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Pick your Passion: Big Law or Public Interest?
I have noticed a trend that I want to help stop. Recently, I have met with multiple people interested in public interest jobs, but have no public interest background. The thing with public interest is that we really like seeing people “committed” to the cause. As in, experience, and rightfully so because this work isn’t easy. Yes, all lawyering is difficult, but in PI you are dealing with the most vulnerable, marginalized groups and we need to know you’re capable and have an interest in advocating for these groups. So when I ask people with no PI background why they’re interested in legal aid–imagine my anger when they tell me…
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Take Control: Why Ambition is Necessary for your Legal Career
It is so common when you get your first job to feel super grateful that someone took a chance on you. Gratitude is good! But there is a risk when we are so happy to have a job, to have our license, to be a real life attorney (!!!) that we kind of just go with the flow. Suddenly, a few years pass by and you realized you haven’t structured your career in a way that best benefits you. The best way to avoid this is to take control of your career by being ambitious. It may feel like we should shy away from seeming determined or focused on a…
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Your Goals Matter
First, sorry not sorry, but I can’t get off the Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter train–it was just such a good book! But it definitely has kept me thinking–in the novel, the imperfect daughter, Julia, struggles with meeting the standards her family sets and is more focused on creating a life for herself that’s different than what her small neighborhood has to offer–she wants to be a writer, go to college, see the world. Her parents don’t get why she can’t be happy to have a steady job and stay at home with her family. There were so many scenes where I was rooting for Julia and became just as…
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Dos and Don’ts for a New Attorney
You have a new job! Yay! I remember how exciting it is to start a new job (and what a relief it is to not have to keep job-searching!). If this is your first job as an attorney, it’s especially exciting because this is the place where you will learn what type of attorney you will become—and I don’t just mean what practice area you’ll focus on, but rather this where you’ll sharpen skills you don’t even know you have. And even more exciting, as a baby shark, this is where you’ll gain a sense of what type of cases/facts/and clients get you smelling blood in the water (gross). I…
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Play to Win: Using Respectability Politics as a Tool
I think one of the biggest things I struggle with here is how much I seem to push assimilation and accepting business norms. I dislike that I do it because when we abide by certain business norms set by those in power, we may end up believing (or portraying to others) that those norms are better than our own cultural standards. Or worse, we fall into a trap of believing that we’ll be accepted by those in power. I try to find a balance of discussing how most norms and ideals are created and enforced to advance those in power while at the same time, I take up a lot…
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Working Goals
Not to add more things on your plate, but if you’re on the resolution bus then I strongly encourage adding goals for work on your to-do list. When you start practicing, it is so easy to get into a day-to-day routine. Actually, that’s normal and what most people want! But the risk in this is that there is nothing that breaks up this monotony and suddenly you find yourself three or four years in with only minimal increase in skills or progress on your career goals. It bears repeating the career growth requires active participation, so why not take the opportunity of a new slate to figure out what you…
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Latina Lawyer Gift Guide 2017
So I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I totally use the holiday season as an excuse to buy things for myself. Wooops. Secret is out. But I can’t be the only one! In the past, I’ve shared basic/classic items that all new attorneys and law students would like–and those are all still solid choices. But, this year I thought I’d share some of the items that I have been constantly using and that translate into easy gifts for either new attorneys or law students: Statement earrings. I really love statement earrings at the moment. They aren’t too distracting–like some of my noisy statement necklaces, but add so much…
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Work is Work: Social Gatherings
I feel like a viejita lecturing about behavior at work, but I’m going to do it anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ First, a story: I know someone (nameless and not me!) that got black out drunk at a company event; got sick the next day at work; and it took about two years (when the next new coworker got too drunk) before their coworkers (and bosses) stopped teasing them about it. Mortifying, no? So because the holiday season is here, it just seems like the appropriate time to remind ourselves to not be fooled by the glittery warmth that is the holiday season into thinking parties we attend during company time or with company…
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Grit is not Enough
Are you gritty? Do you persevere above all obstacles to reach your goal? Chances are, if you are heading to law school, the answer is yes. We are so full of grit, y’all! Grit (perseverance and passion) is a quality characteristic–and students of color, living in poverty have it by the boatload. Yet, we place too heavy a burden on students of color when we focus on grit as the sole reason of why they succeed. Because when we only focus on the individual, we take away the responsibility schools and other systems of power have to help our communities. And grit isn’t enough for students to overcome those barriers.…
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Where My Ladies At? Being Excluded from Networking Events
One of my fave work related blogs, ask a manager, recently had a post about a work situation that many of us may face. The men, often bosses, networking together in a way that excludes women. This happens a lot, especially in our field. The reason is rarely malicious, but rather some events are “standard” and the standards are still set by men. Womp womp. So in this example, a bunch of dudes wanted to go to an NFL game and most of the women weren’t into football so they ended up excluding women from this event because they assumed they wouldn’t want to attend. If you watch Insecure than…