Reminder: Register for free NYC networking event by MAY 15 (the event will be on June 4th)

If you'll be in New York next month and you haven't yet registered, consider attending the free networking reception & presentation at White & Case on June 4th with Debbie Epstein Henry talking about the Best Law Firms for Women ranking she undertook with Working Mother Magazine last year. (We covered her survey here and here.) The deadline to RSVP is TOMORROW, May 15th. Hope to see you there! More details after the jump...

Open invitation to Debbie Epstein Henry talk & networking reception in NYC @ White and Case (RSVP required)

Catherine Gratton and Kelly Hoey at the White & Case Women's Network have extended an invitation to Ms. JD readers in the NYC area to attend a free networking reception & presentation on June 4th with Debbie Epstein Henry (one of our favorite women in law) talking about the Best Law Firms for Women ranking she undertook with Working Mother Magazine last year. (We analyzed her survey results here and here.) You can RSVP online until May 15th. See the flyer after the jump for more details...

Chat online with the man behind the US News & World Report law school rankings

You may have seen this posted on other blogs, so here's just a quick reminder: this Friday from 3-4pm EST, the ABA Journal is hosting a live chat with the man behind U.S. News & World Report's law school rankings. Think the rankings should do more tracking of diversity (women, men, minorities, parent-students, etc.) or give more weight to schools with stellar support for student life? Tell Robert Morse, the USN&WR rankings czar.

Congratulations to the winners of the Ms. JD & PAR essay contest!

Ms. JD and the Project for Attorney Retention received fifty-four passionate, well-written arguments for better work/life balance in the legal profession. Our organizations co-sponsored the contest to generate dialogue between Baby Boomer partners and Millennials. Essentially, we asked entrants to explain why lawyers who place a premium on work/life balance are not slackers. Ms. JD awarded $1,000 to the winning essayist as judged by PAR attorneys.

Lori Johnson, a 1L at the University of Mississippi, won first prize with her essay, Bridging the Gap on Work-Life Balance. Johnson previously studied accounting and finance at Texas A&M, then spent four years as a CPA for Ernst & Young.

 

Davida Brook (1L) and Andrew Bruck (3L) of Stanford Law School co-authored the second place essay, describing their work with the group Building a Better Legal Profession.

 

 

Sabrina Ursaner, a 1L at NYU, won third place with an open letter that begins, "Dear Baby Boomer Law Firm Partner..."

 

Jodi Rosenberg, of Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis LLP in New Jersey, earned Honorable Mention reflecting on fifteen years juggling as an attorney and mother of three. Rosenberg received her JD from Boston University in 1993. She also serves as an officer of The Valerie Fund, an organization that assists children with cancer.

 

The contest entries were inspiring and thought-provoking. We look forward to sharing them with you in coming days. Congratulations to all who entered!

A quick update on some Ms. JD projects

Busy week for Ms. JD! This is just a quick update--more later. We'll be announcing the winners of our work/life balance essay contest this week, so check back. We've also begun interviewing prospective Ms. JD legal interns, so if you are interested, apply ASAP before the position is filled for this summer. Meanwhile we're working hard in the run-up to the Ms. JD national leadership summit, which will be held in NYC this Friday and Saturday, April 4-5. We have about 100 law students coming to town from more than 50 schools in 30+ states. Each delegate has been selected by her school to help found a new, national organization of women law students. Thomas Adcock wrote a nice preview of the summit in a New York Law Journal article, Female Students Look to Create National Society [link requires login].

Work/life balance essay contest update

Thanks to everybody who entered the Ms. JD essay contest on work/life balance. Many of the essays were fantastic! The submissions are now being judged anonymously by attorneys recruited by the Project for Attorney Retention. The $1,000 winner will be announced by the end of this month.

That essay competition has now closed, but if you're looking for another way to pick up some cash, consider applying to work as a law clerk for Ms. JD this summer.

Paid legal internship available at Ms. JD [summer job search]

Ms. JD is seeking responsible and self-motivated law students who have just finished their first or second years of law school to intern for at least ten weeks in the summer of 2008. A $3,500 stipend will be provided.

Here is a complete job description. If you are ready to apply for the position, please complete this law clerk application online. A resume, cover letter, and writing sample are required along with three professional references, at least two of whom should be a law professor or previous employer.

