Learning Law on the Streets

When most Harvard Law School students study, they do it from the safety and comfort of a classroom or library. Most look forward to seeing the law in action, not back on it. Former police officers Adam W. Braskich, Sean K. Driscoll, and Alan W. Ezekiel are not most Harvard Law students.

“People tell me I’m the calmest law student they’ve ever met,” says Driscoll, who is in his second year at the Law School. “Being a police officer puts everything in perspective.”

While the three men come from different backgrounds, each carries with him the unique experience of having applied the law in real life, before being asked to do it in a classroom or courthouse.

“[Being a police officer] has given me a very different perspective,” says Ezekiel, who is in his second year at the Law School. “You have a much better sense for what the law looks like in practice.”

BRINGING PRUDENCE TO JURISPRUDENCE

All three former police officers agree that their experience enforcing law on the street has influenced their study of it.

“Most of the people in the class haven’t actually seen this,” Ezekiel says. “Their perspective is very academic and in some ways a little naive.”

Ezekiel says that being a police officer showed him that many legal situations are far more complicated than they appear to be to the average law student.

“Other students see things as having fairly simple solutions,” Ezekiel says. “In the real world, the problems come in groups. People have a lot of problems that put them in these situations. People are impossibly complicated.”

I. Glenn Cohen, an assistant professor of law, says that Driscoll offers “real world insight” into how law is detected and prosecuted. As an example, Cohen pointed to a class in which Driscoll once walked his fellow students through a video of a high-speed chase that was attached to a Supreme Court opinion, explaining the police officers’ training and what could have influenced their behavior.

ON THE JOB

All in Cambridge now, Driscoll, Braskich, and Ezekiel each hail from different parts of the country.

Driscoll, who is from Queens, N.Y., majored in political science and English at the University of Virginia where he , before teaching in the United Kingdom for a year. After that, he joined in the New York City Urban Fellows Program, which introduces college students and graduates to public service.

Driscoll says that his path to being a police officer was a “bit random,” as during the program he was working at the New York Police Department in a white-collar capacity.

“I was always interested in law,” Driscoll says. “I signed up for the LSAT and didn’t even take it.”

Driscoll says he wanted a “hands-on, bottom-up experience.” For him, that meant working as a uniformed street cop and then in the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit for over four years.

Braskich, who grew up in suburban Illinois, says that since he always knew he wanted to be a police officer, inspired by his uncle, a detective. He says he wanted a professional life that was more “meaningful and exciting” than his father’s, noting that his father held an office job.

As an undergrad at the University of Maryland, College Park, Braskich, decided to add a philosophy major to his major in criminal justice because he found the subject interesting.

After graduating, Braskich spent over three years in the Baltimore Police Department.

Ezekiel took yet another different road to the profession. Born in San Diego, he graduated from Stanford University with a degree in computer science before working as a software developer for Microsoft for over four years.

Deciding he wanted a more “people-oriented job,” Ezekiel moved to Renton, Wash., where he worked as a street cop for more than eight years, most of which, Ezekiel says, was spent on the graveyard shift.

Being a police officer, Ezekiel says he found an ethical and human component that software engineering was missing.

“There’s not always a right answer” as a cop, Ezekiel says.

Among their memorable moments on the job, both Driscoll and Braskich declined to recall particularly dangerous or violent situations.

Driscoll said that he didn’t want to tell “war stories,” since some cops have been through much worse, but added that “I saw all sort of awfulness.”

According to the Baltimore Sun, Braskich was off-duty when he opened fire on and successfully chased down two armed robbers in December of 2009, on the day before his LSAT exam. He received a Bronze Star from his police commissioner for his actions.

“What he did exemplified incredibly brave police work,” says Sergeant Jeffrey G. Boettcher of the Baltimore Police Department, who supervised Braskich during his time on the force.

Braskich emphasized that such situations were unusual.

“I’ve been in car chases and foot chases and dealt with people with guns,” Braskich says. “But that’s atypical. It’s not what police work is about. It’s about forging relationships with members of the community [and] gaining trust so that they can come to us.”

THE LAW’S ALLURE

While on the job, all three men said that they had a noticeably greater interest in the law than their fellow police officers.

“I found that I loved talking to the prosecutor about the law itself,” Driscoll says. “I loved the whole job. [But] I found that I was really fascinated when I got to go to court.”

Braskich voiced similar sentiments.

“What interested me most was the law,” Braskich says. “I love memorizing all the different statutes and learning the procedural rules. It’s like a puzzle.”

Sara Gross, a Baltimore prosecutor who worked with Braskich, agrees.

“He’s the only officer I’ve ever met who read case law for fun—more than most lawyers actually,” Gross says.

Braskich recalls that seeing lawyers use the same techniques of “logic and argumentation” that he learned as a philosophy major helped solidify his interest.

“The idea of mastering the law and working with law enforcement ... it all sounds exciting,” Braskich says. “Being in court I felt kind of jealous.”

Ezekiel says he was attracted to the legal profession because he thinks that lawyers have a greater ability to have a wide-spread impact.

“Police officers make a large difference with whom they work,” Ezekiel says. “But broader impact is harder.”

Both Driscoll and Braskich said that they thought Harvard was an especially good school for learning law practically. “The reason Harvard Law was my top choice, besides the prestige, is that there’s a balance of academic excellence and real-world experience,” Braskich says. “These are lawyers who’ve walked the walk.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Driscoll and Braskich both say that after graduation they want to be prosecutors, perhaps on the federal level.

Ezekiel says that he did not want to speak specifically about his plans for fear of compromising his future chances, but did note that he thinks that his experience as a police officer will serve him well.

“For some types of law, it wouldn’t help at all,” Ezekiel says. “[But] for a lot of legal jobs, people skills are key. And that is largely what police officers do.”

Driscoll says that prosecution’s draw, for him, was a chance for him to continue to serve the public.

“I felt that a prosecutor could do a lot of good,” Driscoll says. “I really respected that ones I worked with [in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office].”

Braskich says that being a prosecutor will give him the chance to “help law enforcement officers do their jobs more effectively.”

“From experience we’ve had a lot of cases where we know we had the right defendant and the evidence didn’t come across clearly,” Braskich says. “The prosecutor might have helped the judge or jury see what the truth was.”

Boettcher, the police sergeant, expects Braskich’s experience as a police officer to contribute to his skill as a prosecutor.

“When you put the two together, I think it’s an unbeatable combination if you do it right,” Boettcher says. “It definitely makes you a well-rounded person in that respect.”

Gross, a prosecutor herself, echoes Boettcher’s prediction.

“I think he’ll be fantastic at it,” she says. “I think having the street experience and applying it in the courtroom is good. He might put me out of a job.”

Braskich says that at some point, he’d like to return to Baltimore, pointing out that Harvard graduates tend to “congregate” in cities like New York and Washington.

“Long-term I’d like to serve a community like the one I served as a police officer in Baltimore,” Braskich says. “I think it’s a city that needs more talent in public service. That’s how I can do the most good.”

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu.