Mark Your Calendars Now! Ms. JD’s 2014 Conference: Passion Forward is set for February 21-22, 2014 in Austin, Texas!

Ms. JD is proud to announce that our Sixth Annual Conference on Women and the Law will be February 21-22, 2014 at The University of Texas School of Law, in partnership with the Center for Women in the Law.  We anticipate that this year’s conference, themed Passion Forward, will prove to be one of our most exciting and successful events to date. 

Last year at She Leads we provided attendees with the tools to identify and develop their leadership skills. Now, fueled by Ms. JD’s passion for helping law students and young lawyers thrive, we plan to help participants set themselves apart by showcasing the things they are truly excited about. 

Passion Forward will take participants through a day of workshops focused on identifying and showcasing your passion.  First, we will help you identify what you’re passionate about and how you are best able to communicate those passions.  Then, we’ll work with you to build skills that will help you display your passion to the world and set yourself apart in the legal profession and beyond.  Finally, we’ll leverage the power of women supporting women to create a personalized master plan for presenting your passions after you leave the conference.  In short, you will walk away the first day of Passion Forward with new and concrete skills to tell the world what is most important to you.

Join the Passion Forward Conference Planning Committee!

Are you passionate about changing the face of the legal profession? Do you enjoy event planning? Join the conference planning committee for Ms. JD’s 6th annual national conference, Passion Forward, taking place in February 2014! To apply, please complete this questionnaire by 11:59 pm PST on June 2nd. 

The Conference Planning Committee will work directly with Ms. JD's Board of Directors and Conference Coordinator to select speakers, design activities, and generally plan and promote our 2014 Conference.  Membership on the Committee is an excellent opportunity to take on a leadership role in a highly visible national organization. Conference Planning Committee Leaders will be regularly recognized on Ms. JD's website and in materials related to the conference, thus garnering them national recognition for their work and commitment to women's issues. We invite both men and women to apply for the position and look forward to seeing your application!

Kicking Off Ms. JD's Wonder Women Series with a Q&A with California Attorney General Kamala Harris - Send Us Your Questions!

This year’s Ms. JD Fellows are excited to announce the Wonder Women Series! The “Wonder Women” series will share the remarkable journeys of women lawyers in public service, academia, business, politics, and the judiciary. We hope that these interviews will help guide the aspirations of young women launching their legal careers in a way that no law school class or careers guide can do.

To kick off our Wonder Women series, we will be interviewing current Attorney General of California Kamala Harris and would like to invite all of you to submit questions, so start thinking of everything you’ve always wanted to ask a successful and outstanding woman lawyer! Attorney General Harris is the first woman, the first African-American, and the first South Asian to hold this position in California. Prior to being elected Attorney General, Ms. Harris served as the District Attorney of San Francisco for two terms. Other highlights from her career include her service in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and as the head of the San Francisco City Attorney’s Division on Children and Families, as well as authoring the book, Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. Attorney General Harris was recently named to TIME’s 2013 100 Most Influential People List. She received her B.A. from Howard University in 1986 and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1989.

What Does It Mean To Be A Public Interest Attorney?

Editor's Note: This post is published as part of a series of works submitted by applicants to Ms. JD's 2013 Public Interest Scholarship Program. Each applicant was asked to explain their philosophy as a public interest attorney. This post is from one of our winners, Jennifer Li.

My father was one of the few among his generation in China to successfully complete his high school equivalency following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, allowing for my parents’ emigration two years after the Tiananmen Square riots so that they could safely pursue higher education and provide the same for me in turn. I was five years old when we arrived in the Norman Rockwell-esque town of River Falls, Wisconsin, a complete departure from my childhood spent in the Soviet-style housing of 1980s China, where bicycles still dominated traffic and, as a preschooler, I had marched in place each morning to Communist pledges barked from a loudspeaker. Later, my parents migrated frequently across the country in pursuit of their respective graduate degrees and careers, and by the time I arrived in New York for college, I’d lived in seven far-flung states and been the new kid at the lunch table at nine different schools.

Ms. JD’s Pre-Law Prep Guide: The End of the Beginning: Starting the Next Chapter

It is hard to believe that time has passed so quickly and that we suddenly find ourselves at our last blog for this series. In the words of Leonard DiCaprio (a.k.a. Shakespeare), parting is such sweet sorrow! But we couldn’t leave without saying goodbye and leaving you with a few words of wisdom.

Over the past few weeks, we have taken you step-by-step through the process of becoming a successful law school applicant. First, we provided tips and tricks on how to determine whether or not law school is for you.  The purpose of this information was not to scare or intimidate you, but to inform and educate students at all graduate levels about the importance behind the decision they are faced with making about their futures.  Then we took you through the pieces of the application, including the dreaded LSAT!  Finally, we gave you some advice to ensure that you had a strong foundation in place before kicking off your first year.  (Think you missed something?  The full Pre-Law Prep Guide is available here.)  These tips were just the beginning. Although this is our last blog, this is not our final farewell.

Microsoft Diversity IP Law Summit

If you are or will be in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area on April 22, 2013, you are invited to attend the Microsoft Diversity IP Law Summit at Stanford from 1:30pm - 8:00pm.

