Student Life

A Neurodivergent Guide to Navigating Interviews as a Law Student

/ Jonathan Bertulis-Fernandes / Leave a comment

I have always found interviews challenging. As someone with a stutter and who identifies as neurodivergent, the interview format seems tailor made to cause me problems. Being a law student with a regular schedule of internship and fellowship applications has only added to my issues with them.

To me, the interview format is a uniquely discriminatory and exclusionary way of recruiting. Interviews feel inherently ableist because they benefit individuals who are able to perform in this very specific setting, while systematically disadvantaging individuals who cannot. Moreover, they provide a space for implicit bias to infect hiring processes and ensure that the same types of people get offered particular opportunities.1 This is a significant problem in the legal sector, where interviews effectively act as gatekeepers to a profession that is already overwhelmingly non-disabled and neurotypical (as well as white, straight, and cisgender).

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Student Org Spotlight: LAMBDA

/ Seung Hye Yang / Leave a comment

1) What is your name, year in school, and post-grad plans?

Nonie: Nonie Andersen, I’m a 2L and I plan on being a public defender.

Mathew: Mathew Ralph Santiago, I’m a 2L and my post-grand plan is to work at Cooley in their trademark copyright and advertising group.

2) Can you give me a quick rundown of what LAMBDA is all about?

Mathew: LAMBDA is a space that recognizes the lack of queer representation in the law. It strives to build resources and support for the queer students at BC, to connect them, and show them that there are more queer people in the greater Boston area.

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Student Org Spotlight: LALSA

/ Seung Hye Yang / Leave a comment


1) What is your name, year in school, and post-grad plans?

My name is Tamara “Tami” Pérez Cantalapiedra, I am a 2L, and I am currently enrolled in a dual-degree program for a MA in Philosophy; I will hopefully graduate next year! Post-grad, I’m hoping to be an immigration/human rights lawyer. I’m not sure what my post-grad plans are yet. I see myself starting my career at a nonprofit and hopefully teaching in the future!

2) Can you give me a quick rundown of what LALSA is all about?

LALSA is a Latin-American/Hispanic student group. I like to describe it more as an affinity group, but we love opening events to everyone to share our culture. The purpose of this affinity group is to create a safe space, a home away from home. Our goal is not only to create a sense of community, but also to help 1Ls acclimate to law school in both professional and social aspects.

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Life as a Student Among Remote Workers

/ Eddie Godino / Leave a comment

Everyone in law school knows that the application process can be brutal. After surviving the LSAT, writing the personal statement, and finally being accepted at BC, I thought I could breathe easy until classes started. But one more challenge remained: I had to figure out where I was going to live. 

Much like freshman year in undergrad, I didn’t know anyone else who was coming to BC Law. While BC does provide resources for finding housing (like this website) and ways to get in touch with other incoming 1Ls, including a pretty active Facebook group, you mostly have to take matters into your own hands. I wasn’t keen on living with people I didn’t know, and I had a fear that living with other law students would feel overwhelming – like there was no escape from school. Living alone was an option, but picturing myself sequestered away with only judges and casebook authors to keep me company motivated me to seek out a third choice. 

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Org Spotlight: Women’s Law Center

/ Seung Hye Yang / Leave a comment

In the next post of our BC Law Student Org Spotlight Series, Zaire Armstrong describes the Women’s Law Center, why she chose to become an org leader, what she’s learned and why she encourages others to take up leadership positions.

What is your name, year in school, and post-grad plans?

My name is Zaire Armstrong, and I’m a 2L. My post-grad plans include working in a field of transactional law, though I’m still honing down my exact practice area.

Can you give me a quick rundown of what the WLC is all about?

Sure! So our org is pretty broad as you can get from the name; I suppose we could be considered an affinity group as we encompass more than half of the campus population! With that comes a big responsibility, which is reflected in our mission to support female and/or women-identifying students at BC Law; women in our larger community; and women generally impacted by the law. It’s definitely a wide net to cast, but we do feel responsible for amplifying the voices. That kind of advocacy and socializing manifests through different events, goals, and projects.

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How to Leverage Social Media as Your Professional Brand

/ kristievhoang / Leave a comment

Editor’s Note: BC Law is launching a TikTok channel! Follow us @bclawonline.

You can’t BeReal if you’re in law school. 

Wipe your social media — make a pseudo Instagram handle, private your Twitter, and maybe even delete your Facebook if you’re feeling up to it. This is the advice commonly distributed to incoming law students and applicants alike across online law school forums. 

This advice is understandable these days, since employers Google everything, and law students have character and fitness standards to follow in order to be eligible to graduate and take the bar. This privatization movement strikes at the heart of #LawTok, though. 

