From Bushido to the Bar

• Author: Shane Blank
• Pages: 12-13

PHOTO COURTESY OF SHANE BLANK

Opening Statements

From Bushido to the Bar

By Shane Blank

#MyPathToLaw is a guest column th at celebrates the diversity of the le gal

profession through at torneys’ fi rst-perso n stories detailing their uniqu e and

inspiring traje ctories. Read more #mypathtolaw s tories on Twitter.

My parents divorced when I was

11. Six years later, I came home on a

Saturday aft ernoon to fi nd my father

dead from a heart at tack. Six years

after that—just before I took the

LSAT—I found my stepfather dead

from a self-infl icted gunshot wound.

This past summer, my brother-in-

law committed suicide in sim ilar

fashion. And, to be f rank, the reason

I ultimately turne d to the law was

nothing profound: I chose law after

being criticized for wa nting to be a

video game developer—I was told by

others to “get a real job.”

I tell you this up front becaus e

these circumst ances are directly and

cumulatively responsible for where

I’ve ended up. Today, I am a judicial

clerk to a wonderful mentor—the

Hon. Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. of the

U.S. District Cour t for the Eastern

District of Missou ri. I also

serve as a capta in in the

U.S. Air Force JAG

Corps.

I was once

doubted by a high

school teacher who

told me I couldn’t

make it at my

local community

college (and, to be

frank, I doubted

myself at the

time), but I now

have a handful of

degrees from sev-

eral universities. I

am blessed to be a

husband and father

of two. I’ve authored

a number of articles,

argued b efore myr-

iad cour ts (includ-

ing the 8th Circuit

just three years i nto

practice) and last

year received a stat ewide Young

Lawyer of the Year award.

So, how did I get from challengi ng

roots to where I am today? That is

an interesting stor y.

In the fall of 2005, I found myself

alone in an apartment in Tempe,

Arizona , battling severe depression.

I’d su ered for many months aft er

my father’s death. I was confronted

with a choice: give up, believing I

was a victim of c ircumstance, or

fi ght. It was then

that happen-

stance delivered an an swer.

The Tom Cruise fi lm The La st

Samurai was a strange place of

comfort for me at the time, and it

had been on TV a few nights b efore.

That prompted me to purchase the

obscure book Bushido: The Soul of

Japan, written by Ina zo Nitobe in

1899. I had it with me that day and

began to study it.

Rectitude (gi), courage ( yu),

benevolence (jin), politeness

(rei), veracity (makoto), loyalty

(chugi), self-control (jisei), and

honor (meiyo). These distinct ly

Japanese principles, made famous

as the unwrit ten moral code of the

Tokugawa-era samurai, became my

compass. And as I prac ticed them,

I found they were uniquely tailored

both to my personal journey a nd to

the profession of law.

I began to share my stor y rather

than hide from it. Bushido spea ks

of veracity (truthful ness), and in an

age of half-truths, omi ssions and

unspeakable tabo os, I found it free-

ing to openly discuss my ex periences

with others. In that openne ss, I dis-

covered an appreciation of another

of Bushido’s principles: courage.

Courage is “doing what is right,” a

simplistic notion in itself, but I took

it to mean something else, too. I

began to reali ze doing what is right

is only fully ach ievable because of

our adversity. It is simple enough to

speak of the hypothet ical good we

might do, but it is something else

still to do good at the ac tual cost of

ourselves.

All of my experience s were

directly respon sible for building

me—both my endurance and my

empathy. They were also responsi-

ble for developing a certain audac-

ity of belief, a belief that—with

God’s grace—I could overcome,

and in overcoming, grow. Rather

than run from a dversity, I chased

it; rather than turn f rom the

unknown, I conf ronted it; rather

than hide from fear, I stood w ith it.

Law, like my discovery of

Bushido, was also a fortu-

itous bit of luck. I chose it

because I believed it to

be an admired , noble

These distinctly

Japanese principles,

made famous as the

unwritten moral code of

the Tokugawa-era

samurai, became my

compass.

—Shane Blank

12 || ABA JOURNAL DECEMBER 2018