A Case For Greatness: Achieving Success and Overcoming Trials in Your Law Career

By Alvin Adjei

Life is a journey, not a destination. In this journey, opportunities emerge for us to answer the call and discover a variety of lessons that better prepare us to face our purpose in life with confidence and courage as we seek to rise above the storms of life.

Under such circumstances, we become aware of a need to fulfill our innate purpose in life. Our purpose is the thing that we dream about, the thing that we desire to accomplish in an ideal situation.  The biggest obstacle of why we do not seek to accomplish this dream is fear. We are fearful of failure, the unknown, and the perceived difficulty associated with the challenges we face. We must all discover and navigate the mission and purpose for our lives. How do we fulfill our destiny when life keeps throwing so many obstacles our way? The answer is hidden in those challenges we face. In the middle of those storms is where we learn what we must do to grow and move forward. Nevertheless, in order to move forward, we have to have the courage to answer the call. I invite you to join me in this bold leap to the call as a trial attorney.

Through trials both personal and professional, I have overcome the challenges of my parents' divorce, the death of my track career, and struggles at the District Attorney's Office to become an accomplished attorney. In this journey, the reader will be empowered to learn the lessons that could help them face life's challenges with courage so they, too, can answer the calling on their lives.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elite Online Publishing
• Release date: Nov 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781956642339

Book preview

Prologue

My father stood tall in his African garb and gold chain. He looked at me and said, Go change. I want to take the family on a short family trip. I was eighteen years old and contemplating life away from home, the summer before the fall semester of college. Earlier, I had expressed my anxiety about the cost of college and the lack of diversity, but I was excited about my new school. My father peered at me after I expressed my frustration. I could tell from his facial expression that he wished to take advantage of this opportunity to impart another lesson to his son before he went off to college.

I jumped into the van with my stepmother and sister. I took along with me on that trip a copy of an autobiography of the late but famous trial attorney, Johnny Cochran. It was given to me by my grandmother, Effie Doty. I whiled away the drive time to our final destination by thumbing through the pages of that book. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of my dad from the corner of my eye, as he quietly drove us east on Interstate Highway 10. An hour into the trip, I realized we were far away from Houston.

To satisfy my curiosity I asked, Where are we going?

He looked at the rear-view mirror so I could see his eyes. "Jasper,'' he said shortly.

Jasper! I exclaimed. Suddenly, the pain I felt in my stomach began to grow deeper.

As a first-generation Black American kid, I had heard several frightening stories about that town. I knew it was not a place I wanted to go. Six years prior, one of the most gruesome hate crimes had been committed in that small rural town one hundred and forty-six miles away from Houston. A young black man had been tied to the back of a pickup truck by three white men. They dragged him to his death in cold blood. He’d committed no crime nor posed a threat to them or anyone else in that town.

Dad, I don’t want to go there, I retorted.

Sensing the concern in my voice he replied, They have some of the best food there.

I shot him an incredulous look. I did not find one of his few moments of sarcasm humorous, but he understood my anxiety and wanted to defuse my concern. I refused to let up.

Dad, seriously, I don’t want to go there.

Alvin! he replied. I heard the frustration in his voice. He took a deep breath and calmly stated, What are you going to do if you have a case or a client in some part of town that you’ve never been to? Are you going to let fear stop you?

I did not respond to his remark.

My sister looked at me with a facial expression that seemed to say, Alvin, let it go and enjoy the ride. Annoyed, I sank in my seat and scanned the pages of the book I had in my hand.

We finally arrived in the parking lot of a local grocery store in Jasper, Texas. After my dad got out of the vehicle, I looked around through the glass windows of our van to check out my surroundings before I got out. I saw a few trucks with Confederate flags. An older white gentleman with overalls looked at my dad in his African garb and gold chain. He seemed amused and drove away. Another man with a red face seemed less amused and gave us a long look and walked away. I looked around for another face of color but found none.

