Now Accepting Applications: 2020 Writers in Residence Program
By Claire E. Parsons • September 12, 2019 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence
Ms. JD is currently seeking applications for our 2020 Writers in Residence Program. The Writers in Residence program was started in 2010 and is a select group of practicing attorneys, alternative career individuals, pre-law students, current law students, and other professionals who contribute monthly articles for one year to the Ms. JD blog on a topic of their choosing. Some blog titles this year were: "The Mental Load: Learning to Say No", "Five Tips to Maximize Your Efficiency When In-House", "Why Can’t Law Firms Retain Their Female and Minority Lawyers? Because Conformity is Exhausting", "Purpose Over Paycheck" and many many…
Meet Ms. JD’s 2019 Fellows
By Ms. JD Editor • August 19, 2019 •Ms. JD, Law School
Ms. JD is proud to announce this year’s outstanding class of 2019 Fellows! This year’s fellows are from schools from coast to coast and present a broad spectrum of experience and legal interests. The 2019 Ms. JD Fellowship Winners are: Maia Bartee, University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law Aubre Dean, Syracuse University College of Law Idia Egonmwan, Howard University School of Law Cristina Gil, American University Washington College of Law Alana Glover, University of Baltimore School of Law Candace Goldman, Southern University Law Center Nina Neff, University of Wisconsin Law School Rima Sawhney, California Western School of Law …
Something Blue: Bringing Blue-Collar Roots to the Legal Profession – An Interview with Devon Holmes
By Molly Timko • October 31, 2019 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence, Careers, Law School
For this month's blog post, I am excited to feature my interview with Devon Holmes, Esq. Devon is a first generation legal professional from Hazard, Kentucky. Devon serves as an attorney for Social Security Administration's Office of Appellate Operations and she is passionate about public interest law. In this interview, Devon explains how growing up in Appalachia helped shape her career trajectory. She also shares thoughtful advice to first generation law students. Could you tell Ms. JD blog readers about your background and what prompted you to apply to law school? I was born in Hazard, Kentucky, a town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. My parents were a…
The Mental Load: Don’t Fix What Isn’t Broken
By Amy Bowen • November 01, 2019 •Writers in Residence
As I write this blog post, I’ve just wrapped up my daughter’s fifth Halloween dressed as an owl – and she’s only seven years old. So basically, she has chosen to dress like an owl every year that she’s been capable of making her own costume decision. She’s not particularly obsessed with owls the other 364 days of the year, and it continues to surprise me that she sticks to her tried and true costume choice while her peers now delve into popular movie characters or seize the opportunity to don glittery makeup and colored hair. Yet my daughter, thus…
Why Young Lawyers Need Business Plans
By Susan Smith Blakely • October 31, 2019 •Careers, Other Career Issues
As a young lawyer, a business plan may be the farthest thing from your mind. Billing hours, making your numbers, trying not to look stupid to the partner and, well, just surviving in law practice in the early years are what occupy you. I understand and remember. But, don't dismiss having a business plan as some other-worldly exercise that is not worthy of your time. It is more than worthy. I have been preaching --- yes, preaching --- to young women lawyers about the importance of career plans for over a decade, and business plans are the same thing. All…
Multi-Tasking Self-Care and Professional Development: Podcasts
By Jenny Patten • October 31, 2019 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence, Careers, Other Career Issues, Issues, Balancing Private and Professional Life
Like most working professionals, I spend a significant part of my morning and late afternoon commuting to and from the office. My 30-45 minutes to and from daycare drop-off and the office often are the only time that I have truly to myself, and for a number of years, I’ve spent that time listening to music, participating in work-related conference calls, or using the time to call a friend or family member to catch up. However, as work and family duties and responsibilities have gradually eroded the time I used to spend for myself, I realized that my commute may…-100x100.png)
Playing the Long Game
By Millennial Women (Lindsay, Melanie & Elise) • October 25, 2019 •Writers in Residence
It’s officially Fall! And you know what that means—football season! As we cheer on our favorite teams,* we thought it would be a perfect month to break out our sports analogies. This month, we’re focusing on playing the long game in terms of your career. We’re familiar with these concepts in sports, but they are also true when it comes to careers. What we mean by this is: looking at your career over a period of several years—maybe even a decade or two—instead of just looking six months to a year ahead. It’s tough sometimes, especially as relatively new or…
Taking Care of Your Future Self During an 80-Hour Week
By Marisa Tashman • October 23, 2019 •Ms. JD, Law School, Other Law School Issues, Issues, Balancing Private and Professional Life, Other Issues, Features, Superwomen JDs and What You Can Learn From Them
Like many young ambitious women in the wake of Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” movement, I often have to make choices between two options that are both necessary: “sleep or work out?” “meditate or call my mom?” Beginning my career as a litigator at a large law firm in Los Angeles, I’ve been forced to make these choices all too often, eventually transforming into a thought-cycle of not being balanced enough, which inevitably transforms into being hopelessly imbalanced. Layer on psychosomatic GI issues, migraines, and an unexpected back injury, I turned to a wellness “industry” filled with preachers on becoming perfectly…
How Women Lawyers Are Perceived: The Double Bind
By Susan Smith Blakely • October 16, 2019 •Careers, Firms and the Private Sector
Perception can be more important than fact. I learned that when I was Chief of Staff for an elected official. Politics is ripe for misperception, but the applications go far beyond that setting. Women often are the unfortunate recipients of misperceptions. And that is especially true of women lawyers. For example, women lawyers often are judged in a harsher light than their male counterparts when they display assertiveness, self-promotion or anger, according to a survey conducted by the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings College of Law for the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and the Minority Corporate Counsel…