I still think being a dean of students would be a great job. But halfway through my first semester, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer. It's about people. Professor Joe Bishop was my professor for torts. And he would tell these amazing stories about the trouble people get themselves into.
People care about it.
On the advice of a former professor, Owen Fiske, Professor Powell went into the academic side of law. His first teaching job was at the University of Iowa law school. It was theology that brought Professor Powell back to Duke. He accepted a year-long teaching job at the Law School to support himself while he completed his Ph.D. at the Divinity School. Eventually he stayed around the law school long enough that the faculty decided to keep him.