How 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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How the God of Wine and Madness (and Pinecones) Helped Me Find My Lawyer Mask

I was supposed to write this post last week, but you know how it is. Busy, busy, busy. And in the grand scheme of things, who cares? The universe is billions of years old, so what’s an extra week? And a week wouldn’t really matter at all except that last week was Halloween, and Halloween got me thinking about masks. Masks and Dionysos. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: what in the pumpkins does any of that have to do with law school? But sit tight; I’m getting there. You’ll see.

Everybody knows Dionysos. The god of wine, madness, and somewhat oddly, pinecones. But nobody actually gets to see the god. That’s the funny thing. Dionysos is always masked, always appearing as something he is not. On the one hand, that’s pretty typical for the Greeks. Mortal eyes cannot gaze upon the divine form and all that jazz. But on the other hand, Dionysos is unique in that regard. You don’t see him; you just feel him looking at you, like a disappointed grandmother. And even though you can’t look at him, when Dionysos looks at you, you feel it right down to your soon-to-be dancing toes. That’s when you learn about a whole new dimension of yourself. 

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Traded One Gavel for Another: Meet Samina Gagné

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

Our first and second entries were with Sara Womble, a 2L from Winston Salem, NC, and Elias Massion, who comes from Nashville, TN and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Today’s Q&A is with Samina Gagné from London and Columbia University.


What did you do before coming to law school?

Before law school, I was an Auctioneer and Senior Client Development Manager in the art auction industry.  I worked my way up in the ranks of Sotheby’s and Phillips—working for both organizations in New York and London—to become one of the youngest auctioneers at a major auction house. Here’s a video link! This career allowed me to be both analytical and creative, while also constantly pushing me out of my comfort zone.

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Halloween in the Heart of Fenway: Spooky Tales of a BC Law Tradition

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Fall is an amazing season all around, but Halloween is the apex. My birthday is right around the end of the month, so to me it’s a whole week of cake and candy. Ending it by getting dressed up in costumes is a bonus.

I heard about the BC Law Halloween Party during my tour as a prospective student. The pitch was that while the end of October marks the big shift towards memos and finals, this was the big release everyone takes part in before exams. I can say the mood on campus has gotten seasonally spooky with how busy everyone has been. However, I got all my readings done, put down my memo draft, and swore I would make the most of the evening off.

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The Most Important Thing I’ve Learned About Law School So Far: The “I Love Me More” Approach

Now more than halfway through my first law school semester, the initial warnings and disclaimers that I had been told before coming are starting to make sense. This line I am walking between letting law school take over my time and giving myself time to breathe is one I find becomes blurry depending on what my days or weeks look like. For example, last week my section had our first memo draft due on Friday. On top of all the other classwork I had, all I could think about was the memo. Wake up: memo. Drive to school: memo. Read my Contracts cases: memo. Fold my laundry: memo. Call Mom: memo.

One night as I was laying in bed, I felt an overwhelming wave of law school rise over me. My post-9pm thoughts were racing, and I wondered if this was the thing that was bound to happen that would stick with me until my graduation in May 2027: that all I am is law school. 

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From Teaching to Transformative Change: Meet Elias Massion

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

Our first entry was a Q&A with Sara Womble, a 2L from Winston Salem, NC. Our second entry is with Elias Massion, who comes from Nashville, TN and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


What did you do before coming to law school?

I completed the Teach For America program in New Orleans! I was a 5th and 6th Grade Social Studies Teacher at Mildred Osborne Charter School. I taught Native American history and European colonization in the Americas as well as ancient civilizations (my personal favorite). I’ve always had an interest in teaching so this was a great opportunity to gain that experience on my path to law school.

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Don’t Scroll Past This Article: LinkedIn and Law Students

The feeling is unmistakable. An endless scroll through a LinkedIn carnival of contrived self-promotion and corporate-speak. Each post teeters on the brink of parody. “Thrilled to announce.” “Congrats mate!” “Excited for what’s coming!” You can picture the unseen scorecards flashing behind computer screens: applause, confetti, sympathy. And there you are, shrinking into the shadows, your own achievements contorted into trivialities.

For law students, this pressure is not just an unwelcome intrusion; it often feels imperative. If networking is our currency, LinkedIn is our trading floor. But is it a necessary evil, or just some Kantian illusion that we’ve convinced ourselves is indispensable to our profession?

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Does a “Not Real Job” On a Resume Mean Anything? Yes, and Here’s Why.

The fall feels like the time of year everyone works on their resumes. Along with the changing New England leaves and pumpkin spice lattes, current and prospective law students all partake in a seasonal refresh after a busy summer. 

It was before one of these seasonal resume workshops I heard a common talking point. 

“Oh I’ve never had a real job.” 

“Is it bad that I have no political work on my resume?” 

“I was stuck working retail during the pandemic.”

This is an anxiety that many, if not all, law students have encountered at some point. Maybe it was during our application process, or maybe it’s manifesting now. We fear our experiences are not relevant to this field. Our skills from assisting with college orientation to dishwashing are not applicable to being an attorney. 

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Past Experience Pays Off: How A Podcasting Career Prepared Me For 1L

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

A little more than four years ago, I found myself in the producer’s chair, attempting to put together my first podcast for Wondery Media. The episode centered around a mystery story, one that remains unsolved. It was no unsolved murder or whodunit yarn, but instead a tale about what happened to a 7-foot 900 lbs bronze statue of Joe Paterno, the disgraced former-head football coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions. The statue disappeared in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal that rocked the State College community back in 2011 and led to Paterno’s firing; a previously unbelievable outcome for a coach who at that time led the NCAA in career victories. The whereabouts of the statue remain unknown, and while that mystery remained, what became clear to me as I bumbled my way through putting that story together was just how little I knew about what an adequate producer does every day. 

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From Opera to Law: Meet Sara Womble

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

Our first entry is a Q&A with Sara Womble, a 2L from Winston Salem, NC. After receiving a Bachelors in English and Music Performance from Duke and Master’s in Voice Performance from BU, Sara was an opera singer before coming to BC.


What did you do before coming to law school?

I spent the decade prior to coming to law school as an opera singer. It was the privilege of a lifetime to sing many roles dear to my heart, particularly in Mozart operas, and to make music and theater with the best colleagues, fellow artists, and lifelong friends imaginable. More recently, in addition to my performing career, I’ve served as an executive at Opera Neo in San Diego, a company whose mission I believe in passionately – namely, creating innovative interpretations of classic operas, keeping these gorgeous works vibrant and alive for today’s audiences. I will cherish all these experiences for the rest of my life, and I carry them with me every day.

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