The Feminist Mystique

I am taking a seminar (the second one of my legal education but the first in which active participation is encouraged, if not mandated) but this one scares me in two very divergent ways. Firstly, the professor who teaches it was my first year torts professor and for whatever reasons (and I have confirmed reports that I am not crazy, that this indeed did happen), the woman had it in for me.

Decisions, Decisions: Choosing a Clerkship (or a Firm Job)

I find myself comparing the search for a clerkship to the callback process one suffers through as a 2L. Sitting in the airport, again, listening to my fellow classmates talking about how many offers they received from various firms, I find my mind wandering to those 3Ls who are applying to hundreds of clerkships with the hope that one might work out. In both interviewing with law firms and applying to clerkships, it seems as though each process lacks a discretion that we normally use in our lives. Our future employment is an incredibly important decision. We are deciding on a lifestyle choice, where we will set up residency, the type of work we will receive, how we will be treated. And yet, it seems to me that students, especially those who have eight, nine, ten offers of employment, don't think about these future matters which bear so greatly on their lives but instead go to sources like the vault.com, "the American Lawyer Review," and other such lists that rank law firms by prestige.

Law school "bashed" my love of learning. Does it have to be this way?

I am taking an amazing class at law school, the first one that I remember being truly excited to go to. It’s called Biblical Law, my first small seminar at law school, and the first class that has reminded me of the thrill of my undergraduate institution. The other classes I’ve taken--the first year curriculum and then a few other “highly recommended” courses, are done via large lectures with the other students either furiously typing away or playing solitaire on their computers--don’t stimulate me. I am diligent and hard-working, do the assigned reading, listen to the professor as much as one can listen to another person talking at me for 50 minutes straight, but in truth, I am bored. Law school doesn’t stimulate me like my undergraduate courses did. I don’t know what I thought law school was going to be when I made the decision to attend. I was in for a rude awakening...

The Permanent Clerk

Working with a law clerk at a federal court as an externship, I became amazed at how much work these permanent clerks actually accomplish. The permanent law clerk and her secretary essentially run the courtroom and chambers, assigning our work, going through the docket and giving the judges his cases, and even briefing him on every case.

Although the law clerks and the secretaries do tend to be women, the law clerks, for the most part, are all practicing attorneys who at one point practiced in the private sector and have a degree of specialization in some area of the law...