San Jose, CA - February 19, 2021 - GJEL
Accident Attorneys has selected Jack Weller as the spring 2021 winner of its
semi-annual $2,000 law student
scholarship. The scholarship is based on an essay of 500-1000 words in
response to the prompt: “Reasons I wanted to go to law school.” Essays are judged on quality, thoughtfulness,
and content.
Jack Weller
decided he wanted to be an attorney when he was living in Mongolia and working
in a branch of its government. Jack moved to Mongolia to learn about the
country’s culture and politics in its post-Communist era. During his time
there, he witnessed the Mongolian people’s struggle for, but unwavering
commitment to, democracy.
“My own
understanding of my role as a citizen was sharpened by seeing Mongolians
proudly wave their flags,” Jack wrote in his scholarship essay. “I understood
then that democracy has no more avid champions than those who have previously
been robbed of its blessings.”
While in
Mongolia, Jack worked in the country’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism. He
researched the effects of climate change on Mongolia’s government. The country
already endures extreme temperature swings and is expected to be drastically
impacted by global warming. Jack studied how government policies regarding
climate change would affect individual people and the country as a whole.
“More than
just a study of how individual policies would affect a primarily pastoral
society, this work was a lesson on how democracy, and a fair and open legal
regime, allows for a polity to solve its most pressing challenges,” Jack wrote.
“It was in Mongolia that I discovered this passion not only for democracy as a
philosophical end in and of itself, but as a living, breathing process of governance,
in which the law plays a vital role.”
After
returning to his home state of California, Jack worked in political
communications for a few years after earning a Bachelor’s degree in political
science. Jack is now pursuing a legal education and is completing his first
year at Stanford Law School.
This program
was sponsored by GJEL
Accident Attorneys, 1625 The Alameda #511, San Jose, CA 95126 Phone:
408-955-9000
GJEL serves
injured clients throughout Alviso, North San
Jose, Alum Rock, Little Portugal, Rose Garden, Santana Row, West
San Jose, Willow Glen, Evergreen. Japantown, Mayfair, Downtown, Little Italy,
The Alameda and more.
Read Jack’s
Full Essay Below
Reasons I wanted to go to law school:
I looked with trepidation at the
bowl of fermented mare's milk that had been placed in front of me. It was small
but gave off a pungent odor, and the substance at the bottom looked
unpleasantly like a cup of eggnog left out for too long in the sun. Here, in a
tidy yurt at the edge of the Gobi Desert, the only gracious thing for me to do
as a guest was to eagerly drink it, despite its unfamiliar scent and unpleasant
reputation. In Mongolia, the drink is called airag, and it is a customary
offering to every visitor. After a lifetime of guacamole and came asada in my
native San Diego, I had found myself thousands of miles away, in a windswept
patch of the steppe, obliged by courtesy to take a drink. The substance was
acrid, viscous, and bitter, but I swallowed it down without hesitation.
I had come to Mongolia out of
desire to learn about the workings of one of the world's most vibrant
democracies, even in the midst of an era political scientists were already
labeling the "democratic recession." Twenty-five years prior,
Mongolian citizens had swarmed the streets of their capital, demanding an end
to seven decades of Communist repression and vowing to build a better society
for their children. Though locked between two authoritarian powers, and with
little institutional memory of democracy, the struggle had been successful.
Mongolia had achieved a remarkable level of human development for a country
that had been almost entirely nomadic as recently as 50 years ago, and women
made up a huge part of its educated and dynamic workforce. During the time of
my visit, scholars were calling the robust multiparty democracy of Mongolia a
model for developing societies worldwide.
While living in Ulaanbaatar, I
worked for a subordinate branch of the country's Ministry of the Environment
and Tourism, where I helped research the effects of the government's climate
change mitigation programs on nomadic steppe communities. Mongolia will be one
of the countries most severely affected by global climate change, and it
already suffers from extreme swings of temperature. More than just a study of
how individual policies would affect a primarily pastoral society, this work
was a lesson on how democracy, and a fair and open legal regime, allow for a
polity to solve its most pressing challenges. It was in Mongolia that I
discovered this passion not only for democracy as a philosophical end in and of
itself, but as a living, breathing process of governance, in which the law
plays a vital role. It inspired my thesis on the evolution of unconstitutional
appointments of "czars" to the American executive branch, and it
drove me to work in political communications after graduation.
My own understanding of my role as
a citizen was sharpened by seeing Mongolians proudly wave their flags on the
25th anniversary of their revolution. People gathered by the tens of thousands
in Siikhbaatar Square, surrounding the Parliament Building in a show of
celebratory patriotism. Many wept in the streets and chanted songs of freedom.
I understood then that democracy has no more avid champions than those who have
been previously robbed of its blessings.