My father strutted into the store and I shuffled behind him. He purchased some items I didn’t really look at because I was preoccupied with examining my surroundings. He tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to walk with more confidence. I quickly walked back to the car. He loaded the groceries in the back of our van. My father, a biochemist and pharmacologist by training, leaned on his spiritual background for the lesson he was about to teach me.

Alvin, do you remember the story of the talents Yeshua told in the Bible? I vaguely remembered the biblical story. I nodded in affirmation, more relieved than anything else to be back safely in the van.

I’ll remind you, he said, ignoring my nod. A wise and powerful man gave three people talents commensurate with their abilities. One man got five, the second man got two, and the third received one. The men with five and two used their skills and doubled the money entrusted to them. The man with one buried his in the dirt. When their Master returned from his trip, he rewarded the men that invested and punished the one that buried his. What lesson do you take from this? he asked.

You are rewarded when you use your gifts and punished when you don’t, I replied.

Very good. But why do you think the man with one talent buried his? He paused, not long enough for me to answer. Because he didn’t have faith. If you let your fear of going to a school or the next phase of your life far from friends, far from family, and far from your comfort zone win, then you might as well be the man that buried his talent. He looked at me and continued, When faced with a challenge, you can take it as a blessing or a burden. A blessing that calls you to dig deep and become the best version of yourself, or a burden that curses you to carry the load of fearing you are not good enough. You have a great opportunity to go to a great school and hopefully do some great things. I believe that you have what it takes to be great in whatever you decide to do. One day someone will need not only the gifts and talents you have, but the hard-earned lessons that only come from failure. But to be great in anything, you have to have courage. You have to conquer your fear. Do you understand? he asked.

Yes, I nodded.

He gave me a curious smirk, and then said, Okay, I forgot to get something when we were in the store. Here is $10. Go to the store and buy a bag of rice.

By myself? I responded.

You said you understood the lesson. You’re not going to let your fear intimidate you? he emphasized.

I knew there was not a response to his rhetorical question, so I took a deep breath and made my way back to the store with a little more confidence than before. This was the challenge that I had to answer time and time again. When presented with a challenge, would I face it with faith or fear? Moreover, how was I going to use the life lessons I learned along the way to answer the calling for my life?

Part I:

1987-2005: The Trials of my Early Years

Chapter 1:

Trials

Trials come in many different forms and they all helped to form the man I was becoming. For me, I faced several trials in life, as a son, a student, an athlete, and later, as an attorney. In 2013, my search to answer the call brought me to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. At that time, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office was the largest District Attorney’s office in Texas. There were over three hundred lawyers at the office, and it was known for producing some of the most incredible trial attorneys. At that time, my goal was to become a great trial attorney, and I wanted to start my career serving the public. I wanted to do my best to answer the challenge my father had implanted into my brain during my Jasper, Texas episode.

In 2015, I faced the largest challenge of my legal career. The stakes for the case assigned to me were high, and I found myself in a dichotomous situation. On the one hand, I represented the State of Texas against the defendant in this case, and my star witness was my complainant, a young kid of sixteen years. He had been the victim of physical abuse. During the weeks of preparation on that case, I got to know him as a bright student who deeply cared for his family, and struggled to muster the courage to testify against his father. However, he believed that I could help tell his story before a jury, a group of six strangers, and trusted that I could persuade them to reach the correct verdict of guilty. On the other hand, my previous supervisor did not think I was ready for felony cases despite my overall winning record, and recent three-trial winning streak. In that case, I had a new supervisor which gave me a new opportunity for a fresh start. However, if I lost that crucial trial, I would confirm my prior supervisor’s suspicions and my promotion would be delayed or may never come to fruition.

