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Emotional Damage: Preparing for the Bar Exam
Why the bar exam so difficult? It’s stressful, emotionally draining, and usually makes those studying a ball of frustration and anxiety. Why? Over one exam?! I’ve shared before that the summer I studied for the Bar, was beyond stressful. I did nothing but study for 12-14 hours a day, freaking out every day that I was going to fail, and on exam day when I read the first question I was -literally-embarassed at how much I had freaked out because the test was just like my law school exams. Duh. That’s what everyone who had taken the test said, but I just couldn’t believe them. So I know that in…
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What I’m Taking with Me in 2024
I thought it made sense to pop in and say hello. Every time I do, I usually say I’m going to write more posts but then it doesn’t happen so I won’t say that. I do want to keep providing content but I have found (as most old school bloggers eventually find) that folks just aren’t as into long-form written content, which breaks my heart because I love writing a nice, long post but I also want to give you what you want! So maybe I’ll focus on quality over quantity for the time being. On the personal front, I took all of summer 23 off (and the fall, eek).…
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Solo Navigation: Career Advancement as a First-Generation Attorney
What do you do when you’re the first to enter a space? When no one in your family or close friends have been in those spaces, how do you figure out how to act and advance to the next stage? I recently saw a TikTok of a guy mentioning how he is in spaces where now has to figure things out alone because he didn’t come from a family who had professional jobs and sometimes it didn’t make sense to follow their advice. This resonated with me and reminded me of the advice many first-gens get about keeping our head down at work. Thinking that eventually our good work will…
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“If You Don’t Know How, Learn.” Lessons from A Million Miles Away
Last week after an especially jolting 5k (pro tip: don’t decide to run a 5k and then fail to train when you have asthma), I decided to take it easy for the day and watch A Million Miles Away. oh. my. god. I was a sobbing mess. It’s a must see, if you’re Latino, if you feel connected to migrant farmworkers and their story, or if you simply want to see a story about perseverance and determination. AMMA is a biopic of the first Latino to go into space, Jose Hernandez. He grew up as a migrant child farmworker, earned a degree in engineering and went on to join NASA,…
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Hello, It’s Me.
I feel like a negligent parent because I really thought a summer break would mean more and more written content, but that is not what happened! My bad. Last we spoke, my job was ending and I was figuring out what my next steps would be. In early May, I decided I would take the summer to figure out—really assess—what I wanted to do next. While I kept my law license active, the days of traditional practice seem behind me. Not in a “I wish I could go back” way, but rather my goals have moved past direct rep. I put in ten good years doing it and when I…
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0L summer prep: the months before law school
I spent the summer months before I started law school at a law school boot camp at Notre Dame. It was a program created to support students of color gain entry opportunities into this profession—that’s right, an affirmative action program. I wouldn’t have succeeded in law school without that program. So taking a moment to be grateful about that, but also to ask all the pre law bebes, what are you doing this summer to prepare?! Certainly it doesn’t need to be as hard core as a boot camp! But while there is a lot of advice to just relax and have fun, I’m always hesitant to give that advice.…
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Take Back Your Summer: How to Respond If Your Summer Internship Isn’t Providing You the Experience You Need
You have two summers to make it count. Your 1L and 2L summers allow you to intern in legal spaces in an in-depth way that develops your skills, builds a professional network, and provides guidance on how the beginning of your career will look. At least that’s what we think—the reality is that you may experience an internship or two that is clearly not a fit. And when it happens in the summer, it can feel especially frustrating because this times feels so valuable. When I think back to my internship my second summer, I feel frustrated at myself for not being more active in making sure I gained better…
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What Flamin’ Hot Teaches Us About Success
First, if you haven’t seen Flamin’ Hot—you must! It’s a great American story and Eva Longoria knocks it out of the park with her directing. I’m probably going to watch it a few times because there were so many moments in the movie that resonated deeply and symbolism that’s worth re-watching. But when I was watching it, the piece that jumped out at me like a huge neon sign on How to Succeed happens towards the end of the movie. Not when Ricky pushes himself to be the best employee despite his circumstances; not when he gets the courage to advocate for himself and his idea; not when he recognizes that…
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Here to Stay: Balancing Social Media with Your Legal Career
Bloomberg’s latest article discusses the pitfalls of Biglaw attorneys on TikTok. It discusses how slow firms are to respond and how conflicted they are with associates being active on social media. I’ve been seeing more and more legal content on TikTok and when a recent Cravath associate opted to resign then to stop creating content (content that seems to be very lucrative), I couldn’t help but notice how far we’ve come! fyi, Cravath is the most white shoe of white shoe firms–if any firm is going to have a conservative stance on social media it’s going to be these type of firms. In 2015, I wrote a social media dos…
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Big Law is Horrible…Or is it? What the Latest Big Law Drama Can Teach Us
This week a slide from an alleged presentation by Paul Hastings dropped and boy…did people have a lot to say. Whether or not it was actually part of the presentation, the overall consensus was the Big Law is horrible and this is just another example. And I get it—seeing the slide by itself and how it prioritizes work above everything seems, at the very least, a little unhealthy while others may see it and think those expectations just come with the job. There is a widening gap in the way people approach work with a younger generation being more attuned with their rights and pushing for a more tenable work/life…