#LawTok is a TikTok hashtag categorizing videos dedicated about — you guessed it — the legal field. #LawTok videos range from videos about navigating On Campus Interviews, networking tips, the latest Supreme Court case to hit the docket, and more. #LawTok boasts 1.7 billion views as of this article’s publication. 

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Org Spotlight: The Federalist Society

/ Seung Hye Yang / Leave a comment

In the next post of our BC Law Student Org Spotlight Series, Jillian Jacobson discusses why she chose to lead The Federalist Society, what her greatest challenges have been, what she’s learned and why she encourages others to take up leadership positions.

What is your name, year in school, and post-grad plans?

My name is Jill Jacobson and I am a 2L. Next summer I will be at Latham and Watkins doing litigation work. Ideally, I would love to clerk for a judge after graduation! 

Can you give me a quick rundown of what Federalist Society is all about?

In essence, the Federalist Society is a group for conservative and libertarian law students interested in questioning the current state of the legal order. Its basic principles are that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. I would like to think the Federalist Society plays an important role in promoting intellectual diversity on campus. 

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The Art (and Importance) of Networking

/ Reilly Doak / Leave a comment

The most helpful thing Professor Hillinger taught me during my 1L year was that networking is a critical tool during the legal job search. Although I earned my position for next summer through The Law Consortium, an OCI analog, I am thankful to my past-self for speaking to as many attorneys as I could. In hindsight, I think my networking helped me to figure out which legal practices I am interested in, which firms might be the best fit for my work style, and to become more comfortable and knowledgeable when speaking to attorneys. Just as Professor Hillinger stressed, networking should be an integral part of every 1L’s experience. 

During my first semester of 1L, I talked to as many attorneys as I could find from a breadth of experiences and practice areas. Everything in law school seemed interesting to me, and I knew it would be important to be more targeted in my internship and job search. I made sure that I reached out to speak one-on-one to at least one attorney after every negotiation competition, club panel, or CSO event I attended. In the beginning, I had no idea what to talk about, but I knew that people like talking about themselves, so my networking conversations involved a lot of personal questions: “how did you know you wanted to pursue litigation,” “what made you choose to move in-house after working in Big Law”, and “how did you decide on your specific practice areas?” Through these conversations, I realized that I did not strictly identify with the transactional or litigation camps, and decided to pursue a career more closely aligned with regulatory work, where I would have the chance to have a broader range of work.

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Org Spotlight: Sports and Entertainment Law

/ Seung Hye Yang / Leave a comment

In the first post of our BC Law Student Org Spotlight Series, Christopher “Henry” Booth and Joe Prisco tell us what the Sports and Entertainment Law Society is all about, how they built this formerly dormant organization back up from scratch while navigating their 1L year, and the merits of being student leaders in law school.

Tell us your year in school, and post-grad plans.

Henry Booth: I’m a 2L from Boston, Massachusetts. Post-grad plans? Holland and Knight in their sports practice next summer; if all goes well I hope I’ll be there full-time. Ideally I’ll be working with teams, players, and leagues as well with the larger sports infrastructure.

Joe Prisco: I’m a 2L who hails from Westchester New York, and my post-grad plan is to run the Prisco-Booth sports agency!

(Fun fact: Both of them are the captains of their section’s softball team)

Can you give me a quick rundown of what your org is all about?

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Follow-Up: Overcoming Self-Doubt

/ Travis Salters / Leave a comment

Two years ago, when I arrived in Newton to begin my law school journey, I wrote a blog post entitled Act Like You Belong. Because You Do, where I briefly explored my own internal struggle with feelings of self-doubt, which some people call “imposter’s syndrome.” My goal was to encourage others (and myself) to understand those feelings in order to control their own destiny. 

As I begin my third (and FINAL!) year of law school, I can say that while those feelings of self-doubt fluctuate, they never disappear completely. I had an overwhelming feeling of being unprepared on my first day at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office during my 1L summer. I had the discomforting feeling of self-doubt on my first day at a big law firm this past summer. These feelings were as strong as when I stepped foot on the Newton campus.

As I wrote in the blog two years ago, the issue is not the presence of those uncomfortable feelings, but how you deal with them. My second day on campus (and my second days at the Attorney General’s Office and at the law firm) were more comfortable than the first. Each day that passed lessened these doubts, and strengthened my confidence.

Act Like You Belong was more about describing those feelings in order to understand them. Today, I want to write about how I overcame them. These suggestions may be obvious to you. But it’s important to recognize that we all are at a different place on our journey – and wherever you are, I hope you find some inspiration in them.

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