrow. The hero in my life that I chose was a man named Richard Owens who is a lawyer, I believe that a lawyer is a hero in the way that they help people in everyday problems that a police officer/ superhero can’t help. When we had to do the interview we had to record it and make a comic strip of our fictional heroes journey in one episode.
In a way Oliver Queen and Mr. Owens’s journeys were very similar because they both had to deal with the time issue. I say this because when Oliver was on the island his problem a lot of the time was being time, and Mr. Owens said in the interview that time was his greatest problem because of all his assignments and getting everything ready. They also used those skills that they learned to help others in some type of way that.
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| NVA" Arrow Comic Strip" 2014. Chicago |
Me: “What motivates you to keep doing what you do?”
Mr. Owens: “Number one, I like it, I like what I do very much its a good reason for me to get up in the morning. 2. Im good at what I do, so people tell me. My track record shows that to be the case. Thirdly many times I find myself, in a situation where i am the only remedy or means to a remedy that my client has protect himself.”
Me: “Who would say most helped you become a lawyer?”
Mr. Owens: “I knew I wanted to be a lawyer very young when I was, maybe not in elementary but certainly in high school.”
Third Person: “But was there someone is particular?”
Mr. Owens: “I honestly can say there was no one in particular person who was a mentor or I looked up to as a lawyer. That is something I would like to do, No I just knew. I had seen law programs on television, like everybody does. And I know it is not like that in real life but as a teenager you don't know that. And I like what I saw and I said that was something that I would like to do. So no there was no particular person that motivated me no there wasn’t.”
Me: “How was the transition to your line of work, what were you doing before you entered this type of field?”
Mr. Owens: “The practice of law? I was a college student. You know just normal teenager in high school, I enjoyed high school. I was relatively good at it, if I studied as hard as I did in college I would have been a straight A student, and if I would studied as hard as I did n law school I would have been a straight A student. But it was sufficiently good to get into law school. My life prior to becoming an attorney was very ordinary, nothing special.”
Third Person: “You were a caddy.”
Mr. Owens: “Pardon?”
Third Person: “You were a golf caddy.”
Mr. Owens: “Yes I was a golf caddy, when I was in my teens up into my well I became an the assistant caddy master. Up until my 20's, which was a really nice job. There wasn’t anything special about my life prior to becoming a lawyer. It was very ordinary, I was a very average middle class kid.”
Me: “Did anyone go against what you were trying to achieve?”
Mr. Owens: “No, my parents were very supportive of it, my sisters said, “Oh that's great that's nice!” even when they had there own thing going on. Jane was getting married, Donna was already married Tommy was going into priesthood. My parents were supportive of it my grandmother nana who was someone that raised me said, “Hey thats really nice we have never had a lawyer in the family before.” So they were very supportive of it. They liked the idea.”
Me: “Okay, What were some of the challenges you had to face?”
Mr. Owens: “TIME, time is the biggest enemy to a law student has and time is the biggest enemy a lawyer has. It’s a very disciplined study, your teachers are I wouldn't say rough but you have to know what you are being taught to practice law. Because you are representing other people and you have to know what you are doing. The washout rate is very high during the first year, kids just don't make the grade, so you are up all night studying very hard. Study of law is a strict discipline there is a lot of reading, a lot of reading and some writing. And as you progress, its even more writing, but the amount of reading doesn't let up, so it is a very difficult study.”
Me: “Once you became a lawyer what was your biggest challenge besides time mainly?”
Mr. Owens: “Biggest challenge is being not being, (as a new lawyer) intimidated by the opposing attorney who is almost always more experienced than you are and knows more than you. Also knowing how to speak to the judge, I spoke differently to a judge then than I do now.
I am much more confident in myself you become more confident in yourself with more experience of course. Certain judges I know on a personal level, I can somewhat for a better word I can joke with them. But a courtroom is still… A courtroom is a very dull setting and a very serious setting. Some judges i call them by their first name outside of court. A lawyer would never ever do that while the judge is on the bench that would be very disrespectful. So the biggest challenge I had was confidence in your own self. So you weren't intimidated by the other attorney and by the judge.”
Me: “Will you use what you have learned to help other might be going through the same thing?”
Mr.Owens: “Oh yeah, sure when I was practicing law some years ago, the bar association had a program I don't know if I want to call it mentoring, it as a certain assortation to it, but to take questions from senior law students and they would ask you question they wanted to try to help them overcome the hurdles that a brand new lawyer would encounter. And the best way to deal with those problems which I encountered and how I overcame them. I haven’t done that in a while, but I did it for maybe 15 - 20 years.”
Me: “Alright. What skills have you held on that might still help you today?”
Mr. Owens: “What fields?”
Me: “No, skills.”
Mr. Owens: “Oh you have to constantly read new cases, the law… What’s up. (To Third person)”
Third Person: “Read the question again.”
Me: “What skills have you still held on to that might help you today.”
Mr.Owens: “What skills have I held on to. The discipline of getting what I needed to be done early and not waiting to the last minute to do it, as too many lawyers do. studying and continuing to study my case file, knowing my case file, knowing my client. The reason lawyers get in trouble is because, they don't communicate with their client. You have to remember a lawyer is kind of an employee of the client. He is paying you and the person who is paying you is your employer. To many lawyers don’t look at that way, lawyers think that they are the boss, they are not! A lawyer is a counselor and an advisor. Those are what they define themselves as they are people that give advice. The client makes the ultimate decision, you would give an opinion on what you think the client should do, but the ultimate decision is client’s. It has to be the clients its his money and his stake in the game. I have no stake.”
Third person: “Maybe organization helped you?”
Mr. Owens: “I have always been told I have a good organizational skill. Which means you have to keep what the files very organized, I always tell my friends I could go blind and I would be able to know where all my files are.”
Me: “Thank You so much Mr.Owens!”