Here's a review of the job from last summer's Ms. JD law clerk... (that would be me!) Last summer I got an outside public interest fellowship to work full-time for Ms. JD. It was such a good experience (for them and for me) that this year, they've decided to hire an intern directly. So I can tell you first hand that there's a variety of hands-on legal work, and plenty of work with practicing lawyers. With attorney supervision from Ms. JD's pro bono counsel, I researched and wrote memos on a couple of First Amendment issues; federal and California 501(c)(3) insurance and tax regulations; and a trademark application. I reviewed and revised several contracts. It was a great chance to network with attorneys at several firms, as well as attorneys working for several public interest orgs that have partnerships with Ms. JD. There was also lots of work on the website. That's just what I remember off the top of my head.

This summer's legal projects will differ somewhat (here's a list of job duties), but I hope that gives some sense of the variety of legal work available at a 501(c)(3) startup like Ms. JD. So if you happen to be a 1L (or a 2L) still looking for the right summer public-interest job, and you care about women in law, I recommend the position.

Last Chance to Win $1,000 by THIS FRIDAY [Work/Life Essay Contest with No Minimum Essay Length]

If you marked your calendar to write a few words about work/life balance, the clock is ticking... entries to win $1,000 are due this Friday, February 29th. Hey, "leap day" is an extra day in the month anyway, right? Take 10 minutes of it (or a bit more) to try for $1,000. The maximum word count is 1,500--and there's no minimum word count. Ms. JD and the Project for Attorney Retention just want to hear what you have to say.

Remember, the contest is open to attorneys as well as students. So all you working moms who post here--you could have $1,000 bucks extra for your child's education, just like that.

Here's the writing prompt (pasted below) and a link to the essay contest application.

Ms. JD and The Project for Attorney Retention promote work/life balance in the legal profession. When recent law school graduates push for more part time, flex time, or balanced hours, they are sometimes dismissed as "slackers." The message is: if you don't want to put in the work, pick another profession.

What would you say to a baby boomer law firm partner who thinks young lawyers are lazy and don't understand what the profession is all about? What would you say to a senior colleague who says she had to put in the work, so why shouldn't you? In short: what's your rationale for work/life balance reform in the legal profession?

You might contrast the work styles, lifestyles, or priorities of recent graduates with preceding generations of lawyers; compare the practice of law with other professions; assess the economics of work/life imbalances; or share persuasive personal experiences. Or, feel free to get creative and write us an argument unlike any of the examples we just mentioned.

Please limit your response to a maximum of 1500 words.
No minimum word count is required.

Your essay will be judged anonymously by a panel of distinguished, practicing attorneys. The judges include Joan C. Williams, Cynthia Thomas Calvert, Natalie Hiott-Levine, Linda Marks, Linda Bray Chanow, and Manar Morales. Good luck!

How to Avoid Crying at Work [Part 1 of 3]

Last week I linked to a lively discussion of crying in public. In a comment, CM asked how to prevent crying at inappropriate moments. Sintecho asked me the same thing a couple weeks back. So I've rounded up a bunch of bona fide face-savers plus a myth to debunk. From research and my all-too-personal experience, here are twelve ways to avoid tears at work.

· Focus on your breathing
· Take a step back
· Cauterize your tear ducts
· Distract yourself with pain
· Use props
· Let yourself get angry
· Try behavioral modification
· Do it for somebody else
· Forge ahead
· Just ignore it
· Deflect with a white lie
· Be honest and direct

Different situations call for different techniques. An explanation of when, how and why each technique works (or doesn't) follows after the jump...

Something to brighten your weekend: feeling grateful for U.S. women's opportunities for legal education and careers [Clippings]

University of Chicago 3L (and Mom-in-Law-School) Lag Live meditates on a New York Times article about the Middle East's "Education City."

[W]hat struck me the most was a section on the second page titled "Opportunities for Women." To quote some of the article: "Education City represents broad opportunities for women, in a nation where many families do not allow their daughters to travel overseas for higher education or to mix casually with men. Cornell stresses, proudly, that it was Qatar’s first coeducational institution of higher learning. The female students are very much aware of their new opportunities... 'I don’t want my father’s money or my husband’s money,' said Maryam al-Ibrahim, a 21-year-old second-year student at Virginia Commonwealth. 'I want to work for a private company and be myself, and I would like to become someone important here.' Mais Taha, a Texas A&M petroleum-engineering student, glows as she talks about her classes, including Reservoir Fluids--hydrocarbons, she explains sweetly--and Drilling."

I may not ever "glow" while talking about constitutional law, but I am grateful for the opportunity to attend law school--and much more than that, I'm grateful that it doesn't often occur to me to be grateful.

Amen to that.