Law School
-
Summer Series: writers wanted
Believe it or not, summer is almost here! And that means Summer Series!!! My fave series where we feature law students, law grads, and 0Ls who share their summer with us. Over the past years, we’ve heard from students whose passion for the law is re-ignited during their summer internships, students who discover exactly what kind of lawyer they want to be; we hear from Law grads who use their strength and grit to get through the Bar exam & empower all of us to keep fighting for our goals; and we hear from incoming students who are bright-eyed and ready to take on this new, difficult challenge. And the…
-
Self-Motivation In the Face of Discouragement
We are on the cusp on making history. Hopefully soon, a new SCOTUS Justice will be confirmed and we’ll have the first Black woman on the bench. If you watched the confirmation hearings you saw that Judge Brown Jackson was grace under pressure and one response was a beautiful description of what it was like to feel so out of place in distinguished spaces. I encourage you to watch it here, which starts around 17:08. But today I want to talk about what happened a few minutes before (around 14:50). Senator Padilla starts his question with a comment about when he was a in high school a well-meaning counselor discouraged…
-
The Magic and Panic of Post-Bar Life
If you took the February Bar, I have one thing to say–CONGRATULATIONS! YOU DID IT! Ok, I actually have more than one thing to say (obvi). It is such a relief to be done but the reality is that even after putting in all that work, you don’t know the results for weeks and the anxiety of what if can really drag you down. Life post-bar is filled with both the magic of what is possible–your entire career ahead of you. And the panic, “what if I didn’t pass?” It’s a horrible predicament. I remember, still, the weeks after the test where I’d have moments so excited about what…
-
How to Prepare if You’re Not Taking a Gap Year
When you’re in undergrad and know you want to be a lawyer, there’s a fork in the road where you have to decide whether you’re going to go straight through or take a gap year. I have spoken before on why a gap year is helpful and I do encourage folks to take one. But maybe you’re like me and won’t. In those instances, being in your early/mid-twenties and going into law school does require a little extra preparation to ensure you go in steady on your feet. If I could do it all over again (I’d take a gap year lol) ok but if I was going straight through…
-
Best Way to Calm Nerves When First Working With Clients
Ok, you’re a licensed attorney, you have a real lawyer job, with a client case and everything! But now you actually have to talk to clients-on your own and sometimes they don’t trust you because you look so young. Or they expect you to know about some random issue that has nothing to do with your practice area. How can you present a cool, calm, collected persona so that your clients trust you when you know there is so much you don’t know? First, take a deep breath. The good thing is that knowing there’s a lot you don’t know is the first step in good client counseling. It’s good…
-
The Best Way to Prepare for a New Semester
Congrats on getting through fall semester. For me, those were always a bit tougher. As you head into a new semester I thought it would be helpful to share some ways to assess and better prepare for a new year/new semester. Whether you were happy or disappointed with your grades, it’s helpful to stop and think about what went well—where did you do better than expected or what class took you by surprise by how interesting you found the topic to be? For those classes where you excelled, what do you think made the difference? And is there a way to replicate that for other classes? If you found a…
-
Don’t let law school take your joy!
Around this time each year I share this post. But a lot of time has passed since the original and I thought an update was warranted. For law students, as you try to enjoy your time off, I know that for many there will be a little voice in your head reminding you about your grades. And reminding you about a tough question and how you’re not sure about your answer. Or you’ll agonize over the question you didn’t get to because of time… What if your grades are bad? What if you don’t grade on to journal? What if you can’t apply to the job you want? It’s nerve-wracking!…
-
Picking the Right Internship
Your first year of law school, it can feel like a lottery as to where you end up for your first summer job and, unfortunately, it still is a struggle to gain clarity as you move on to your second year. If you are a 2L/3L, picking internships can feel like such a make or break experience and as if you’re at the mercy of the potential internship site/employer. Let me share a story: when I was a 3L, I attended the biggest public interest job fair in my area (fun fact, I had missed the previous year because I had to work and a law school admin sort of…
-
Making the Right Choice: Picking Law Schools
When it comes to deciding where to apply to law school it may seem like you have 200+ choices and that can feel super overwhelming. But the reality is that based on your goals, needs, stats, and finances your options won’t be as vast. And that’s a good thing! Lots of people cast nets far and wide when they apply, which is one strategy. But if your finances are limited (like mine were) then you have to be judicious when it comes to deciding how many fee applications you want to pay for and that means really understanding what each school can offer you. When I applied, the LSAC fee…
-
How Am I Doing? Preparing for Finals with a lot of Unknowns
One of the great things about law school is that you don’t know how well you’re doing until you get your grade. Because most traditional classes are graded based on one anonymous exam at the end of the semester. Did I say great? I meant horrible. I don’t know who’s idea it was to just hope people get what’s being taught without much check in but here we are. Of course, most schools do have ungraded mid-term exams, but if you’re like me, it’s not very helpful. Or maybe it’s not that it’s helpful but rather you don’t know what to do with the information. When I took my…