Microsoft Legal and Corporate Affairs,  the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and sponsoring law firms Merchant & Gould P.C. and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP are bringing together leading companies and firms from across the country to increase awareness of careers in Intellectual Property (IP), and to share best practices for pursuing a career in this dynamic field of law.

The free event includes a career discussion with lawyers representing a broad range of paths to IP, as well as a panel focused on what firms and companies are doing to support IP law career opportunities for law students from a diversity of backgrounds.

Participants may attend the sessions that work with their schedules, there is no requirement to attend the full day.

Ms. JD and Banana Republic Flagship present: The Equal Partners Fashion Event

Ms. JD and Banana Republic Flagship invite you to attend "The Equal Partners Fashion Event" on Wednesday, April 17, 2013, from 5:30 to 8:00pm, at 256 Grant Ave., San Francisco, CA 94108

Ms. JD recognizes that achieving equality in the workplace requires creating equal partnerships - in the office and at home! 

So we're celebrating Equal Pay Day with our partners, fashionably!  Come out with your partner or just a big group of friends, enjoy a fashion presentation, 40% one full-priced item and 25% off the rest of your purchase at Banana Republic Flagship (some exclusions may apply), a sweets bar, and a great networking opportunity.  Banana's personal stylists along with Ms. JD's resident legalista/fashionista, Nicole Chiu-Wang (author of Chiu on This) will be on hand to help you and your partner pick out that outfit that makes you feel confident and powerful.

When: Wednesday, April 17, 2013

 5:30pm Networking and Sweets Bar

6pm Fashion Presentation

6:30pm Shopping!

Who: All Young Professionals!

How Far Have We Come?

Editor's Note: We are pleased to share this fantastic event with the Ms. JD community. If you are in or around Chicago on March 8th, please join us in celebrating the achievements of women! 

In collaboration with the Chicago Bar Association Alliance for Women and the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession, please join the Women's Affinity Group of Baker & McKenzie to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8, 2013 in Baker & McKenzie’s Chicago office to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. Organizations, governments, charities, educational institutions, women's groups, corporations and the media celebrate the day. We celebrate the achievements of women while remaining vigilant and tenacious for further sustainable change. There is global momentum for championing women's equality, and this program celebrates that progress.

Keynote Speaker: Laurel Bellows, ABA President

ABA President Laurel Bellows will speak on two principal issues: equal pay and domestic violence. Throughout the program we will also have an international dialogue, hearing from women around the world talking briefly about their experiences as women in their own countries, some of the struggles they believe women face where they are from, and what is being done to improve the standing of women.

Happy New Year Ms. JDs! We're celebrating 2012 and Looking Ahead to 2013. (Post 1 of 2!)

To Our Ms. JD Community:

Happy New Year!  Over the next two posts, we'll be celebrating some of our favorite moments of 2012 and looking forward to 2013.  Most importantly, we want your help in determining what we're going to deliver for you this year! 

We thought we'd start by looking back over some of our best moments of 2012:

1. In January, Ms. JD hosted our first ever Ms. JD regional event, bringing together women from law schools around the Bay Area to watch the hit documentary Miss Representation.  We had so much fun that we repeated the event in DC and then LA! Wait until you see what 2013 has in store for regional events!  More on that in the next post.

2. In March, Ms. JD turned six. We celebrated her sixth birthday with a leadership transition. Ms. JD's Founder and President of six years, Elizabeth Pederson, and Ms. JD's founding CFO, Karen Hernandez became Board Emeritae and Ms. JD announced our second President, Katie Larkin-Wong. This year we also welcomed new board members: Jamie Bence, Tanya Falleiro, Sheila Forjuoh, Kim Watson, and Liz Vaysman. Each of these women distinguished themselves in volunteer positions for Ms. JD before joining our Board of Directors. They were welcomed, of course, by board members Courtney Gabbara, Connie Lam, Keisha Stanford, Jessie Kornberg, and Janet Wallace.

15 Things You Didn't Know About NWLSO Liaison Connie Lam

1.  I am terrified of balloons.  Love them in theory, but when I see them in person I am in dread fear of them popping.

2.  I make a killer red velvet cupcake that actually tastes like chocolate.  Cream cheese frosting, of course.  Anything else is sacrilege.

3.  I studied classical piano under the same teacher for 11 years, but was dropped from tennis class for being an uncoordinated menace.  

4.  If I could do anything other than practice law, I would own and operate a neighborhood bakery and cafe called Lady Lamalot.  Okay, maybe the name could use some work.

5.  My Netflix queue is an ode to my favorites: Masterpiece Theater, Joss Whedon and Quentin Tarantino.

6.  My childhood idol was Sherlock Holmes, master of deduction.  Despite my best efforts, I have never come close to his genius.  

7.  I adore dogs, though I don't have one myself.  Attending the Westminster dog show is at the top of my bucket list.  Don't judge.  Me, that is.

8.  I hate surprises so much that I always read the end of books before the beginnings.

9.  My secret talent is doing impressions.  I'm building my repertoire of characters and may one day even muster the courage for an open mic night...maybe.