Issues
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Responding to Performance Reviews
Having to sit in front of your boss and receive criticism, even if constructive, can be tough. Your ability to show that you can accept feedback in a stable, steady will help you move forward in your career, but it’s anxiety-inducing. It can cause emotional response that can affect your reputation at work. When there’s a face-to-face with your boss regarding your review, the key is to try to relax and go in with an assumption that this will be a learning tool. If you have moderately competent bosses then you should be aware ahead of time of any major issues. This really shouldn’t be a time with big surprises.…
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Breaking Law School Barriers II: Hidden Costs
This series, Breaking Law School Barriers, tackles the big and small issues that come into play when you’re deciding if you’ll even attend law school. The purpose is to give practical advice for college students, and for current law students and attorneys to give suggestions about their real world experience. For those that have started the law school application process it’s likely that you already know this–even applying to law school cost money. Seriously, as a college senior applying for law school, all I could do from giving up, was keep hoping that I would be given extra hours at my part-time job so that I could afford what…
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Happy Thanksgiving: Link Round Up
We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We are on the mend of a really bad head cold (in fact, I just googled “can I harm my brain from coughing,” because this cough is still something fierce). But instead of wallowing about being sick, I’m trying to enjoy having time off work and getting to spend quality time with family. Though I know for many people it’s the beginning of high stress season with finals approaching. I mentioned on instagram that Thanksgiving as a 1L was so stressful and sad–so even though I’m sick, I’m still much happier today than when I had to work Black Friday and cram for exams…
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Culture Conflict: Being Humble
Being humble is often held up as a positive attribute among Latino families. How many times have we heard our parents or family talk about being humilde? Humble is defined as not thinking of yourself as better than other people. It is someone who is not proud or haughty. This can be a great quality and one that is definitely venerated by most of our communities. However, there is a second part of that definition that blurs the line and makes me call into question as to whether this quality is a trait that will help you succeed in your legal career. For some, being humble also means someone who is easily…
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Latinas and Political Representation
Midterm elections are finished, and after a few months break the big race to 2016 will commence. If you’re like me, you love political season. If you’re like most normal people—you hate it. Regardless how you feel about the systems and parties in this country, I want to introduce you to a new organization called Latinas Represent. A nonpartisan group dedicated to helping Latinas get in the game. Latinas compose only a little over 1% of elected officials, a dismal number. As we’ve mentioned again and again, all women’s issues are Latina issues and often it hits us even harder. So why aren’t we running to make things better? Latinas…
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Latinas Are Leaning In, A Book Review
Two summers ago, I brought the book Lean In with me on vacation to St. Martin and promptly threw it back in my travel bag because this is just not beach-reading material! A few months later, I was having lunch with one of the few Latina lawyers I know and she highly recommended the book. I started reading it and couldn’t stop. It was so informative and compelling, not just because the stories and statistics provided illuminated problems women face in the professional workforce; or because the advice seemed practical and useful; but because it was a window into a powerful world that we are trying to join. First, from a…
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When Family Obligation Become Obstacles
We have talked a lot about how to navigate the status quo within the legal community because there’s so much pushback from those already in power. However, we often overlook the pushback we receive from family/communities who fear that we’ll either abandon our connections or don’t understand the time and commitment needed in order to succeed. Now many of us would say that our families have always been our biggest supporters, but being our biggest supporters isn’t mutually exclusive from also subconsciously (or consciously) setting barriers in front of us. A few years ago, a study on Latino lawyers revealed that personal/family obligations were a big factor in derailing us from finishing/attending…
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Promoting Yourself in Performance Evaluations
Filling out evaluations is usually no fun. It can be time-consuming, anxiety-inducing, and can result in criticism you weren’t expecting. But some C-level executive decided evals were a good idea, and now most of us have to do it. Let’s just be happy that Microsoft’s former method of evaluating on a curve (!) hasn’t gone mainstream. When you have a chance to do a self-evaluation, it’s really important that you take advantage of highlighting your accomplishments as much as possible. The reason being that you’re likely the only one that is best suited to describe everything you’ve done well. Sometimes it’s difficult to do it, but we have to get used…
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Slaying Goliath II: Saving Money for Law School
I started law school immediately after college. This means I jumped into professional school without really understanding the nuances of loans, finances, or how to pay for my cost of living when I had only ever had small part-time retail jobs/work study. Now that I’m years removed, there are quite a few things I would do different, but the main thing I would change is my approach to paying for law school. Since I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer, I should have started taking the financial aspect more seriously and started planning and saving from the beginning. Of course, hindsight is twenty/twenty so instead, all I…
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When to Take a Compliment and When to Take a Hint
When you first entered the world of law, did everything feel normal and natural? For most, it takes time getting used to working in this profession, partially because we have to learn how to navigate the ins-and-outs of appropriate professional etiquette and customs. All systems of power create these procedures and social norms as a way to distinguish themselves from others. The legal community is no different in that it has imposed high standards of professionalism and business etiquette. If you didn’t grow up with parents or a close network that also abides by these standards then often it’s going to take a lot of trial and error before you feel like…