Presentation was important, so I strolled into the courtroom with my dark suit, crisp white shirt, red tie, pocket square, polished black shoes, and fresh haircut. I sat down at the State’s table nearest where the jury was going to be seated. The State has the burden to prove their case by a legal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. Because of that burden the State got the positional advantage to sit next to the decider of fact, the jury. Each courtroom in Harris County had technology such as an Elmo, a device that allowed the State and Defense to project photos and other physical evidence exhibits on the two large screens near the jury and judge. My experience had taught me to check to make sure everything worked well because if there was a glitch, that could interrupt my ability to connect with the jury during my case. I walked to the projector to make sure that it was working and that the microphone near the witness stand was working properly. I turned on the computer screen to make sure that my PowerPoint was visible before the jury panel came in for jury selection.

If I was going to be successful in advocating for my complainant then I needed to cobble together all the lessons from my life trials as student, athlete, and prosecutor—the most important being faith in myself and in my case. I also needed the courage to face a bully, who in this case was the defendant, the humility to pray, and the bravery not to fear the things that I could not control. I would be facing a seasoned defense attorney who was many years my senior. He was tall with mostly black hair peppered with gray. He had a dark suit as well. He filled out his 6’4 frame with a large Texas belt buckle and his steps were heavy as he stomped near the defense table. His briefcase hit the table with a thud. His client, an overweight man, wore a clean white shirt and a dark brown suit. He was diligently writing notes on his yellow legal pad before he looked up from his table and glared at me, possibly to intimidate me. He didn’t know me, but he knew who I represented. I looked at my complainant who was gripping his mother’s hand as they sat in the back gallery of the courtroom. The complainant was five feet six inches with a rail-thin frame. He wore plastic rimmed glasses and a slim-fit collared black shirt. I gave him a smile to reassure them and nodded to the new intern for them to escort them to the witness room. I looked back at the defendant still glaring at me. All of the trials I had overcome had brought me to this moment. I was unphased. I was unbothered. I was prepared.

The judge looked down upon us from her bench. State, are you ready?

I stood tall and said in a loud voice, Ready, Your Honor.

Chapter 2:

Firstborn Son

In the fall of 1986, my parents discovered that my mother, Ruby, was pregnant. Married for two years at this point, she and my father, Gideon, were excited to welcome a new addition to their young family. At the same time, the news brought with it a lot of anxiety. Just the year before, my mother had suffered a miscarriage due to fibroids that had blocked the embryo from attaching to the uterine wall. If not for the fibroids, she would have given birth to twins. Dr. Kenneth Korsah had informed her that the fibroids would have to be removed before she could carry a pregnancy to term. My mother had cried painfully during that time as my father consoled her, and then she’d had the surgery.

Despite their understandable anxiety, my mother carried me to term. When her water broke, my father personally drove her to Memorial Hermann Hospital. She was in labor for twelve hours and eager to bring her first child into the world. I, Alvin Aaron Adjetey Adjei, was born on March 12, 1987 at 8:02 PM. Dr. Korsah, a Ghanaian doctor trained in the States, delivered me at the hospital in Houston, Texas. In those days, the hospital was a quaint red brick building, not yet the behemoth construction made of steel and glass that it would later become. My mother had found the name Alvin in a baby book, and liked the name because it apparently meant ‘strength.’ I’ve never found a baby book that matches that description. My father gave me the Hebrew name Aaron because I was a quiet and docile child. Adjetey was bestowed upon me as the first-born son in the Adjei family.

We lived in the Monticello apartments in Houston for a few years. After my birth, my maternal grandmother Grace flew in from London to stay with my mother for a few months and help her adjust to motherhood. My father was working for Amoco and had already used all of his vacation time staying with my mother. They tell me that my belly button stump was very thick at the time and was taking a long time to fall off. My parents would apply rubbing alcohol daily to facilitate it drying up. One day when my father was on diaper duty, he grew distracted by the long story he was telling and never expected that when he opened my diaper I would pee straight into his face. My mother and grandmother apparently doubled over laughing.

