Student Life

Cold Called on Day One: Expectation Versus Reality

/ Tess Halpern / 5 Comments

During law school orientation, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons walked us through what we should expect from our first day. During this session, he showed us the infamous scene from Legally Blonde where Elle Woods experiences her first class. After we watched Woods get kicked out for not being prepared, he assured us that, while the movie gets some things right, it also gets some things wrong.

What did it get wrong, according to Dean Lyons? Our professors likely wouldn’t be as suave. Also, while they will call on you, they won’t pick on you with that degree of malice.

However, what it gets right is that there will be assignments before even the first day, and you will be expected to have done them. There also will be cold calling, probably not at first, but soon.

While this orientation session was surely meant to ease our anxieties mere days before we would begin a daunting academic adventure, it only made me more nervous. Experiencing anything like Woods’ first day seemed like a downright nightmare, and the only thing I didn’t have to worry about now was suave professors with outward malice? I started losing some sleep.

But after experiencing it firsthand — and living to tell the tale — I can assure you that the anticipation was far worse than the reality. 

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Why BC Law: We are Here for a Reason

/ BC Law Impact Guest Posts / 1 Comment

This guest post is from an incoming first-year student who would like to remain anonymous.

The quintessential question for any law student is always, “what made you want to go to law school?” And more often than not, my answer is, “Because I’m bad at math.” But when it came to the question, “Why BC Law?” my answer was vastly different. To explain why I chose BC, I must first go into why I chose law in the first place. And a big part of it was my complicated relationship with my late father.

To the public, my father presented himself as a kind and loving family man. But my mother, sister, and I never felt safe, always fearing a sudden outburst. More often than not I’d cower in the small room that I shared with my mother and sister, deliberately facing the wall and wishing he would stop telling me he regretted my existence; praying to a God I didn’t believe in to beg against an escalation into a beating. The incessant physical and emotional abuse at a young age, pushed me into a dark corner. I was scared of everyone and everything and had no dreams or aspirations. I struggled to wake up in the mornings. More often than not, I could not find a reason to live on. 

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“Hey There Pennoyer:” Song Parodies and BC Law Culture

/ Travis Salters / Leave a comment

Travis here: today I’m hosting a guest post from my friend and classmate, Tong Liu, Class of 2023.

The start of a new experience can always be nerve-wracking, with law school being no different. Diving into a new environment, meeting new people and navigating the complexities of pandemic life each brings a whole host of challenges. Some, like learning how to use Zoom properly, are easy and usually overcome within a few days. Others, like figuring out how best to prepare for classes, can take a matter of weeks. However, one of the most difficult challenges for me is determining how much of myself I can share with others.

Going into law school during a pandemic, I knew that in-person interactions would be limited. Half of my classes were going to be on Zoom, and the in-person classes had everyone masked up and socially distanced. I was also commuting about an hour and a half round-trip for classes, making it difficult for me to meet up with classmates who lived near campus.

Still, the commute ended up becoming a blessing of sorts as well. I was able to have a period of zen before and after classes as I drove, jamming out to an eclectic mix of songs. Safe within the confines of my car, I could take off my mask after a long day in class or at the library, and belt the songs out loud without any shame. 

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Can Passion for Work Go Too Far?

/ Roma Gujarathi / 1 Comment

“Are you going to talk about anything else?” My brother rolled his eyes as I talked about a technical area of patent infringement that no one in my audience cared to learn about. This was just a few weeks ago, and we were at a small dinner party with some family friends. I had finished up my time with a firm this summer, and I was excited for the chance to talk about it. But my brother’s comment reminded me just how much I’d been talking about my work. I had an amazing summer outside of the firm, too: I went on some relaxing getaways, I spent a lot of meaningful time with my family, and I finally read the books that had been on my reading list for months now. Yet, throughout dinner, I had mainly only talked about my firm experience. It was a reminder to me that law school — and the legal profession — should not and does not encompass my entire identity.

During my first semester of law school in Fall 2019, I found myself burnt out fairly quickly. I was spending too many hours reading, not necessarily because I had a lot to read, but more so because I felt that this was what I had to do. I felt like I was supposed to be outlining after every class, even if I didn’t really know what outlining even was. Despite being on top of my schoolwork, I felt guilty when I wasn’t doing law school-related work, only because I felt that there was no time or room to think about anything else.

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Lawyering and Breathing: Three Lessons from My Summer Experience

/ Devon Sanders / Leave a comment

Today I am hosting a guest blog from my friend Melody Mathewson, a member of the Class of 2022. -DS

What am I doing this summer? Well, the law, of course. I am drafting agreements and policies, researching admissibility, and reading trial transcripts and state statutes. It’s all very glamorous and novel to you as aspiring or fellow law students, I know. 

More importantly, I am learning how to run a marathon. Not literally. Literally, I walk for an hour every day, but I do not run. What I mean is, I am learning how to endure and thrive through the marathon of being a human attorney. I am learning what I wish I had learned two years ago, both before and during the first year of law school. 

Here are three lessons from my 2L summer experience. 

Summer Experience Lesson No.1: It is perfectly acceptable to demonstrate your strong work ethic and hustling attitude from Monday through Friday, and “breaks” can coexist with “weekdays.”

I have been listening to some really thoughtful and insightful podcasts while going for my long, near-daily walks outside, and on the weekends I lie by the pool and read similar kinds of books (or completely lose myself in a perfectly curated playlist of summer bops). On a daily level, this hour-long walk is my mid-day break. It is my exercise, my fresh air, my break from a computer screen, my break from legal jargon, and most importantly it is time I am not working, not thinking about work, not worrying about work, and not pressuring myself to get back to work. 

