Liam McSweeney ~ Environmental Legal Nonprofit

CBL was the most meaningful educational experience of high school for me and still something I often draw on. I got to work at an environmental legal nonprofit. Today I work again at a legal nonprofit, now a full attorney, now doing housing justice work representing tenant associations and their members in New York City housing court. It was great to get exposure to legal skills at such a young age, but what really stuck with me was finding my voice as an advocate in a public space and beginning to develop the vital skills of working to protect a community and speak truth to power. I cultivated a sense of justice and respect for the people and causes I was supporting through the work. All of that is critical to my work and even my sense of community and self in my city. None of that could have been learned in the classroom, and all of it occurred at a critical time of self-discovery in my life. It was the first time I got to use my school knowledge and apply my (quite frankly restless and overboiling) passion to something that felt meaningful and impactful. My “homework” suddenly was no longer just hypothetical but something that my coworkers utilized and relied on, and ultimately affected in small ways the fabric of the environmental policy of the state. Learning how to create impact and the consequences of my public actions helped me find who I wanted to become, and I believe I am now an actualized version of what I started to visualize them. I’ll be forever grateful to Matt and CBL.