One Essential Trait of a Leader is...Empathy

Charles de Gaulle once famously asked of the French, “how can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”  In the United States, the melting pot eventually became the salad bowl, and multiculturalism has long been one of the paramount virtues of American society.  However, election season often brings with it polarizing identities and narrowly defined voting constituencies.  But whether we are identified as the 1%, the 47%, red, blue, rainbow, liberal, or conservative, we all retain a unique array of experiences and beliefs that bring vastly different expectations for our leaders.

Half of the country will not vote for the man who wins on November 6.  But when the winner is sworn into office in January, he will vow to represent not only those who vote for him, but the rest of the population as well. To effectively lead the country, the new president will need to empathize with the population in all its diversity.  Whether a leader is running the country, directing a corporation or firm, or heading a student organization, she should understand the distinct human experiences that make up the people she is representing.

Ms. JD International Scholar Update: Monica Athieno

Editor's Note:  Monica Athieno is a 2010 Ms. JD International Scholar studying law at Makerere University in Uganda thanks to the Global Eduction Fund. 

Monica reports:

I am very grateful to once more have an opportunity to write to you to inform of an up-date of what has been happening on my side. I am very appreciative for the continued support you have extended towards my course at the University and I also expend my heart most felt gratitude for the continued follow up.

I am privileged to let you know that last semester ended well; it closed on 28th May and that marked the start of our holiday. It was a really long vacation that stretched up to 18th August. During the holiday I was helpful to my family and to the community around me. I had chance to interact with students from other Law schools and it was beneficial.

The Unexpected Challenges of Law School: Speaking Up

Editor's Note: This essay was submitted by Masooma Javaid in response to Ms. JD's prompt, "What about law school presented an unexpected challenge? What have you done to successfully meet this challenge?"

On the first day of law school, I ended up sitting next to a tall male, who had graduated from Harvard and was in the Navy. This was the first sign of what I would face in my first year. Don’t get me wrong, Steven was a great guy, but he represented what I was up against.  I was pursuing a male dominated profession, in a male dominated section, in a law school class that was sixty percent male.

Coming from a Women’s College, I was shocked. Seeing so many men around didn’t shock me. That was not the problem. The problem was what happened in our classrooms. For some reason, class participation seemed to be limited to men. They would always speak in class. Very few, if any, women would speak up in class. I know this was not a problem in other sections of my first year class, but for some reason it ended up being the trend in our section. Many of our professors told us that those who participated would receive a higher grade for their participation, but still only the men participated.

Resources for 1Ls

Every year, we are so excited to welcome new law students to Ms. JD.  If you are just getting started with law school, here are a few posts from our site that you might find interesting as you get started.

• A recent popular post sharing 10 Things Every First Year Student should know to facilitate career success.
• One of our amazing Writers in Residence posts monthly about things no one tells you before you go to law school (but they really, really should). 
• One of our board members explores the relationship between 1L and food- eating well, and studying well.
• A post about why you need to think about the exam on the first day of class.
• Some tips for how to spend the summer before law school.
• As summer days turn to fall, thinking about exams and summer jobs.
• Five things 1Ls can do before orientation to make the transition into the law school easier.

If you are new to law school and new to Ms. JD, welcome! And be sure to find out if your school has a NWLSO Chapter.  Good luck this year and be sure to stay with Ms. JD for tips and thoughtful commentary throughout your legal career.

Five Things 1Ls Can Do Now to Make Orientation Easier

The clock is winding down! It’s almost time for the march of the newbies, er, 1L orientation, at many law schools around the country.  Orientation is, for many, a really chaotic time full of new friends and general law school confusion.  But, there are a lot of items to check off in that first week, inside and outside of the classroom. Here are a few things you can do before you head to campus to make the first few weeks a bit less hectic:

1.  Buy Your Books Now and Don’t Blow off those First Assignments. There is a lot of reading in law school.  You will probably get your first assignments well before your first class.  Those first few cases you read will be very, very tough.  Trust us, it gets easier (and you might not end up doing much of the reading...) but this is a skill you need to take the time to nail down now so when you have to do it, you can. 

2. Skim the Table of Contents. Do you really know what civil procedure covers?  Did you think tort was supposed to have an “e” at the end? Skim the table of contents of each of your casebooks and get a sense of what the class is really about, so that you have a roadmap in your head as the professor moves into the material.  Also, the table of contents can be a godsend for those days when you’re feeling lost.

