Month: March 2025

What Exactly is the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam?

/ Sangeeta Kishore / Leave a comment

This past week, like many of my 2L peers, I took the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam or the MPRE. This exam is a vital prerequisite or co-requisite to the bar exam for admission in most U.S. jurisdictions. So why have many people never heard of it before? 

What is the MPRE? 

The MPRE is a 2-hr, 60-question, multiple-choice exam, administered three times a year (March, August, and November), designed to test knowledge of the rules related to a lawyer’s professional conduct. There are two important things to note. There is no negative scoring so it doesn’t hurt to guess. And while you answer 60 questions, only 50 questions are graded. The remaining 10 are used for testing purposes and are indistinguishable from the graded questions on the test. In other words, answer every question. As for the material tested, while each state has its own set of ethical standards, the MPRE tests on the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct so only worry about that. 

Continue reading →

From Law Faculty Support to Law Student: Meet Nicole Bauer

/ Sangeeta Kishore / 4 Comments

There are numerous roads to law school, and no one-size fits all path to a successful legal career. Follow along with our series highlighting BC Law students and how they got here! 

Our first five entries were with Sara Womble, from Winston Salem, NC, Elias Massion, who comes from Nashville, TN and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Samina Gagné from London and Columbia University, Alvin Synarong from Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Princeton, and Ruchita Jain from Edina, Minnesota and Boston University.

Name: Nicole Bauer

Hometown: Sebewaing, Michigan 

Educational Background: B.A. Political Science, Minors in History and in Human Rights, Stanford University

Continue reading →

Will FCC v. Consumers’ Research Revive the Nondelegation Doctrine?

/ BC Law Impact Guest Posts / Leave a comment

This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

The idea behind the nondelegation doctrine is sound: Congress should not delegate legislative power to executive branch agencies. But its implementation leaves much to be desired. Nearly every nondelegation case acknowledges there’s a theoretical boundary but then finds that Congress hasn’t crossed it here. Only twice has the Supreme Court found a law violated the nondelegation doctrine, in 1935, both involving a statute that literally allowed President Roosevelt to cartelize the entire economy and make rules at whim. The modern rule allows Congress to give agencies significant authority as long as it includes an “intelligible principle” to guide exercise of that authority. Perhaps more than any other doctrine, this toothless standard has permitted the modern atrophy of our legislative branch, concentrated power in unelected bureaucrats, and enabled the imperial presidencies of the 21st century.

Continue reading →

Three Crucial Lessons I Learned From 1L Fall to 1L Spring

/ Alexandra Staller / Leave a comment

So much time has passed since my first blog post I made back in the early fall. While it is difficult to see it in the busyness of my school day, when I take a step back, I realize that those roughly 6 months have completely transformed me as a student and person. Downtime isn’t easy to find during 1L, but I decided to take the time here to discuss some of the things I found to be different between my fall and spring semesters. Disclaimer: this is my experience only; however, I am hoping it’s more relatable than not.

  1. Classwork

Maybe it’s because Constitutional Law and Criminal Law speak more to me than Torts and Contracts, but the classwork this semester is just easier to understand and engage with. Having experienced a semester of sitting in class not knowing how to take notes, being afraid to start an outline then completing three, and taking my first law school exams, I now have an understanding of what is expected of me and how to actually do it (awesome!). The fall experience made me more confident in reading my assignments and going into class knowing what I should be taking away from the readings, but also not stressing if I don’t know because guess what: that’s the point of class! My comfort level in taking and organizing notes have also improved, especially with my late-fall discovery that I cannot focus on typing my notes using OneNote’s default Calibri font. Typing my notes in Times New Roman has been a huge game changer (whether this is scientifically backed or not is none of my business). To summarize, having 1L Fall under my belt has informed me on how I should properly and efficiently be gearing my focus this spring semester.

Continue reading →

My Externship at Wayfair Surprised Me

/ BC Law Impact Guest Posts / Leave a comment

This guest post was written by Tom Books, Class of 2026.

For those who do not know, externships allow students to work a part-time job off campus for class credit. Possible placements include judges, government agencies, nonprofits, and in-house departments for companies. When planning my schedule for Spring Semester 2L, I decided to apply for a few in-house counsel externships. I had already done a government internship and will be doing transactional work at a firm this summer, so I figured an in-house role would provide a new perspective to legal practice while also preparing me for corporate work at my firm. 

Continue reading →

What’s the Secret Sauce? It’s ‘Medium Rare’

/ Catherine Beveridge / Leave a comment

If you move for law school, you inevitably leave things behind. Often this is a favorite restaurant. You cannot exactly fit it in the car, and trying to recreate dishes at home is never the same. As much as I love my new home in Boston, there are places I miss from my life as a paralegal in Washington D.C. 

Imagine my surprise when I’m scrolling through Instagram and Boston Uncovered posts about one of my favorite D.C. restaurants: Medium Rare has opened a location in Arsenal Yards over in Watertown! To say I was giddy does not do my feelings justice. I loved that place–in fact, it was the location of my last meal in D.C. with my parents and older brother right before I drove out of town for the last time.

Continue reading →

Bar for the Course: Comparing Different Bar Prep Options

/ Eddie Godino / Leave a comment

With my 3L year rapidly coming to a close, one of the biggest questions on my mind for the past few months has been what bar prep course I should use. We’ve all gotten the emails and seen the representatives sitting outside the library, but what is the difference between all the different options? Although I have yet to actually go through any bar prep course myself, here is what I’ve learned from my many hours questioning reps and otherwise scouring the internet.

Continue reading →

No Post-Grad Job Offer? No Problem!

/ Haley Cole / Leave a comment

The journey of getting a J.D. is fraught with uncertainty, but there is a particular lasting uncertainty that many public-interest law students feel as they navigate their way through school. Specifically, public-interest students can find themselves at the end of a three-year J.D. program unclear on where their next journey lies.

One may find it unfortunate that the public interest sector does not have a defined linear track like the big-law business lays out for law students. It can feel daunting to constantly search for your next summer experience each school year without the certainty that you will be offered long-term employment.

Continue reading →

Design Mandate Proposals Threaten American AI Leadership

/ BC Law Impact Guest Posts / Leave a comment

This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

Scholars often cite the 1984 Betamax case as a pivotal moment in the development of modern American tech policy. The entertainment industry sought to prohibit Sony from selling its videocassette recorder, because it could be—and largely was—used by consumers for copyright infringement. But the Court declined, finding that the device was “capable of substantial noninfringing use” and limiting the studios to identifying and suing those who actually used the product illegally.

Continue reading →

‘Being’ a Law Student & the Movement Away from Bad Faith

/ Staniel Brutis / Leave a comment

I. INTRODUCTION 

We established in “’Being’ a Law Student and the Freedom of Choice” that human reality is inherently and radically free, meaning that freedom is an unavoidable aspect of our existence. In other words, we have no choice but to be free. Because freedom emerges from the very structure of human reality, we are not simply what we are; rather, we must actively become what we are. This process is continuous, unfolding in every moment. The act of being, and simultaneously negating being, occurs instantaneously and perpetually. 

Unlike determinism, which asserts that every action results from a preceding cause, human motivation is not dictated by past events but by future possibilities and the desire to bring oneself into being. However, the anguish that accompanies this radical freedom often leads us to negate it. Faced with the burden of being able to become our greatest potential or our worst failure, we attempt to escape this responsibility by resigning ourselves to the in-itself, ignoring choice and possibility.

In Being and Nothingness (1943), Jean-Paul Sartre defines bad faith as follows:

Continue reading →