If we don't decriminalize it, we should at the very least make it easy for women who are wanting to move out of that life to be able to petition to have the conviction sealed so that it's not on their record. With emphasis on the "easy" part--not having to wait for five years for the paperwork to go through and a judge to see them. Have it expedited. That would help a lot. But you're absolutely right that prostitution is a HUGELY complex issue, and even if we knew that every single woman (or queer or trans* man) who was a sex worker had chosen that freely among vast numbers of other options, I would still have issues with it (the fundamental power difference exhibited by the fact that sex is a commodity bought by men from women/girls/queer men/queer boys/trans* people who are almost always homeless/addicts/single mothers/etc. makes it a giant problem. If I could live in a world where men and women bought sex in equal numbers from sex workers who were paid fairly, treated well, and had chosen that job from many other options, I could be okay with it, even if I had personal moral issues with. But we are nowhere close to that world. Nowhere close.)

Anyway, I love you for going into law. It's so important, and every place in the world needs more good people joining the criminal justice system. You can make such a difference, even if it's on a small scale, I know it.