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You can be authentic AND get accepted into your dream law school
By Ms. JD Editor • August 06, 2021 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence, Features, Bar Exam
Myth: You need to be the perfect applicant to get into your dream school. Exactly one year ago, I locked myself in my room, deleted my Twitter, and avoided any outside interactions. There were two reasons for this behavior: I had just began quarantining from the Coronavirus pandemic, and I was studying for what I thought was the most important test of my life: the LSAT. As I spent my days buried in my textbooks and laptop, I wrote the number “173” on a sticky note and placed it onto my mirror. This was the median LSAT…
The Road Less Traveled: 10 Things to Remember as a First-Generation Law Graduate Sitting for the Bar Exam
By Ms. JD Editor • July 29, 2021 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence, Issues, Balancing Private and Professional Life, Features, Bar Exam
“I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams.” – Unknown This past year has been a year like no other. A year full of social unrest, with an unprecedented global pandemic and an economic crisis. Despite these circumstances, thousands of law school graduates are studying and sitting for the Bar exam. Many of whom are first-generation law graduates. Being the first is never easy. When you are the first, you’re repeatedly in the position where you learn life lessons through "trial by error." As a first-generation law student, you often create the course rather than have a path to follow. Sometimes the…
Heat & Light: A Discussion with Michele Coleman Mayes on Corporate Social Responsibility
By Ms. JD Editor • April 12, 2021 •Ms. JD
Excerpts of an interview conducted by Ms. JD Fellow Lisa J. Cole on March 09, 2021. “You need heat and light. And by that I mean you need pressure, but you can also educate.” Please briefly introduce yourself. Who you are and what you do? I’m Michele Coleman Mayes and I am General Counsel for the New York Public Library. I’ve been in this position just about eight and a half years. What do you do as General Counsel for the New York Public Library? What is a normal day in the life? There is no such thing as a…
Intellectual Property in 2021 and Beyond
By Desiree Goff • December 31, 2020 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence
As the last article for the 2020 Writers in Residence column “Becoming a Zebra”, I want to thank the many influential attorneys who continue to lead, working diligently and persistently with passion for endeavors to improve the world around them. While this series was very limited in describing areas of legal practice and awe inspiring women in the legal profession, what I hope you the reader take away is a fervor for excellence in the legal career you dedicate yourself to and a remembrance to contribute to the community in which you find yourself. As we look ahead to the…
Looking Back
By Sarah Valdes • December 31, 2020 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence
As we wrap up 2020, and I sit down to write my final post as a Ms. JD Writer in Residence, I can’t help but laugh. You read that right: laugh. When I applied to write for Ms. JD, I set out to cross off one of my resolutions, to get outside of my comfort zone. I decided that I would focus on community and our place within certain groups. After the first quarter of the year, the world looked very different than what I expected. Group yoga classes turned into a short session where I rearranged the coffee table…
Fare Thee Well, 2020
By Katalin Tarjan • December 31, 2020 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence
Like all of 2020, our year-end reviews feel different this year. As an avid planner and reviewer I find it hard this time to put a full stop at the end of a chapter and form expectations about a fresh new one. In Michelle Obama’s „Becoming” journal (who else loves guided journals?) the other day I arrived to the end of the year question „How has this year been different from last year?”. At first I laughed. My short answer would be „in every single way”. Then I really started counting the ways… During these last days of the…
Desi Advocacy: Spotlight on Juvaria Khan, Founder of The Appellate Project
By Prianka Misra • December 03, 2020 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence, Careers, Nonprofits and the Public Interest, Other Career Issues, Issues, Mentoring and Networking
This month, I had the opportunity to interview Juvaria Khan, founder of The Appellate Project. Ms. Khan's nonprofit aims to empower law students and lawyers of color in the appellate field through educational outreach, a Civil Rights Clinic at Howard University School of Law, and a summer fellowship incubator program. Prior to her role at The Appellate Project, Ms. Khan clerked for the Honorable Michael P. Shea in the District Court of the District of Connecticut. She also worked at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, maintaining a heavy pro bono practice focusing on racial and religious discrimination claims. Finally, she has served as…
Protecting Agricultural Advances
By Desiree Goff • December 01, 2020 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence
As my local CSA order ends and colder weather arrives, now is a great time to evaluate what protections can be put in place for agricultural and plant innovations. Plant patents, the zebras of the patent world, have experienced somewhat of a resurgence in the last few decades with advances in genetic engineering. Pursuant to MPEP 1600, the manual of patent examining procedure, all plants are patentable except those which are bacteria or tuber-propagated. Tuber-propagated plants examples are potatoes or turnips - plants by which the propagated part is what you eat. The plant must either have been invented or…
How do you deal with difficult clients?
By Katalin Tarjan • November 30, 2020 •Ms. JD, Writers in Residence
As lawyers we all work with people. Doing so, we come across difficult people from time to time and we have to learn how to deal with them. My favorite story (that was quite entertaining for my then colleagues’ too) happened in my previous job. I was a lawyer of a government funded organization in the construction industry (I wrote about it here). There were (at least) two parties in a case, meaning what this always means: unless there is an agreement reached, one of them is essentially dissatisfied in the end. One such person called me on this particular…