Dan Sedon grew up in Barnegat, New Jersey in a house with a lot of books and not much money. As a little kid, he and his friends hustled for jobs around the neighborhood—mowing lawns, washing cars, selling clams down on the commercial dock.
Eventually, Dan put himself through college and law school, and since 1993, Dan Sedon has been working as a criminal defense attorney in Vermont, where he works with poor people and rich people and all the people in between.
In this latest episode of What Class are You?, reporter Erica Heilman talks with Dan about what this line of work has taught him about the American class system.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Dan Sedon: My whole journey through this world has always been as a little person, not connected to money or power or anyone privileged. If I wanted to be a lawyer, I had to figure that out. And you know, for my family, the achievement was very significant. They were all very happy with it. Like, ‘wow, he did something. We had no freaking idea how to tell him how to do that’. There was no one in the family, there was no uncle, there was no one, no trusted advisor, there was no one who took me under their wing and was like, "Here's what you do." And so it was eye-opening after all that to encounter people who were like, "Oh, you went to a state university. That's unfortunate." And once I was licensed and actually practicing, I made a lot of money pretty early on in cases against lawyers who had graduated from Harvard. Like I came to realize, "Oh, that's great. I'm really glad for you," because you know someone's been to Harvard because they'll tell you within the first five minutes you meet them that they've been to Harvard. That's the joke and the rule, and it's true. But none of that matters when the rubber meets the road. Now it's just me and you in here, and that's it. I'm just going to win this. You're not going to outwork me on this, and I don't think you're actually smarter, and I bring special skills that you'll never have.
Erica Heilman: Like what?
Dan Sedon: Well, I could knock you out. [Laughs]
I just keep that in my back pocket. Like, ultimately, the foundation of my confidence is, and I've heard a lot of working class kids say this, but you go into a room to do something for the first time, like public speaking or something, and I've heard working class kids bucking themselves up with, "It's not like they're gonna beat your ass. What's the worst that could happen? You could get laughed at but they ain't gonna beat your ass, right?"
Erica: But in your estimation of having earned success, did it take longer, in your estimation, because of where you came from?
Dan Sedon: It sometimes takes longer to get that confidence. So much of class in America is confidence. You know? A certain ease in the world.
Erica: And so you had to earn that confidence and ease. That is overcoming of a class divide?
Dan Sedon: Yeah, that's it.
Erica: Your job is to represent people who have been accused of crimes…
Dan Sedon: Or are in various circumstances which presented some difficulty… problems…
Erica: When people have problems, they come to you.
Dan Sedon: Yeah.
Erica: So what do you know about class because of the billions of cases you've done?
Dan Sedon: Some things transcend class. For instance, if a person's child is in peril or there's a problem involving their child, a poor person has exactly the same emotional response to that as an extraordinarily powerful and politically connected and rich, wealthy person. A lot of things are primal fear. When people are in trouble and at risk of being incarcerated or losing their freedom, and all the terrors that come with that, people react pretty much the same to that too. People's personal, individual response to a crisis is frequently the same, but their capability and what they bring to it, how they respond to it is vastly different. So someone from you know, the margins of society might find me because they're like, "Hey, you helped my neighbor and he said to call you," and then someone who's really connected might be like, "I spoke to the family lawyer who called his friend from law school, who spoke to his partner, and he said you're the man to see with this problem," but that's it. But ultimately, that's the same, but it's just how they come to find you, and then they're like, "It was harder because you don't have a website." And I was like, "Yes. But here we are."
Erica: So the captain of industry who comes to you because his son is in trouble, and then the single mother who comes because her son is in trouble, they are the same.
Dan Sedon: Ultimately, at that level.
Erica: How are they profoundly different?
Dan Sedon: A poor person is not at all confident as to what's going to happen tomorrow at all, or that they're going to survive this crisis. But privileged people, when there's a problem, they're going to solve that freaking problem. They're going to lay down a pile of money. They're going to hire whoever they have to hire and do whatever they have to do. They'll move mountains. They're going to solve this problem, right? And if you can't do it, I'll fire you, and I'll hire someone else. It's not personal, but I'm gonna get this problem solved. That's confidence. That's class.
Erica: You get what you pay for.
Dan Sedon: Yes. And in America, there is not one justice system. There's the same rules, technically. But boy, your ability to access that system and make it work for you and achieve outcomes is vastly different with wealth and status and prestige and class and privilege. Not in every case. I mean, Harvey Weinstein sits in jail today, but on the average, we all know that the better off you are, the better off you are.
Erica: What is it that you've needed? You care a lot about issues of class for personal reasons. What are you trying to get free of?
Dan Sedon: Yeah, no. It's accretive for me. I don't leave anything behind. I mean, this isn't like F. Scott Fitzgerald — "I want all the money! I want to jump right to the top." I didn't even want that. I wanted to be everything I had ever been, you know, and become a free person in society. Free and independent and confident in the American dream, like my own man.
And so that required pulling everything along with me, but reconciling some of these things, and not carrying resentment, and not carrying that as baggage, but carrying it as strength. In other words, becoming bigger. Everything you've ever done and everything you've ever learned and everything you've ever been or experienced, you know, builds you. Versus like you're some imposter trying to escape that and leave that behind.
Although I wouldn't want to be poor again. Who would?