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Musings on a Still Virtual Summer

/ Devon Sanders / Leave a comment

I am sitting at my desk in my childhood bedroom, in the home where I grew up, starting my summer internship virtually and feeling admittedly silly as I pour a cup of coffee and don professional clothing while I am surrounded by mementos of my youth. Though the coloring books and childhood photographs on my desk have now been replaced by my laptop and a Bluebook, things still feel eerily similar to what I remember growing up.

It makes me think back to this time last year. Coming home last March as the pandemic shutdown hit was almost incomprehensible: sitting in the home that felt so familiar to me, I was also painfully aware of how foreign just about everything else around me really was. I watched my professors (and later my summer employer) scramble to get a handle of how best to continue on in a world that was suddenly unfamiliar. I adapted to virtual meetings, technical difficulties, and Zoom hangouts. I took on the unfamiliarity with an open mind, trying to adjust to the temporary surroundings I believed I was in.

But now it has been a year, and the unfamiliarity has transformed into the ordinary. What was once a few weeks at most is now over a year of remote school and work. Summer internships, clinics, classes, and virtual events have come and gone. Countless in-person events and programs have been transformed to account for the virtual world we remain in. I and most other rising 3Ls (ouch), are entering into another remote summer internship.

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BC Law Class of ’21 Celebrates 3L Week!

/ Tatiana Becker / Leave a comment

Four days from graduation, I think it’s safe to say that the 3L class has really been through it this year. Somehow we’ve persevered through crashed and lagging zoom meetings, sneezing into our own faces under masks in socially distanced classrooms, and not one, not two, but three rounds of remote exams taken in all corners of the globe.

So this week, we celebrate. Because we have freaking earned it! The 3L Week Committee–comprised of LSA President Kayla Snyder and Vice President Morgan Lam, 3L Reps Julianna Hernandez and Rachel Taylor, and me (Chair of the 3L Week/Gift Committee)–wanted to seize the opportunity for the first time in a long time to actually be together. We wanted to give our class the party it deserves! It was tough to plan, adjust, and re-plan and re-adjust around COVID guidelines, but the Committee put together a fantastic schedule.

Kicking it off last Friday night, we celebrated with the first bar review in a hot minute at BC After Dark at the Hillside Café, where graduating students enjoyed lots of drinks and delicious food at their very own outdoor on campus bar!

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A Reminder on Feelings Post-Finals

/ Devon Sanders / 1 Comment

It is that time of year again. 

While finals week always seems to creep up on me, I still find myself making the same unpleasant preparations at this time every year. I have deleted social media apps on my phone that I typically spend way too much time on, stocked up on coffee and snacks, and have told my friends and loved ones not to bother me for the next few weeks. 

As I have begun to delve into yet another round of days studying followed by a sequence of hours-long tests, I find myself clinging on to the idea that this will all be over soon–that I just have to get through the next couple of weeks and then I can enjoy that post-finals joy.  

So, as a reminder to myself that this is all temporary, or maybe just some needed motivation to continue on, I have collected a few students’ thoughts on their feelings post-finals. Enjoy and good luck everyone!

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Farewell, BC Law!

/ Courtney Ruggeri / Leave a comment

With graduation just around the corner, I decided it was the perfect time to re-watch one of my favorite movies of all time—Legally Blonde. As I watched Elle Woods deliver her commencement speech, it finally hit me that law school really is coming to a close for me. How did three years go by so quickly?

When I first joined Impact during my 1L year, I had hoped that my final post would be about all of my favorite memories of my time at law school. Three rounds of Ski Trip, Law Prom, and Softball. Funny stories from countless bar reviews where the whole school decided to take a break from studying and gathered at a bar downtown. Long nights at the library trying to cram for a final in solidarity with my classmates, and on-campus events that always led to free lunch.

But sadly, that is not what happened. When the pandemic first hit, nobody had any idea how long things would be different, or how long we would be home. I remember first hearing whispers in March 2020 that “this will just be two weeks.” I even intended to be back in April to celebrate my birthday with friends. Then, all of a sudden, it’s been over a year of this, and things still aren’t back to normal. The vaccine rollout brings hope, but my classmates and I still won’t get the in-person graduation with all of our friends and families that we worked so hard to earn (and so much deserve).

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‘Just Law’ is Just Getting Started

/ Thomas R. Blakely / Leave a comment

For those who aren’t aware, I like to take on new challenges (like joining this blog, for example). As if 1L year isn’t busy enough, right? One of my favorites this year is the Just Law Podcast, which we launched in November 2020. We’ve put out ten episodes so far, with more great content coming before the end of the semester.

We have a great team. One of the toughest things (other than launching a podcast in the middle of a worldwide pandemic) is saying goodbye to good people, and this year we will be losing our 3L friends, Co-Hosts Lea Silverman and Kevin O’Sullivan, and Executive Producer Mark Grayson. These three helped found the podcast and were the main drivers in getting it off the ground, long before I came in. Suffice it to say, replacing them will be impossible.

But Joanna Plaisir and I will continue on, and our hope is to add new talent for next year to help us expand the podcast marketing and production team, as well as assist with interviews. We want to build Just Law for the long term, and hope to make it part of the fabric of BC Law, just like the Impact blog. Next year we’ll be in the studio (we hope) on campus, ready to record more great episodes for everyone out there listening. So if you’re a current or incoming student and have podcasting or sound mixing and engineering experience, and you want to get involved, email us at justlawpod@bc.edu and let us know. And check out Just Law on Captivate, or your favorite podcast platform.

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