Jackson Garrity knew he was interested in environmental law while at WCL. His law school experience included environmental and natural resources courses, the Environmental Law Practicum, the Sustainable Development Law & Policy Brief, and the National Energy Law Moot Court Competition.

His path after graduation, however, was less straightforward.

“I’ve bounced around more than expected after finishing law school, likely based on a combination of not understanding the legal market well, being unsettled about what specialization I wanted, and unexpected changes in my personal life,” Garrity said.

Garrity first clerked for Judge Andrea Hertzfeld on the D.C. Superior Court. He then joined Beveridge & Diamond, a prominent environmental law firm in Washington, D.C. The firm job offered what he thought he wanted at the time: environmental litigation experience, strong training, and compensation that, as he puts it, seemed “life-changing” as a new lawyer.

“He liked and respected the lawyers he worked with, but in the process discovered that he craved an opportunity for direct public service,” Garrity said.

That realization forced him to reconsider what he wanted from his career. He found that opportunity with the City of Chicago Department of Law, joining the city government as a new administration was working to implement and defend its progressive agenda. There, he handled constitutional and commercial litigation and worked on matters involving public services, land use, environmental permitting, infrastructure, and other city priorities. The work gave him significant litigation experience, but he eventually concluded that government was not quite the right fit either.

When an opportunity opened at the Natural Resources Defense Council, he took it. Today, Garrity litigates environmental, constitutional, and regulatory cases for NRDC.  He sees the other jobs that came before this one not as wasted time, but as part of what prepared him for his current work.

“I’ve combined my desire to work on environmental issues with my desire for public service and have used the skills developed across my other positions to build success,” he said. “The long journey was all worth it!”

His experience demonstrates to students that it is possible to make a thoughtful and reasonable career choice, learn that the work or setting is not right for you, and still carry valuable skills from that job into the next one.

Elena Gartner knew during law school that she wanted to practice environmental law, but her first job after graduation was something very different.

After graduating in 2021, Gartner joined Goddard Riverside Law Project as a staff attorney and tenant advocate in Manhattan. She represented tenants in housing court as New York emerged from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The work moved quickly. Gartner describes it as a crash course in civil litigation.

She appeared in court, worked directly with clients, and handled cases involving serious housing conditions. In one case, mushrooms were growing out of a client's kitchen floor. In another, part of a client's apartment floor had collapsed because structural beams had deteriorated after years of neglect. The work was meaningful, and it gave Gartner substantial litigation experience early in her career, but she continued looking for a way into the environmental field.

When a contract attorney position opened at NRDC, she saw it as a chance to make that pivot into the environmental sector. The position became a bridge into full-time environmental practice and led to a role with EPA Region 2’s Office of Regional Counsel in New York City. From there, she moved to her current position with the Environmental Protection Bureau of the New York Attorney General’s Office.

Gartner now works specifically on PFAS litigation. Her docket includes major cases against chemical companies, multidistrict litigation, and related federal bankruptcy proceedings.

Her first job after law school had little to do with environmental statutes. It nevertheless gave her courtroom and litigation skills that became useful when she later moved into environmental practice. Her contract position at NRDC also gave her an entry point into the field and helped lead to the government positions that followed.

“I never would have anticipated that my career would take such a winding path,” Gartner said, “but each experience has definitely built on the last, and I have been fortunate to work with wonderful people in each of these jobs.”

What Students Can Take from These Stories

These four career paths look very different, and none of them followed the same formula.

Garrity moved from a judicial clerkship to private environmental practice, city government, and eventually NRDC. Hayes used law school to explore several forms of environmental and public-interest work before joining SELC. Gartner built litigation skills in housing court before moving through NRDC and EPA into major environmental litigation for the State of New York. Geib rebuilt her network across the country and found a role that allows her to support environmental protection through transactional legal work.

Those different paths are useful examples for students entering a legal market in which the first opportunity may not look exactly like the job they imagined while in law school. A clerkship can build litigation skills. A government job can teach how agencies operate. Private practice can provide training and substantive experience. A contract position can provide an entry point. Work outside environmental law can build skills that later transfer directly into environmental practice. And lawyers can contribute to environmental protection even when the legal work they perform is not itself traditionally labeled “environmental law.”

Your first job matters, but it does not have to be an environmental law job to move you toward an environmental law career. A job outside the field can still help you build the skills, experience, and relationships that lead to the work you ultimately want to do.

Students often come to law school with a plan, and plans can give us a sense of direction and control. But the truth is that we do not control many of the things that shape a career. The legal market changes. Jobs open and close. Personal circumstances shift. Priorities change. Opportunities come from places we did not expect. When things do not unfold according to plan, it can feel like failure, especially when we have tied success to one particular outcome. But a change in direction is not the same thing as failure.

The intention behind the plan matters more than the plan itself. What do you want to work toward? What kind of lawyer do you want to become? What kind of work do you want to contribute to? Those answers may also change over time. The important thing is to keep moving with intention without becoming so fixed on one route that you miss another way forward.

Your first job does not determine the rest of your career, and your first plan does not have to be your last.