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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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“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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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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Overcoming Frustration: Building New Skills in Law School
Law school makes you a new person. There are many ways that it changes you, good and bad, but its main goal is to provide you a new way to think, write, and argue. And you’re thrown into this situation without much awareness of what’s to come. And when you’re in those classes, it can be really frustrating because all the ways you used to think, write, and argue are not necessarily wrong, but they’re just not right for this setting. Learning new skills is frustrating in general (hello, all my impatient Aries bebes!), but law school makes it worse because it also plays people against each other and makes…
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What I did Right in Law School
Surprise, not everything I did in law school was a mess LOL. Though I often share all my mistakes and upsets in law school, I did, in fact, manage to graduate on dean’s list after 1L year and snagged some cool experiences that helped me land employment post-graduation. But I rarely share that mostly because the overwhelming stress and chaos of law school seems to reign supreme. But as many are about to start another semester, I figured it was a good time to share some things that I did right when I was in school. And by “right” I mean that despite the internal doubt and external barriers, I…
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Summer Series: Discovering Public Interest Law
It’s another Summer Series post! The series where law students, law grads, and pre-laws share what they’re doing for the summer. Today we hear from Amanda, a rising 3L who has not one, but two, roles this summer—working for a major public interest institution and researching for a profession. Learn about her summer and how one class opened up so many more professional opportunities. Hi everyone! My name is Amanda McElfresh, and I am a rising 3L at the University of Kansas School of Law. This summer I have been working for Kansas Appleseed and for a professor at my school as a research assistant. At Kansas Appleseed, my role…
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Summer Series: Making it in Big Law
It’s time for Summer Series! The series where law students, law grads, and pre-laws share what they’re doing for the summer. I’m THRILLED to kick it off with Maria, a rising 3L in Chicago. A point of privilege, is that I’ve had the honor of knowing her before she started law school and have been blown away by how she has mastered this system. Get to know a little about her here and what a day in the life of a summer associate is like! Unlike many of my high school peers, I never considered higher education a realistic aspiration. Between financial instability and navigating the immigration system, I genuinely…