The Happy Lawyer: A Year-Long Experiment
By Kate Miceli • May 05, 2019 •Writers in Residence, Careers, Firms and the Private Sector, Nonprofits and the Public Interest, Politics and Government, Other Career Issues, Issues, Balancing Private and Professional Life, •Mentoring and Networking, Other Issues
My last year of law school, I took a seminar class called “The Happy Lawyer”. The concept was simple; ten law students, one dean, and one professor read six books about happiness and discuss them over dinner throughout the school year. Full disclosure, I took this class because it was at the dean’s house (who doesn’t want to see their law school dean’s house?) and was taught by one of my favorite professors. The happiness and mindfulness aspect of the class was secondary at best. Over the course of the year, we read six books including; Happiness: A Very…
Unpaid Internships: A Garbage and Discriminatory Legal Practice
By Kate Miceli • January 21, 2019 •Writers in Residence, Careers, Firms and the Private Sector, Nonprofits and the Public Interest, Politics and Government, Other Career Issues, Law School, Internships and Clerkships
Do you want to know the best-kept secret in the legal community? Unpaid internships. In my last blog post, I mentioned that I had four unpaid internships in law school. I received several stunned responses from friends outside the legal community, specifically those in business school. I thought it was common knowledge that many law student internships are unpaid. Spoiler alert: it’s not. For those outside the legal community, here are two important things you should know. One, it is very common for law students to work full-time, unpaid internships during the summer and school year. Two, law students are…
What To Do When Your School Can’t Help You Get a Policy Job
By Kate Miceli • December 04, 2018 •Careers, Politics and Government, Other Career Issues, Law School, Choosing a Career and Landing a Job
In law school, I had an amazing party trick. The first month of school everyone was asking the three standard questions. “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” And finally, “what do you want to practice?” The first two elicited pretty typical responses. But, the third was my astounding trick. Instead of saying I wanted to be a prosecutor or a civil litigator, I said I wanted to work in policy. Brows furrowed. Jaws dropped. Panic flickered in their eyes. They could not understand why someone would suffer the three-year torture of law school to never see the inside of…