A couple years later, my father decided to accept a position as a plant manager overseeing environmental training in Big Spring, Texas. The owner of the plant, an ambitious young man named David Dewhurst, was eager to expand his empire. Dewhurst was a pioneer in the field of cogeneration plants; his company was called Power Resources Incorporated. His concept was to use the heat from the American Petrofina oil refineries to power the steam turbine generator at the plant so they could sell the excess energy. Dewhurst needed a person with a science background and management experience to help him. My father had a PhD in Biochemistry and Pharmacology and had worked in the energy sector, so he was the perfect fit. He was well-paid and enjoyed the benefits of his salary by taking my mother on exotic trips and spoiling his children with nice clothes. Big Spring was a small town in West Texas that bordered Scenic Mountain. It was a town known equally for its beautiful view of the mountains and its passion for football. Big Spring also had its share of cedar pollen, which both my mother and I were allergic to, making life particularly difficult for me in the spring.

Around age three, I befriended a kid named Leo. He was three, too, and had two missing front teeth and an adventurous spirit. His tall and lanky older brother loved to join us on our adventures climbing trees, catching birds, and rolling down hills. One day we were in my backyard and we found a gray bird that had fallen out of its nest. We nestled him and fed him crackers and water. We cared for him for weeks until he finally was strong enough to return to his mother.

My sister Vanessa was born on October 30, 1989 in Midland, Texas. She was a chubby baby with jet-black hair and a pale complexion. My mother carried her in utero for ten months. My father would walk and later jog with my mom on the trail toward Scenic Mountain to help her stay active. They were told the exercise might induce labor. But after the ten-month mark, the doctor told them that they needed to come in for a Caesarian section. My sister was given the name Vanessa since she was such a beautiful baby. We affectionately called her Nessa or Ness for short. It wasn’t long before she was walking and could join in my adventures.

My father used to sit on the porch and peer over our yard, watching Leo and I play on the giant oak tree that sprawled over our property. He would sit on the swing and spit out sunflower seed shells, shaking his head whenever he saw me fall into a cedar-induced sneezing fit. My father did his best to shelter me from the racial issues that surrounded our town. We were the only black family on the street. Less than one percent of the city’s population was black. Parents not used to outsiders were leery of letting their children play with the son of an African. My father was from Ghana and prided himself on being the son of Theodore Edmund Nahm Adjei, a successful public servant and landowner in Ghana. Ghana prided itself on being the first sub-Saharan country to successfully fight and win its independence. Not playing with the white children in my neighborhood was my first introduction to racism and how isolating it can be. To this day, I find it strange to separate people simply because they look different.

Leo and his brother, who were both Hispanic, were my only friends at the time. My father thought to himself that if we’d stayed in Houston, a larger and more diverse city, then problems like this would have been less likely. After some deliberation, my parents scooped Vanessa and I up and packed all our belongings into a U-Haul. I said goodbye to my friend Leo and away we went back to Houston, Texas. Over time, I appreciated my parents’ courage to leave a financially stable place in order to give my sister and I a better quality of life.

Chapter 3:

The Return to Houston

We moved into a two-story house on the outskirts of the Houston suburbs. Our neighborhood was called The Colonies. It sat between the more established neighborhoods of Bear Creek and Copperfield. Our subdivision within The Colonies was Georgetown Colony. A newly developed area, our red brick house was still under construction when we moved in. The cul-de-sac was filled with half-built houses and young pine trees. My father explained to us that he wanted to make sure that we were safe. He reasoned that a house in a cul-de-sac was less likely to be hit by a drunk driver, and that we were less likely to be disturbed by street noise. All of this was lost on me.

While my parents did the heavy lifting of moving and unpacking boxes, I got on my red bike with the training wheels and rode around the cul-de-sac, racing the wind as fast as I could. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a red bike with flames on the side. Next to it stood a young boy about my age wearing a green shirt and blue shorts. His family had moved in next door from New Orleans. I soon found out that Marshall was a precocious and adventurous kid. He had a competitive spirit and we had a lot in common. Our birthdays were three days apart and we both liked to ride bicycles. We raced each other, pretending to be secret agents on a mission to kill dragons.

