Advice

Explore Your Options, Be Happy

Wendi Adelson — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:27:46 -0500

I love my job. I feel extremely lucky to be able to do the kind of work that I do, and to be able to say (with complete honesty) that I wake up every day excited to get to work. Although I am still new at it, my colleague tells me that it continues to never get old, even after a decade or so. I am primarily an immigration attorney with the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. I get to represent unaccompanied immigrant children, victims of human trafficking, asylum seekers, victims of violent crime, and abandoned, abused, neglected and battered immigrant women and children. The direct service portion of my job is the most rewarding, as well as the most challenging in every way possible.

My job is a hybrid one and involves several other aspects in addition to direct representation. When not fighting with the Department of Homeland Security, I do state and national legislative advocacy, academic writing, education (I teach a course at the law school on Asylum and refugee law and supervise law students who do their mandatory pro bono hours by working at the Center), outreach, and training (i.e. we are currently training our state's department of children and families on how to best identify and care for child victims of human trafficking).

The best advice I could give someone still in law school is to really explore your options. Take classes or participate in clinics or externships outside your comfort zone. However, if you REALLY know what you want to do, then go for it with everything you have. Do not take a job at a big law firm because it is being offered to you if you have already worked there over a summer and know you don't want to spend your days there. Life is short, but it feels like an eternity if you are unhappy with your job.

Wendi Adelson serves as program director for the Human Rights and Immigration Law Project at the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University. Prior to joining FSU's faculty in 2007, Ms. Adelson was a Clinical Fellow and lecturer in clinical education and immigration and a staff attorney in the University of Miami School of Law's Children and Youth Law and Community Health Rights Education Clinics. Her work has focused on the intersections between immigration law and child advocacy. She has written an exhaustive manual that instructs lawyers, judges and immigration and child advocates on the Special Immigration Juvenile Visa.

Ms. Adelson is a Harry S. Truman Scholar, chosen for her dedication to work in public service. She is a former Junior Fellow, focusing on migration policy, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Adelson holds an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Ms. Adelson is a lawyer and member in good standing of The Florida Bar. She received her undergraduate degree from Brandeis University , where she received a Gilbert scholarship, graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa and received her law degree, cum laude, from University of Miami School of Law where she was a Reid Scholar.

7 Truths that Every Working Woman Should Know Before Having a Child -- Part I

Peg — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:52:44 -0600

Shortly after my post about lactation rooms at BigLaw I had a brief conversation about breastfeeding with a friend (also a lawyer) who has not yet had children. The conversation reminded me of all the things that non-mothers don't know about motherhood.

I was one of those people that carefully timed my two pregnancies to fit into my professional schedule. (I had both kids before law school but while I was working in an arguably more demanding career with greater responsibilities.) The first pregnancy was timed almost exactly and very purposefully so that I would give birth between a planned extended business trip out of state and a programmed promotion. My due date was exactly two weeks after I was supposed to return home from the trip and 10 weeks before I was set up to take a promotion with greatly increased responsibilities. I recognize that I (we) was fortunate to be able to plan the pregnancy with such precision. Very few people actually can. However, you know what they say about the best laid plans.... Our first child was born 17 days early while I was still half way across the country on business.

I was also one of those people that, as soon as I became pregnant, started reading up on pregnancy, childbirth, parenting. I must have read a dozen books about the first year of parenting and almost as many baby name books. I subscribed to a handful of magazines and got another couple free subscriptions related to pregnancy from my OB doctor.

Well, there are a number of things that I didn't learn. A few of these were real surprises to me. I have narrowed it down to 7 "myths" that I think every professional woman should hear the truth about before having a child.

Are They All Neanderthals?

Manamana — Mon, 9 Apr 2007 23:57:08 -0500

Kalokagathia wrote earlier this week in Introductions Matter about potential problems arising from simple introductions, and it reminded me of a discussion we had Monday in my Professional Responsibility class (of all places) about male-female relationships in the workplace. It wasn't just romantic relationships (although that was part of it), but also mentor-mentee and co-worker relations that were discussed. And it appears that there is a lot of tension going on these days between the sexes.

Hi. I'm an addict.

Manamana — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:13:13 -0500

Confession time: I’m an email addict. Seriously. I have five email addresses that I constantly check most days (it tends to die down a little between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning). I think I probably spend most of my “working time” composing and answering emails, particularly since I have gone far enough into my law school career to be somewhat indifferent to reading for class. By the end of the week, I’m so sick of emailing that I have even been able to overcome my long-standing, deeply-rooted aversion to the phone, and starting ringing people up.

Be Open to Change

Deborah R. Schwarzer — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:13:05 -0500

By Deborah R. Schwarzer, Of Counsel, GCA Law Partners LLP I’m reluctantly realizing that I’m ancient. But with age comes history, experience and, with luck, perspective. When I attended the University of Chicago Law School in the early 80’s, women made up about 30% of the class. We weren’t pioneers; those in earlier classes served in that role. We weren’t all alike. And we didn’t have to wear those horrible blouses with the gigantic self-bows that women just a few years back had had to wear (I have incriminating pictures of my sister, also a J.D., in one of those). But we still weren’t the same as the guys, especially when it came to employment. I fled West, fearing that my gender would stand in my way (I had clerked in Cincinnati one summer and was appalled by attitudes there, particularly outside the legal community. I didn’t like being called “a lady lawyer.” I did not wish to be regarded as a novelty, like a talking dog).

Improve Your Chances of Getting on Law Review

Anonymous — Fri, 2 Feb 2007 10:40:02 -0600

Tips from a 3L at Stanford Law School

Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

Callie M. Vivion-Matthews — Fri, 2 Feb 2007 02:00:16 -0600

The following is the text of the graduation speech given by Callie M. Vivion-Matthews in December of 2006 at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law.

Her speech can be watched at http://smith4.net/Callie_0002.wmv

Introduction

Many of my fellow graduates told me that they voted for me to speak today because they think I am funny, and in fact, have demanded that I be so today. No pressure, right?! They want to laugh – laugh away all the anxiety and stress and craziness that has consumed so much of these last three and half years as a law students. They want me, I think, to put this law school journey into some perspective.