The Unexpected Challenges of Law School: The "Standard" Law School Curriculum

Editor's Note: This essay was submitted by Nisha Kashyap in response to Ms. JD's prompt, "What about law school presented an unexpected challenge? What have you done to successfully meet this challenge?"

Like many of my peers, I started law school with a concrete understanding of the field of law I wanted to pursue. Even though I began law school immediately after completing my undergraduate degree, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work and volunteer extensively with at-risk, underrepresented children and I knew that this was the community I wanted to serve with my legal degree. Pursuing a career in youth and education law would be, however, more difficult than I anticipated.

The Unexpected Challenges of Law School: Financial Hardship (Not the Expected Kind)

Editor's Note: This essay was submitted by Alicia Ivory in response to Ms. JD's prompt, "What about law school presented an unexpected challenge? What have you done to successfully meet this challenge?"

As an incoming law student, I thought I expected it all; from the stress, to the vast amount of reading, to the competitiveness of my classmates. The one thing I failed to anticipate was the American Bar Association’s limit on the amount of hours a week a full-time law student can work. As someone putting herself through law school, this was a shock to me. I had no idea that I could not be a full time law student and work more than 15 hours a week. This was disclosed to me while sitting at orientation preparing to start my legal education. So there I was, sitting in orientation stressing out over not having enough money to pay for rent, tuition, books, and my regular living expenses. Not to mention I enjoy partaking in “me time” at the nearest mall. So what is a girl to do when she does not want to completely live off student loans? Here is my solution.

The Unexpected Challenges of Law School: Time Management

Editor's Note: This essay was submitted by Adrienne Young in response to Ms. JD's prompt, "What about law school presented an unexpected challenge? What have you done to successfully meet this challenge?"

As a former middle school teacher with Teach For America, I was keenly aware of the importance of timeliness, details-oriented short and long-term planning and the struggles of achieving a balanced lifestyle while maximizing successes in the classroom. Presumably, these skills would translate seamlessly into law school where I was again greeted with early mornings, extensive planning, and a desire for academic achievement. Even without the added responsibility of 30 impressionable 12-year-olds, time management was, and still is, the greatest challenge that I have tackled in law school.

I conceptualize time management as an overarching theme in three parts of my life: personal, educational, and professional. In each of these three areas, law school has proven to be an obstacle to effective time management.

5 Tips for Law Students Attending the 2012 ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago; By Raychelle A. Tasher

Raychelle is a 3L student at FAMU College of Law in Orlando, FL, a 2012 Ms. JD Fellow and Vice-Chair Elect of the ABA Law Student Division. She can be reached at RaychelleTasher@gmail.com

            The American Bar Association is the largest national association of American lawyers. Founded in 1878 in Saratoga Springs, New York by 100 lawyers from 21 states, the ABA is the premiere professional association for legal professionals across the globe. This year the ABA will host its Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, the headquarters of the ABA. There is a plethora of networking events, mixers, CLE courses, and activities to keep legal professions from all spectrums of law engaged from August 2nd through August 7th.

            The Annual Meeting of the ABA Law Student Division, the largest professional student organization in the nation, has designed activities and programs to engage law students and promote the goals of the Law Student Division on a national level. The ABA Law Student Division anticipates over 400 law students from across the country to represent their respective law schools at the ABA Law Student Division Assembly meeting. This is a great opportunity to network with the next generation of future attorneys.

The Unexpected Challenges of Law School: Being a Minority in Law School

Editor's Note: This essay was submitted by Jane Jankie in response to Ms. JD's prompt, "What about law school presented an unexpected challenge? What have you done to successfully meet this challenge?"

When I left the Bronx to start law school at the University of Michigan, I told my friends that it was with “a dollar and a dream.”  I believed that was all I needed to succeed and be happy at my new school and in my new mid-western life. Having done well in both a college and a post-graduate job that threw me out of my element, I did not foresee the alienation, isolation and anxiety that I would meet in law school.

As a woman of color, coming from a low-income background, I found that there was no one similar to me among my classmates. I was one of three women from minority backgrounds in my classes of 100 students. I was certain that I was the only woman of color from a low-income background in my classes and in my school. Despite my goals of making friends and being happy in law school, I easily became uncomfortable in conversations with my classmates. I remember being silent in a particular exchange among my classmates about how many of their parents were lawyers, and how common it was at the school for students to be the children of lawyers. I did not divulge that my mother was a nurses’ aide and my father a security guard. It just seemed not to fit into their conversation about how their parents’ careers had formed their lives as future lawyers.