David Randall, J.D. ’26, never planned to become a lawyer. For years, he worked as an art handler, transporting and installing works of fine art at museums, galleries, and private collections in New York and Los Angeles. But when he found himself at the bargaining table, advocating for his colleagues in a legally complex unionization effort, he discovered a new passion — one that eventually led him to LMU Loyola Law School.
Making a mid-career transition to law school is challenging in even the best circumstances, but for Randall, it would not have been possible without the Public Interest Scholarship he was awarded when he applied to LLS. Covering nearly all of his tuition, the generous scholarship has allowed him to dedicate himself fully to his legal studies and public interest work without the overwhelming burden of student debt.
Born in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, Randall’s family moved to the East Coast when he was 7 years old. After moving around as a young man, Randall settled in New York City, where he got involved in programming for alternative art and music spaces. As a creative person, art handling was a logical means for him to make a living that was aligned with his interests. While he loved doing the work and being a part of the arts community, however, he was also aware that the profession had limited growth potential.
Randall’s journey to law school began while he was working at MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York. During the early 2010s, many museum employees were unionizing in response to issues like low pay, unpredictable scheduling, safety concerns, and lack of job security. Randall and his colleagues had many of the same issues and began meeting outside of work to discuss them. When they decided to unionize to improve their conditions, the group nominated Randall to be one of the negotiators to sit at the table with museum representatives. The experience was transformational.
“What was most impactful for me was that I was advocating for people — people that I knew really well, who I’d worked with for a long time, and who were my community,” Randall says. “It was really cool to feel like people trusted you and to take on the challenge of understanding what it was that people wanted and making sure that everybody’s goals were integrated into our final contract. It was such a powerful experience for me.”
Part of the negotiation process involved reviewing drafts of contracts that were filled with legal language. Although Randall had no legal knowledge or experience at the time, he refused to be intimidated. “In many ways, anyone can read legal writing,” he says. “You just have to be willing to sit down, have the requisite attention to detail, and think through what everything means, think through the underlying motivation for every clause. It was important to be able to take that legal language and translate it into what the impact was going to be for my community.”
Randall saw that he could make a big difference in his workplace and realized that he enjoyed this kind of work, which sparked an idea — what if he could do it professionally? In 2017, he and his then-girlfriend (now wife) decided to move to Los Angeles, where Randall first completed his bachelor’s degree in philosophy with a pre-law option at California State University, Los Angeles. While there, he did an independent study on restorative justice and volunteered with the L.A. City Attorney’s Office in two capacities: with their Neighborhood Justice Program, a restorative justice diversion program serving as an alternative to traditional sentencing; and with their free Dispute Resolution Program as a volunteer mediator.
It was this volunteer work, showing his dedication to public service, that qualified him for a Public Interest Scholarship at LLS. “It means so much to get this scholarship; I literally wouldn’t be here without it,” Randall says. “It can be hard to move into a new career in your mid-to-late 30s, especially with law school being so expensive and requiring so much time and energy. I have to balance work and family considerations now, and I wouldn’t have as much time to pay off a big debt as a 25-year-old would. I needed a good scholarship and I am incredibly grateful that I got one.”
Now in his second year at LLS, Randall has decided on environmental law as his area of practice, blending his passion for advocacy with a desire to drive far-reaching change. He is still deciding whether he’d prefer to work as a civil servant, where he would primarily be enforcing laws and/or helping to shape policy, or as staff counsel with a nonprofit organization like Earth Justice or the Natural Resources Defense Council. All of his internships to date have been government-related, including his current work with the Environmental Enforcement Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He may choose a nonprofit organization for his next internship. “There’s a lot you can do at a nonprofit, and I’m excited to learn more about it.”
Regardless of the path he chooses, he is relishing his time as a law student, becoming close with other non-traditional students and enjoying the dynamism of LLS’s experiential learning models. “I participated in the Human Rights Practicum, where students can write parallel reports, amicus curiae briefs, or bring countries before international courts for human rights violations,” Randall enthuses. “Like many of my colleagues, I came to law school to be an advocate, so it’s been fantastic to do real work for real people.”
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