Madison Thompson

I attribute my success to my drive and my resilience. I actually wrote my law school personal statement on this, but resilience is key for me. You could put me in any situation, and I will work as hard as I need to try to figure it out or get it done. There's not a challenge that you can give me that I won't at least try to fix, or solve, or complete. 'm goal-oriented, and I get there. I believe that there's not a situation I can't work through if I put in the effort and stay committed to finding a solution. Even when the odds are stacked against you, you can still come out on top when you work hard enough and don't allow it to box you in.

The best career advice I've ever received is people first. What I mean by that, and when it was described to me, is especially in the legal system, remembering that when people come to lawyers, they're usually in an unhappy time. Whether their business is failing, they're getting a divorce, they're in jail, their family member's in jail, it's just difficult situations. To you, it's just your job. It's your regular day at work, and it's just a case number, but to people, it's their whole life. These things blow up for people sometimes, so remembering always to put people at the forefront of everything you do, and just remember we're all human. That advice has really stuck with me and shapes how I approach my work.

I would say be relentless in the pursuit of your success, because I think that there, especially when you enter the legal field, there's still a lot of systemic boundaries, and there's a lot of people that think you can't be a well-put-together woman and also a really successful, ruthless litigator and be really good at your job. So I would say advocate for yourself, but also, if you believe in it and you want to do it, fight for it. Be relentless in the fact that you can be a woman and very smart, very talented, and sit at any table that you want to. I deal with it all the time. You walk into a room and people expect you to be the dumbest one in there, and you've got to fight your way up. You belong here, and don't let anyone make you feel otherwise.

On a personal note, I would say probably being a first-generation college student has been a huge personal challenge for me to try to navigate going to law school and remembering that I deserve to be here and that I worked hard to be here. On a professional note, I would probably say one of the biggest things that I see as a challenge is the lack of empathy in the justice system, number one, and two, wrongful conviction work is really important. I don't believe that anybody should have their life or their liberty taken away for something they didn't do. Once you've exhausted all of your appeals opportunities, there's not really much left to do at that point, other than to go to a justice project or somebody and hope that they take your case. The justice system, and at least our state justice system, lacks a lot of really important resources to help a lot of different people, and even people that did do a crime and need help. We still lack the resources to be able to successfully rehabilitate people. A really significant proportion of people that are sentenced to be incarcerated end up getting out regardless, so in my opinion, how do we give them the tools and the resources they need so that when they do get out, we're not committing the same offenses? I think on a professional level, that's probably one of the biggest challenges that I've faced personally.

I would say empathy is number one. Patience is also critical, having patience with everybody, including myself. And I think the last thing would be just giving grace to people, whether that's to myself or people I encounter. I think all of those kind of fall under the same theme. I would also say being ethical in your decision making is really important, too, because there's a lot of people who make unethical choices in trying to achieve things, and I don't think that's necessary. These values guide everything I do, both professionally and personally.