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Summer Series: Remember Who You Are
Our Summer Series continues! This series highlights different Latina students and law grads as they embark in their summer jobs and/or bar prep all across the country. We hope to provide a variety of work experiences, options for a healthy work-life balance, and general motivation through different guest contributors to help you to take charge of your summer and professional goals! Today, Kas, a recent graduate of DePaul Law School reminds us of the power that law school gives us and how vital it is to remember our the reason we are pursuing this profession–especially when things get difficult. When I was applying for law school, people would say, “good luck girl, I heard…
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How Can You Study In Times Like These?
Everything can feel so overwhelming right now with what’s happening in the news. It can feel like a useless endeavor to study for the bar when so much chaos is happening at that border and in our communities. Even still, it’s so vital for you to keep going, to focus on the bar (or whatever goal you have this summer). Use what’s happening as motivation to get to your next chapter. But I really want to volunteer! I remember the travel ban last year and how people swarmed the airport. So many students participated in that as well. So, yes, you can certainly volunteer in whatever capacity you can. But…
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Summer Series: Learning from the Past
Our Summer Series continues! This series highlights different Latina students and law grads as they embark in their summer jobs and/or bar prep all across the country. We hope to provide a variety of work experiences, options for a healthy work-life balance, and general motivation through different guest contributors to help you to take charge of your summer and professional goals! Today, Linette, a rising 2L in California, describes how she’s using lessons learned from her internship last summer to start her current children’s rights focused internship on the right foot! Before starting law school, I had a lot of fears and insecurities about my abilities. I had heard “horror” stories of people having…
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Summer Series: Be Prepared for the Sticker Shock
Our Summer Series continues! This series highlights different Latina students and law grads as they embark in their summer jobs and/or bar prep all across the country. We hope to provide a variety of work experiences, options for a healthy work-life balance, and general motivation through different guest contributors to help you to take charge of your summer and professional goals! Today we hear from Alexandra, a Florida law school graduate prepping for the bar exam right now! Alexandra discusses the need to prepare for the Bar Exam–not mentally or emotionally–but financially! And good luck Alexandra!! Becoming a lawyer is expensive. It’s one of those things that I think we all know, but it…
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Bar Exam: Maintaining Focus
So, all you bar preppers, you’re really in it now. A full week in, I remember feeling like I didn’t know anything and getting scared sh*tless, just knowing that I wouldn’t pass. The entire summer, other than studying, my main thing was keeping my anxiety at bay. And I didn’t always succeed. It was rough. For some, this will be the big barrier you face this summer. The emotional toll studying for the Bar takes on you. There’s a constant barrage of thoughts: what if I don’t pass; how will I earn a living; am I wasting my time; how can I overcome the pain if I fail? It really…
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Sidebar: Where to Even Start
The title says it all. I have been hemming and hawing since the beginning of the year about work. I didn’t really know where I was heading and I was a little nervous about the outcome. Let me start at the beginning. For New Year’s I made getting a new position one of my goals. I had hoped it would be something new at work, but wasn’t sure and I was pushing myself that if nothing was coming I would start looking for other work outside my agency. I wanted to stay but knew that even though I loved my agency, my clients, my team, and the work that I…
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Summer Series: Returning to your Passion
Our Summer Series continues! This series highlights different Latina students and law grads as they embark in their summer jobs and/or bar prep all across the country. We hope to provide a variety of work experiences, options for a healthy work-life balance, and general motivation through different guest contributors to help you to take charge of your summer and professional goals! Today we hear from Karen, a rising 3L from California and returning guest writer (yay!!). Karen is returning to the area of law that inspired her to go to law school and you can see the conviction and passion she has for this area. As important, see how she drops some tips on…
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Why is Law School Terrible?
In college I attended a conference where a student discussed how he was finishing his 1L year. And he made the joke almost all law students have made since the invention of law school, which was DON’T GO! And everyone laughed, but I remember the guy’s eyes flashing with a glint of a little desperation, but then he smiled again and said he was joking. But was he? Are we just joking when we tell people not to go? Why is law school so horrible that we dissuade others from attending? I’ve covered before why the advice for most people to not attend law school doesn’t really apply to Latinas.…
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Value Your Time: Learning to Say No
Learning to value your time is a skill. When you’re new to the profession you may add too much to your plate because you want to impress the higher-ups, or you want experience, or you just don’t know if you can really say no. I totally get that it’s not easy to recognize when some opportunities are just not right for you. But not knowing when to say no (even as a student) can lead to you wasting your time, feeling demoralized, and neglecting other, more important, projects. I learned this the hard way when I was a 3L: My law school had a pretty prestigious trial advocacy fellowship (that…
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Sidebar: Let’s Do Lunch
I feel like I spent all of April “networking” (i.e. meeting with friends for coffee/lunch) or real networking (i.e. meeting with other professionals for work events). Either way, it was a lot of coffee/wine. I saw a lot of people from outside my agency (both former coworkers and just people I know from the community) and it was SO cathartic to be able to talk about the general complaints about work, being a person of color in the law, plans/ideas, etc–I’m definitely adding more coffee dates to my summer! The official events for work were actually fun (surprise). One was at City Winery, so that was great because obviously…