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Pick a Passion: Overcoming Guilt While Providing Support
Once you start working as an attorney, you’re typically bombarded with requests for fundraisers, events, etc. helping support one cause after another. The good news is that, student debt aside, many of us eventually find ourselves able to participate in traditional forms of philanthropy. The bad news is that being more aware of problems can lead to you feeling overwhelmed with your ability to help. As women of color, we may feel more empathy to seeing these injustices because we know first-hand how unfair, mean, and biased the system can be to others—many of these causes are not just something we hear of, third-hand, but rather real problems our family…
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Still Searching: Late Start to Legal Summer Jobs
If you have not been able to secure a summer job yet (especially as a 1L), I don’t want to alarm you, but it’s really time to get to it. Perhaps you missed my tip to get your hustle on in the late fall, but what’s done is done and you’re still looking somewhat late in the game. Before I move on, I just want to sympathize because I didn’t get my first summer job until April (!) my 1L year. So I get that life happens, and when you’re not in the know about how this process works you don’t realize what needs to be prioritized. But regardless, you…
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Negotiating while Latina
I went to a fantastic Latina blogger summit last weekend and there was a ton of great lessons and activities, but what I really appreciated was the mission to empower and encourage other Latinas pursuing careers in a still somewhat novel and alternative industry. During one of the breakout sessions on negotiation,the instructor–a dynamic Latina with a background in business–mentioned how the fear of the female penalty often holds us back when we try to advocate for ourselves. The penalty being that women are often labeled as too aggressive when we participate in salary negotiations; or give ourselves strong self-evaluations; or hell, just while leading, in general. So instead we may demure because we don’t want to be dinged with that…
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Fair Pay: International Women’s Day 2016
We discussed this last year, but the theme of International Women’s Day 2016 is parity: What can we do as individuals and a community to close the pay gap so that women are paid their worth? One of Latinas Uprising’s focal points, when it comes to discussing women, equality, and progress is almost always on women and the workplace; most importantly, women and the income we earn. The sad reality is that we earn a pittance compared to other groups and that impacts our quality of life (and that of our families), our earning potential, and our economic capital. So any raised awareness on the income disparity and how to close gap…
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Latinas, You Should Go To Law School.
I feel like I’m breaking a code when I discuss the negative aspects about law school. Above all, I do not want to dissuade anyone from achieving their higher Ed goals. And the reality is that we need more Latinas in the law, for real, but I also want to give practical information and be as real as possible. And the reality is that the job market still sucks—especially for those interested in public interest/government jobs. There just hasn’t been a bounce back like we’ve seen in the private sector. This, on top of the crazy amount of student debt so many of us have to take on if we…
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Planning Ahead for the New Semester
I am so eager to get back into the rhythm of my normal. The last three months of 2015 were kind of out of control-I easily worked every weekend to meet some deadline/research. It was really out of the ordinary for my job. Thankfully, I think things are settling down and getting back to normal. Having said that, I really like the beginning of the year. It’s totally cliché, but the idea of starting fresh just really appeals to me. Maybe because I went to school for a million years so I’m still used to starting fresh in January. For those that are actually in school and starting a new…
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Quarterly Report: Student Loan Repayment Plans
We’re back again with another post on money! While we celebrate everyone graduating from college and law school, another sore topic is paying back loans. Today our “in-house” accountant gives us some info on payment plans, and other important financial info to keep in mind before our grace period ends and we suddenly find ourselves unable to reduce or pay back our debt. More likely than not, you’ll be graduating from law school with student loans from law school and possibly even from your undergrad program. And if you’re like most people, you’ve probably thought about what happens after graduation, but instead decide that you’ll deal with the loans when…
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Financially Surviving 1L Summer
Last week, I saw my supervisor from my first summer job as a 1L and I realized it’s been seven years (!), since I emailed her hoping that she’d hire me as an intern. Time flies guys! It was a great summer, but, like usual, it was not easy financially. I remember hearing of other students getting unpaid clerkships or needing to sublets apartments and all I kept thinking was how can they afford it?! And then as spring drew closer and closer, all I could think was how was I going to afford my summer? 1L summer can be a little tougher than 2L summer because many positions for…
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A Rock and Hard Place: Negotiating Salaries as Women
When I was a 2L, my Women’s Law Society brought in a group called WAGE to talk about salary negotiations. It was an eye-opening experience and I’m so grateful that WLS opened my eyes to the wage gap and helped us learn skills to push back and feel confident in negotiating our salaries. When I started my job and received my offer, I knew I didn’t have much wiggle room because our salaries were based on our Union contract, but I still made it a point to see the COO so that he could explain to me the reasoning behind the offer. Mostly, I just wanted to feel comfortable and…
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Big Spender: Paying for the Bar Exam
Everyone knows that this is an expensive profession. Getting into law school costs money; being in law school costs money; and being admitted into the bar costs a lot of money. Aside from paying for the bar application ($500+), you also have to pay for a prep course ($1000+) and it’s strongly encouraged you don’t work during this time. Obvi, this is super easy because we all are trust-fund babies that survive on light and air so we don’t have to worry about rent, food, or bills. :/ Ok so actually not so easy. I remember the last semester of law school just feeling this constant pressure of always thinking, “how…