Marshall’s mom’s name was Julie and she had a movie-star quality to her. I thought that she looked like Julia Roberts, especially when she smiled. Her husband was a former football player for Louisiana State University, and he looked the part. He wore his hair cut in a mullet and a thick crowbar mustache. His muscles protruded through his tight t-shirt. I looked at him, puzzled, the first time I saw him. Where was his beer belly? All dads have beer bellies. He was also the hairiest man I’d ever seen.

The first time we met, Julie smiled and asked where I was from. I didn’t know what to say until Vanessa yelled out, Ghana! Julie loved that my younger sister was not shy and was so articulate at such a young age.

Marshall and I became the best of friends. We did everything together. We watched Power Rangers and argued over who would be the Green Ranger. We battled against the kids from the next street over. We lived on Moultrie Lane and the other kids lived on Society Lane. My little sister coined the phrase Society Crappers. The Society Crappers were older than we were by a couple years. Their leader was Ronnie, a lanky kid chosen by default for being the tallest and the loudest of the bunch. Then there were Christine and Shane—two tomboys who could beat anyone in basketball or any other sport. Chad was a kid with a bad stutter, and Dan was a nice, outgoing kid. But he was younger than us and was usually called home early. The Society Crappers would come over to challenge us to baseball, kickball, or football.

Marshall, Vanessa, and I never grew close to those kids and only felt compelled to play with them because the games we enjoyed needed more than three people. The summer before my second-grade year, I spent a lot of time outside by myself. Marshall’s parents took him to soccer practice and later taekwondo. His parents were concerned that given his small stature, Marshall needed to learn some self-defense skills. My sister didn’t like to be left out of the games but had no patience for staying outside a long time. She often retreated inside our home to play with Barbie dolls.

A few weeks before school started, I was on my bike and tired from riding around the cul-de-sac as fast as I could. I saw a kid riding his bicycle on Georgetown Colony Drive past the big stop sign. He rode his bike so blissfully happy and oblivious to the rest of the world that it struck me as strange. Then he doubled back around and rode his bike straight to me in front of my house. He reached out his hand and grabbed mine, shaking it violently. Hi, my name is Damien. I pulled my hand back and said, My name is Alvin, as I wiped what must have been dried ketchup on his hand from my palm.

You live in Georgetown, Damien? I asked.

Yeah, we moved here from New York City. I have a younger brother we should play with next time we meet.

Okay, I said. Then as quickly as he had appeared, he left.

What struck me about Damien was that he had an unassuming, straightforward manner about him. He and his brother Eli soon joined Marshall and I on our adventures. My parents, at least initially, were happy that another family from Ghana had moved into the neighborhood. Despite being from the same country, my parents never became close to Damien’s. Tribal rivalries created tension between my father and his. But it never affected my friendship with Damien. We were far removed from the issues that plague families of different tribes.

Most of my days were filled with fun routines. I would wake up and eat breakfast, then play outside with Marshall, Ness, and Damien. Then I would watch TV until it was my bedtime. The routine was interrupted when my parents decided to open up a couple of dry cleaners. After that, in the mornings I was sent to a preschool called Storybook Circle. It was a simple, brown brick building a few miles from my house. I remember being excited since they had a huge play area with a dirt track, a half-dome climbing structure, monkey bars, and slides. It didn’t take long before I made friends, joking with the kids and racing everyone who dared to challenge me. I made a name for myself as the fastest kid in Storybook Circle. The daycare staff were friendly but annoyed that I never took naps no matter how many cookies or back rubs they gave me.

At times I was rambunctious and not the most cooperative kid in daycare. I will never forget the day I was on the daycare bus and I refused to put on my seatbelt. Seatbelts seemed dumb at the time as the bus traveled too slowly to get in a serious crash. It felt