Attorney Michelle Sinnott is back—and still “Into the Wild”

By Michelle Sinnott, staff attorney

Eddie Vedder and the soundtrack to “Into the Wild” was on repeat for the 16-plus hours it took to fly from Virginia to Alaska. It was the summer of 2012, and I was broke. I spent my last $10 to download the soundtrack to my iPod and then listened to it nonstop while I—an overly confident law student with an ambitious sense of optimism that the real world hadn’t dampened in me yet—excitedly told anyone who was in my proximity that I was going to Alaska.

Michelle and her dog Lily on the Alaska Highway

Alaska was never even a thought in my mind until I read “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer. That book, I know, how very un-Alaskan of me. Disown me if you must, but it’s part of my story, and I fully embrace it. I don’t remember how or why I even picked up the book, but when I did, I couldn’t put it down. I connected with the story, and it remains one of the few books that I’ve read more than once.

Before boarding the plane for Alaska in 2012, I had never been to the west coast. I had never seen real mountains. I had never been hiking or backpacking. I didn’t particularly like the cold. I wasn’t “outdoorsy” or even adventurous. Through all the measures I had used to plan my career carefully and rationally, spending a summer in Alaska was “off the charts” ridiculous.

Yet there I was, in route.

A chaotic trajectory

My journey to being a lawyer is not the typical one and it begins embarrassingly, with a late-night binge of reality TV. I went to college to be a business major, but quickly jumped over to philosophy, which understandably disappointed my “there aren’t any careers in philosophy” parents. Everything was rainbows and unicorns with my “philosophy major” lifestyle up until my senior year when I had to figure out what to do with myself after college.

I was up late one night stressing that my parents were right when I stumbled across this show: Animal Cops Houston. It was a reality TV show about animal control officers. I soaked it up because it never occurred to me that there were laws that protected animals and people whose full-time job was to enforce those laws. I stayed up all night researching how to become an animal lawyer. I had found my next move.

As someone who isn’t good with standardized tests, the LSATs proved to be a daunting barrier for me, and I did not land a spot at my dream law school right out of college. I’ve always been a determined person, some might say stubborn, so I didn’t let this speed bump stop me. I found a paralegal job in Washington D.C. at Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, which turned out to be one of the best places for a young, budding save-the-world type wanna be lawyer. I found my people.

I spent four years in Washington D.C. as a paralegal largely working on Endangered Species Act litigation against the Ringling Brothers Circus. I didn’t just dip my toe into animal law. I jumped in headfirst and didn’t look back. I hadn’t planned to be a paralegal for that long, but I was passionate about the work and couldn’t pull myself away. I stayed until the case ended. I found my career. I wanted to be a lawyer.

Making it real

Michelle camping in Denali National Park

I spent the next three years living in an old barn off a dirt road while studying at Vermont Law School. This was another decision that turned out to be perfect for me, but not everyone in my life was thrilled. My parents sheepishly admitted at my law school graduation that they didn’t actually believe I was attending law school and expected to find me living off the grid in a yurt, sans law degree.

The first summer of law school I stayed in Vermont and worked at the law school’s Natural Resources and Environmental Law Clinic. The second summer of law school I decided to jump on a plane to Alaska, interning with Trustees. As law school was coming to an end, I knew working in the public interest field meant long hours and little pay, so I figured this would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I wasn’t expecting it to change my trajectory in life, but it did.

Michelle and a jellyfish

Finding home

I’m an east coast kid. I was born in New Jersey and grew up in Virginia. I pranced around North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia while in college. I landed in Washington D.C. after college. I never really thought of myself as a Jersey girl, but during my first law school oral argument a male professor asked if I was from New Jersey based on my argument style. Let’s just say my response  fit the stereotype.

Yet, no matter where I went, the places I lived didn’t feel like me or who I was. I never felt a sense of place. Nowhere felt like home. Truth be told, as a young, career driven women, it never really mattered to me where I went because I didn’t ever feel connected to the place itself. I was connected to the issues.

I always expected that after law school I would go back to Washington D.C. and that would be my place. Not my home, but the place where I lived so that I could do the work that I was passionate about. At that stage in my life “home” felt like this amorphous unattainable concept. Maybe it existed for some people, but not for me.

Michelle on a mountain while interning for Trustees for Alaska

But then it happened: The moment I stepped off the plane in Alaska, it felt like home. I can’t explain it. It’s not rational or logical. It was a feeling I had never felt before and one I was not expecting.

That summer I saw snow-capped mountains for the first time in my life. I went backpacking and camping. I walked on and climbed a glacier. I saw bears, moose, eagles, sheep, marmots, sandhill cranes, and countless other wild creatures. I went kayaking. I hiked every single weekend, even when it was raining. I explored places all over the state and fell in love with Alaska. When my internship ended that summer, I knew that I needed to find my way back to Alaska. My trajectory in life took a sharp, 90-degree turn.

Embracing Alaska and the cold

Still, after law school, I continued my carefully planned path of going back to Washington D.C. to be a public interest environmental/animal lawyer. I only lasted a year in D.C.. After experiencing Alaska, I could no longer exist in a place just because I was passionate about a job. I found my home in Alaska, and I needed to go back.

In December 2014, I found myself once again on a plane to Alaska. The same soundtrack played on repeat, and I had the same giddy optimism while excitedly proclaiming to fellow travelers that I was moving to Alaska to work for Trustees.

Growing up in Virginia I hated the cold. You’d never find me outside during the winter when I was younger. My recreational activity of choice was anything indoors and warm. But I had changed. I was no longer the same person I was 15 years earlier when growing up in rural Virginia. I was outdoorsy and adventurous. I went backpacking and hiking. I was an Alaskan, and now the cold meant new places to explore.

For almost three years, I worked to protect healthy water, land, fish, and wildlife with Trustees.

Michelle and Chewy on a snowy hike!

Back to the future

If there’s one thing my chaotic trajectory in life has taught me, it’s that you have to embrace the unexpected. That’s exactly what I did in 2017. Working on litigation to protect the elephants at the Ringling Brothers Circus is what ignited my passion for the law, so when the opportunity to do that work again came my way, I embraced it. From 2017 to now, . I worked on protecting wild animals at roadside zoos, circuses, and aquariums. If you’ve seen Netflix’s Tiger King or HBO’s Chimp Crazy, then you have a glimpse of the type of legal work I did to protect wild animals in captivity. It fed my soul and made me proud to be a lawyer.

I will always have a soft spot for animal issues, but Alaska, my home, was weighing heavy on my thoughts. It was time for a career shift.

Protecting Alaska now for the future

Alaska is the first and only place where I felt at home. It felt like me. It shaped me. Trustees will always be entwined with my journey to Alaska, and Trustees has always fought hard to protect the people, places, and wild animals that make Alaska the amazing place that it is.

The times ahead look bleak and there is a lot of work to do, which is why I’ve come back to Trustees: to fight for my home.

It’s hard not to feel despair, especially as we get glimpses of the challenges ahead. Trustees has done this work for 50 years and doesn’t give up. We can’t. It’s time to dig deep and do what we can because we’ll need all the help we can get this time.

Time to get to work.

Michelle and Lily camping