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Why is Law School Terrible?
In college I attended a conference where a student discussed how he was finishing his 1L year. And he made the joke almost all law students have made since the invention of law school, which was DON’T GO! And everyone laughed, but I remember the guy’s eyes flashing with a glint of a little desperation, but then he smiled again and said he was joking. But was he? Are we just joking when we tell people not to go? Why is law school so horrible that we dissuade others from attending? I’ve covered before why the advice for most people to not attend law school doesn’t really apply to Latinas.…
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Value Your Time: Learning to Say No
Learning to value your time is a skill. When you’re new to the profession you may add too much to your plate because you want to impress the higher-ups, or you want experience, or you just don’t know if you can really say no. I totally get that it’s not easy to recognize when some opportunities are just not right for you. But not knowing when to say no (even as a student) can lead to you wasting your time, feeling demoralized, and neglecting other, more important, projects. I learned this the hard way when I was a 3L: My law school had a pretty prestigious trial advocacy fellowship (that…
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Is Your Work Glamourous?
A recent article from Harvard Business Review discussed how women and people of color (so especially women of color) are often assigned tasks that while necessary to keep a business running are not assignments that help propel your career. We are often assigned to doing “Office House Work” where white men are more often assigned “Glamour Work.” Glamour work gets you noticed and can be used to show growth and your success and experience with glamour work can be used to push for a promotion or more plummy assignments. I highly encourage people to read the HRB article especially because it discusses what managers and companies should do to take…
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Don’t Take It Personal: Working to Accept Constructive Criticism
Previously, I’ve discussed my experience with the public defender’s office and how it was less than ideal. This was the first professional environment where getting yelled at was super common–not just by the clients and victims, who frequently sexually harassed me, but by the attorneys. This isn’t a shade post on PDs–I think the work they do is incredible and not respected enough, but my personal experience was bad. So bad that I can confidently say that I have never had a boss as straight up cray as I did my first time around with the PDs (I actually did two rounds with them lol). After that experience, I had…