I’m In: Ready for What’s Next (Part 7, Moses Merakov)

In spring 2019, Moses Merakov was a newly admitted student to UW Law’s J.D. program. He shared his hopes and plans for law school. Now, we reconnect with Merakov as a new graduate who is reflecting on his law school career and how his experiences have changed the way he thinks about the world. Through law school, he discovered a passion for intellectual property law.

As an intern for the Seattle Symphony’s general counsel, Merakov got a glimpse of where his law career might take him. As part of his internship, he was able to work with an artist on a contract that would allow the symphony to use one of her pieces during a performance. With that experience, Merkov realized that he would be able to combine his love of music, art and the law. It led him to obtain a concentration in Intellectual Property.

Learn how UW Law has prepared Merakov for what’s next.

Watch the playlist of all "I'm In" video stories.

Read the Transcript

[text on screen] In spring 2019, UW Law interviewed Moses Merakov, then a newly admitted student to the law school’s J.D. program.

Moses Merakov: So, my parents came here from Uzbekistan, as refugees. My mom was pregnant with my older sister and my dad had nothing to his name, our whole family had nothing to their name, but $10 in their pocket. And so to start from nothing, and to see their son get into law school is a very, very big deal. So, there's an incentive not to let them down, you know, not to let their suffering go to waste.

[text on screen] Now, we reconnect with Moses as he finishes his last quarter of law school.

Moses Merakov: The way in which I perceive the world has completely changed. Law school gives you a certain paradigm, a certain way to analyze the world. And I would not have been looking at the world three years ago, the way I am now. It's a matter of taking something, breaking it down into its components, parts, change things for the better, and then do things a certain way so that you have a complete narrative.

Law school is stressful. Law school is a lot of work. And because of that, you learn to be resilient. You learn how to manage your time properly, you learn to make things a priority, and you understand what's important to you.

I think when I first started law school, I was super interested in international law. And then as I went through it, and I worked and did different things, I kind of just fell in love with the law in general. And I realized international law’s not necessarily for me, and what I'm actually interested in is intellectual property. So, that's what I've been exploring, actually got a concentration in it now. And looking forward to do more of that in the future.

One experience I really fell in love with was interning for the Seattle Symphony with their general counsel. Because I just love art and music. And I also love the law. So, combining the two was absolutely amazing. And also, when it comes to being a general counsel, that usually happens like later on in your career, so I got to see like, ooh, a snapshot of what I might be able to do in like 10 years.

We had an artist who was giving us some of her art to commission, and we wanted to have it up when they were going to play a piece. And I worked with her to make a contract. And changed the certain clause. And what I knew about intellectual property really helped out because we're dealing with a piece of art here. So, it was my first time really doing something in IP and I fell in love with it.

I worked at a small law firm the last two years. And that was fantastic because I got a lot of different work. It allowed me to get a lot of experience and a breadth of knowledge in a very short period of time. And one thing I'm looking to do after law school is to continue that. To keep learning about what different types of laws or things you can do, and really get a good foundation to ultimately go into something like intellectual property or something more specialized.