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Setting Yourself Up for Success on the Bar Exam from Day One
By Alexandra Echsner-Rasmussen • December 19, 2019 •Law School, Other Law School Issues
Studying for the bar exam is no small task. Countless hours are spent reading, answering practice questions, reviewing practice questions, and the study cycle continues. At the onset of your designated preparation period, it is always a good idea to consider the following items because, if overlooked, they could result in being detrimental to success and ultimately, bar passage. Environment. How is your study environment? Do you need absolute silence or do you prefer to have background noise? Do you value organization or do you work well with a bit of clutter? Whichever is best for you, be sure to…
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…
Law School Activities
By Caambridge Horton • September 27, 2019 •Writers in Residence, Law School, Other Law School Issues
Several 1L law students have asked me what activities they should look into joining while in law school. They also have asked me the practical benefits of joining organizations in law school. The short answer is that joining an activity will significantly enhance the law school experience. Activities are a great way to meet new people and an even better way to strengthen leadership skills and gain practical tools necessary for the practice of law. What organizations an individual should join depends greatly on what you seek to gain from the organization. For instance, many law school students seek to…
Essential First Year Of Law School Tips
By Arpita Arya • June 04, 2019 •Law School, Other Law School Issues
The first year of law school is challenging, and you know well how vital the first year is. Your journey determines the job you get. You earn a great achievement if you prove eligible for scholarships and if you can do all the competitive and clerkships that come with doing well in your first year of law school. A right law school comes up with massive resources to be incurred, so here are few great tips for embarking the first year with great success. Leave Your Comfort Zone From The Begining While creating a network, don’t expect anyone for your…
Summer Associate Advice Good for a Lifetime: Solicit, Receive, and Materialize Constructive Feedback
By Vanessa Stephens • May 31, 2019 •Careers, Firms and the Private Sector, Nonprofits and the Public Interest, Politics and Government, Other Career Issues, Law School, Other Law School Issues, Issues, •Mentoring and Networking
Many leaders succeed in their fields because they request continuous feedback, process it, and adjust their course. As a law students, I attended panel discussions centered on soliciting feedback very frequently, so it seems like a hot-button topic for young associates. The legal field is incredibly challenging; the learning curve is steep and the workplace dynamics are intricate. I want to make continuous and open dialogue about my learning opportunities a regular part of my legal process, so I talked to my mentors about how to request and receive actionable constructive feedback. Here are a few tips that I picked…
Just in time for graduation, the ABA tightened its bar pass standard for law schools
By Jen Reise • May 21, 2019 •Law School, Pre-Law, Choosing a Career and Landing a Job, Other Law School Issues, Features, Advice on Passing the Bar Exam
Thousands of new lawyers celebrated their graduation this weekend and, in time-honored tradition, celebrated for approximately one day before turning to studying for the bar exam. On Friday, the ABA announced that it was tightening its accreditation standard for law schools’ bar passage rates. The new standard will require law schools to have a bar pass rate of at least 75% within two years of graduation. Overall, this rate was 88.57% for the most recent year, but bar passage rates are highly correlated with LSAT scores. This change puts the pressure on bottom-tier law schools, i.e., those that admit the…
Public service scholarship essay
By Nayelly Dominguez • May 05, 2019 •Law School, Other Law School Issues
Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation are words that have a strong presence in the legal community. With a greater push from clients for teams that reflect the diversity of the greater world we live in and a realization that the number of attorneys from under represented backgrounds is extremely disproportionate to the amount of white men from the good ole’ boys club, the push for diversity efforts in law school recruitment has been a significant one. While many law schools have increased the enrollment of students from underrepresented backgrounds, they have not gotten past using ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusiveness’ as buzzwords for recruitment…
Learning to Speak Up for Myself
By Rebecca Ray • May 05, 2019 •Law School, Other Law School Issues
I am generally a nonconfrontational person. I felt bad when I was seven and I told my mom that I wanted a different doll than the one she had picked out. I felt bad when I was eleven and I told my dad that I didn’t want to go to the haunted house because I was too scared. But I didn’t feel bad when I told someone who I thought was my friend to stop sexually harassing me. I was caught off guard when he first started messaging me. I was only fourteen and was still very unfamiliar with sex.…
Minding the Business that Pays You
By Caambridge Horton • April 28, 2019 •Writers in Residence, Law School, Curriculum and Classroom Dynamics, Other Law School Issues
One of the most difficult parts of law school thus far has been fighting the urge to get swept up in the all-consuming comparison trap. "Comparison is the thief of joy” is all too real when it comes to law school even though it is almost human nature to compare yourself with others. Comparison is something that most people utilize because it seems to serve as a way of measuring our success and achievement against someone who we deem to be in similar standing to us. The hard part about comparing yourself to others is that we live in a…