If anyone is proof that lawyering is your destiny, it's James Haliczer.

He dropped out and flunked out of college so many times he was finally denied readmission. He worked as a welder, bartender, shoe salesman, truck driver, drywall hanger, handyman and photographer at Busch Gardens, among other things. He moved to the Virgin Islands just days after learning they existed, got robbed of everything he owned 10 minutes after arriving in San Francisco and got turned down by every East Coast law school he applied to except one, then drove cross country and talked his way into a completely different one — at the school that had refused to readmit him years before.

He went on to become an associate editor of the law review, got the Best Advocate award in his graduating class and later formed one of South Florida's most respected boutique law firms.