When it comes to running cities, Boston is one of the best you’ll find in the United States. Most people know it for the Boston Marathon, which attracts thousands of celebrated marathoners from around the world every April, but what makes the city a regular runner’s dream is the fact that it has so many varied and lengthy running routes for everyone to enjoy, from the weekend warriors to the elite-level athletes. Over the past 18 months, I have tried to explore as many of these routes as the weather and my body’s limitations would allow. Having gained all that experience, I want to share my five favorites for any BC Law student—or anyone else who stumbles upon this post—to use as a guide for their own running adventures.
Continue readingAuthor: Ian Hurley
Why You Should Take Classes Outside of Your Comfort Zone
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou
Gaining control of your class schedule is one of the most exciting aspects of leaving 1L behind and moving forward in your law school journey. Aside from the anxiety it induces as everyone gathers around tables in the yellow room or library to sign up for classes at the exact time that the registration window opens, the chance to pick all your courses is one of the most fun parts of law school. But not enough people take full advantage of this freedom. I understand the temptation to use your future career path as a guide for course selection. Yet more students should utilize their time in school to explore various areas of the law. Studying at Boston College Law School means we have access to some of the sharpest and most thoughtful legal minds across a wide variety of subjects. Take advantage of that bounty of intellectual acumen while you can. Doing so will make us all better lawyers and students, and, more importantly, more well-rounded people, regardless of our future professional track.
Continue readingEscaping the 2L Doldrums (A Tortured Sailing Metaphor)
“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion:
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.”
‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1834)
Growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania, I remember learning about the so-called ‘age of exploration’, probably an aged moniker today, but hey, this was *gasp* the late-90s. One thing that stuck with me from all those lessons about Christopher Columbus’s supposed ‘discovery’ of the new world, Ferdinand Magellan’s unceremonious demise in Southeast Asia, and Henry Hudson’s ill-fated attempt(s) to uncover a waterway that linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and so on, is a rather minor aspect of wind-based sea travel: getting stuck in the doldrums.
Continue readingCold Calling Is Good, Actually
“I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me. Failure always made me try harder next time.” – Michael Jordan
One of the (many) things that causes law students the most angst is the dreaded cold call. The fear is so pronounced that before I even attended a single 1L class, BC Law had shown me the famous cold calling scene from Legally Blonde multiple times. I understand why cold calling induces anxiety, especially in your early days of law school when you have likely never experienced it in other classroom settings. To be clear, this post should not be taken to suggest that cold calling does not make me nervous or that I never get a cold call embarrassingly wrong (I definitely do). But getting things wrong is kind of the point of learning and law school; otherwise, we’d be practicing attorneys already.
Continue readingThe Case for Doing Less
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” ― Ferris Bueller
In the throes of 1L year, while dealing with difficult material, a new learning environment, networking events, and perhaps feeling completely overwhelmed and lost, a law student is likely to hear a common refrain. It often goes something like, “I know this is rough, 1L is so tough, but it gets so much better in 2L.” And like most aphorisms, it contains a nugget of truth. In many ways, the law school experience changes fundamentally between your first year and your second. The classroom experience becomes less intimidating and more familiar. You can choose your own class schedule and have agency over the areas of law you wish to study. Even more importantly, for some, you have the chance to partake in experiential learning opportunities, such as clinics and externships, which are not available to 1Ls.
Continue readingOvercoming the Comparison Trap of 1L
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
It was the night before my first final as a 1L, and I was starting to feel overwhelmed. I knew, in a sort of intangible way, that an entire semester’s worth of work would come down to one test. And I could not help but be aware of the fact that this would prove stressful; everyone I knew who went to law school told me as much, as did most of my current peers. I suppose it’s also self-evident when you see the syllabus and read the words “your entire course grade will rest on the final examination” that you will have to perform on the day or pay the price.
Continue readingHow (Bad) Movies Helped Me Survive Finals
“Whoever a werewolf imprints on can’t be harmed. It’s their most absolute law.” ― Edward Cullen in Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1
The stress of law school finals can humble even the most confident students. It distills months of study, outlining, and class participation into one exam to determine your mastery of the material. It all comes down to a few hours in a classroom. It’s daunting, overwhelming, and, even at times, exhilarating.
Continue readingBringing the Climate Crisis Close to Home
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
— John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
When I started my career in journalism, I often heard this maxim about audience building: All news is local. The general idea underlying the concept (if you’re a journalism professor avert your eyes) was that no matter how national the story or the publication, it related to some localized community. The “locality” could be geographical, but equally, it could be about different identities, economic standings, experiences, etc.
Continue readingEnvironmental Law and the Climate Apocalypse
He rounded a bend to hear the roar of the conflagration and see a fire a half mile ahead like a black-and-red curtain dropped from a night sky. Even from that distance the heat stopped him. He collapsed to his knees, sat in the warm ashes through which he’d been wading, and wept. – Denis Johnson, Train Dreams.
Fire has always been an inherent part of life in the American West. The mountains, plains, and forests that sprawl from the Mississippi to the Pacific see conflagrations that can reduce thousands of acres of landscape into smoldering ash in just a few days. Then, over time, the plants and wildlife return, and the ecology and lifestyles of the place return to normal over time. But nothing is normal anymore. And I fear we are long past the point where any legal efforts can save humanity from the bed it has made for itself.
Continue readingHow Do You Find Your Peace? Running Away from The Fishbowl
I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone.
– Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About when I Talk About Running
Most days, especially as fall rolls into winter, I get up before the sun. In the pre-dawn hours, I fumble around in the darkness of my quiet, slumbering apartment, attempting to make coffee and not wake up my partner. As this process gets underway, my dog follows me around dutifully, eyes shining like copper pennies, ears at full mast, ready to head out for another morning jaunt. His herding eye remains trained on its quarry as I put on my running shoes, and he readies himself for our adventure, stretching and strutting around on my creaky wood floors.
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BC Law: Impact 