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How to Survive Law School
If you’re starting law school this semester, I have a few things to say–first, congratulations! This is a super exciting endeavor and you deserve a lot of acknowledgment! So Yay! My second piece of unsolicited advice is to not let anxiety and fear of the unknown overcome you. Instead, become fearless and adopt a badass attitude. This new chapter will be overwhelming, and if you’re going to survive you have to fortify yourself with confidence–it’s the only way you can make it through the next three years. For some of us, that self-confidence may come naturally. But if you’re like me, you’re feeling not only excited and anxious, but also…
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Prepping for your First Week as a 1L
I remember the long train ride as I went to my first law school class. Property, with Professor Rose. I brought my laptop because even though I had never used a laptop to take notes in undergrad, I just knew that in law school note-taking on a computer was a must. Twenty minutes into the class, my computer’s battery ran out. Then I realized I had forgotten to bring my power cord… It was a whimper of a start for my legal career. Do you remember your first law course? I hope it was better than mine. Now, obviously that didn’t really predict what school would be like, and I…
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Surviving Law School Competitiveness
When I first started law school I was very scared about the competition regarding grades. I was never the type A, perfectionist student so I was even more worried about being around those types of people. I had read the books and heard stories about what law school was like (i.e. mean and cut-throat), but didn’t know if that was still realistic. I went in holding my breath hoping it wouldn’t be so bad. Thankfully, the majority of my time was chill, until around the time the semesters were ending when everyone realized they had competitions to prepare for, papers to write, jobs to apply for, and exams to ace. It…
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Finding Affordable Suits for Interviews
One thing I didn’t realize before I first started law school was how much I would have to spend on suits. I mean, I knew business attire was necessary, but I didn’t know just how expensive they actually were. I had to do a lot of digging and searching for something appropriate, professional, and still very affordable because I didn’t have extra money for department store suits. If you are preparing for OCI, I’m sure you’re in the midst of finalizing all the details, including what to wear. For those done with OCI, how did you offset the cost of buying suits for interviews or competitions? For those about to…
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Ending a Bad Internship
A lot of advice exists on how to start off an internship strong (which is very useful), but not enough advice exists on how to cross the finish line as a model student intern. I’ve had students that don’t “get” the mission regarding poverty law. They didn’t realize not all lawyers are in court every day of the week; or they realize that it’s not as prestigious as they would like; or they realize that this just isn’t the area of law in which they want to practice. Those are all fair realizations. But what is unacceptable, is when students decide that they won’t try to meet the minimum standard,…