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Adjusting to Office Work: What Every First Gen Needs to Know
As summer is getting closer and closer, I’m thinking a lot about my summer experiences in law school. My 1L summer was also the first long-term exposure I had a professional/office setting and I’m so grateful it was in a small social service agency, focused on Latino community because it let me “ease in” to those office standards and it didn’t feel so jarring. Looking back at my other experience, I do think one reason I always felt out of place in the other internships—and thus, didn’t really make the most of my experiences—was because I felt like I was playing a role of a professional rather than being one.…
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Whose Gate are You Keeping?
A few days ago I posted about the quandary I often feel in discussing professional norms and how to abide by them while understanding that those norms are rooted in classism, sexism, and racism. As always, my goal with teaching “how tos” is not to push for assimilation but rather to uncover these unspoken rules so people can decide which, if any, to follow. And how one abides by those norms is wholly dependent on your own career goals, current needs, and other obligations. Ok, but say you quickly learn and adapt to these standards, what does that mean? It means that while you’ve figured out the way to advance…
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Who’s the Daddy? Managing Clients
So there’s so much to discuss when it comes to the #SohoKaren situation and let me say emphatically her behavior may have stemmed from a lot of issues, but the most troubling one is the racism. Y punto. But what I want to talk about here is her hat. Ok, not just the daddy hat, but everything that led to an interview with a daddy hat and the importance of client management. Managing clients, especially difficult ones, is a skill set we must develop sooner rather than later. A common misconception is that we say yes to every client whim, but that is a disservice to the client. While we…
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Be the Boss: Making Partner
Last weekend I attended a panel sponsored by the Hispanic Lawyers of Association of Illinois and it was amazing. The four women (plus moderator) were full of great advice and experience. They all work in different sized firms throughout Chicago. Before the talk they shared some stats that are important to keep in mind when it comes to pursuing a career in big law. First, Latinas still make less than 2%of all US attorneys. We have the lowest rate of law firm partners for any racial/ethnic group (0.4%) and make up only 0.6% of General Counsel within Fortune 500s. And to round it all up, Latinas make up less than…
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Landing the Job: It’s the Little Things
It’s job hunting season for many of you. Whether you’re in law school and prepping for your next summer gig, a 3L looking for a fall fellowship, or a recent grad waiting to for Bar results you need to make sure you showcase yourself as a top candidate. When I was first starting out, I had never written a cover letter before–I had never had a professional job and all my internships in college had been obtained informally. I didn’t know the importance of a good cover letter or resume. Thankfully, I had a good career counselor who had strongly held beliefs about what cover letters should look like and…
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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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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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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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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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Networking Quick Fixes
I basically have a general store in my office (maybe side effects from playing Oregon Trail?). But really if you need something–aspirin, a protein bar, makeup wipes, whatever–I likely have it. I just like being prepared. And this preparation has been a lifesaver for me when I’ve had “surprise” situations that required that I look better than normal. Let me clarify, I aim to always look professional at work, but it’s legal aid. We’re tres lax when it comes to a dress code. I love it, but that also means that if I just pop up to a networking event or need to run to court, I may not always…