Studying Law as an International Student

/ Jonathan Bertulis-Fernandes / Leave a comment

One of the most interesting parts of my time at law school so far has been the opportunity to meet students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some have come straight from completing their undergraduate degree while others have spent a significant amount of time in the workplace before starting at BC Law. From class discussions, it’s clear to me that everyone brings these experiences with them to law school and it’s fascinating to see the way in which people’s different perspectives inform how they intend to practise law. 

As someone who isn’t from the U.S. originally, I think a lot about the ways in which my experience of growing up under a different legal system influences how I think about the law and the United States judicial system. For one thing, my ability to follow along in my constitutional law class this semester has definitely been hampered by my not knowing some of the foundational knowledge that students in the U.S. pick up either through osmosis or high school civics. 

For this week’s blog post, I sat down with three international students at BC to find out a bit more about their own experiences of studying as international students and what led to them studying at a U.S. law school.

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A 1L’s Guide to Experiential Learning

/ Tess Halpern / Leave a comment

I came to law school not exactly sure about the type of law I wanted to practice, so I was particularly interested in experiential learning opportunities. Sure, I could learn about different legal fields and see how I liked them in practice during my summer internships, but clinics and externships would give me even more chances to try out various specialties and hopefully find what I was most passionate about. Knowing that these options are only available to 2Ls and 3Ls, I came into my first year ready to just hit the books and keep those other plans in the back of my mind for the upcoming semesters.

But Boston College Law School had different plans. 

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BC, I Still Love You. 

/ Melissa Gaglia / 1 Comment 
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I am a transfer student,
But everyone forgets that I'm new.

Since it is Valentine’s Day, it is only fitting I declare my love for my valentine, BC Law.  It’s been 170 days since my return, and I have yet to regret my decision of transferring. Like any great love story, it has not been entirely smooth sailing. I’ve had my moments where I experienced imposter syndrome, have been stressed out studying for finals, and pulled all-nighters to ensure I submit assignments on time. I’ve also had my share of new friendships, intramural softball wins, dance parties, and moments where I was smiling so hard my face started to hurt.

In the middle of my first semester, I expressed some self-doubt I was dealing with to my Labor Law professor, Thomas Kohler. After being fully remote for my 1L year, I was already adjusting to BC Law life, and the in-person aspect was just another layer of adjustment. Professor Kohler assured me that I was admitted to BC for a reason and that reason was not because they were pitying me; it was because I am smart and capable. This equipped me with the academic confidence I was lacking in myself.   

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Thank You, Tom Brady

/ Thomas R. Blakely / Leave a comment

It was fitting that the first word in New England about the retirement of Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. from the National Football League came Saturday during a blizzard. 

I remember the first Patriots game I ever watched was the 2001 AFC Championship Game against the Oakland Raiders, where Patriots kicker Adam Vinateri, following the controversial “tuck rule” play, made a field goal kick in heavy snow—the final act of the soon to be demolished Foxboro Stadium—which sent the Patriots on their way to their first Super Bowl title in franchise history, and launched the greatest dynasty and career in the history of professional sports.

Adam Schefter of ESPN posted on Twitter last week that the seven time Super Bowl champion, at 44 years old, was going to walk away from the game, which was soon met with doubt, as it appeared Brady’s camp attempted to throw cold water on the report, before Brady himself ultimately confirmed the announcement on Tuesday.

My Instagram feed filled with friends from Boston posting tributes, sharing childhood anecdotes, and admiring the career of #12. 

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What Does the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture and #FreeBritney Have in Common?

/ Devon Sanders / Leave a comment

Big news!

Last week, BC Law announced the 2022 Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer, Mathew Rosengart.

Rosengart has risen to substantial acclaim in the past few months due to his representation of Britney Spears. The BC Law alumnus was selected by Spears and eventually led the charge to end Spears’s 14-year conservatorship (for those living under a rock, #FreeBritney trended through much of the last summer and fall and became an international movement among millions of the singer’s fans).

Beyond his work with Spears, Rosengart has had an illustrious career. In the past few years, he has focused his practice on entertainment law and white-collar litigation, representing other huge names like Sean Penn, Winona Ryder, Steven Spielberg, Eddie Vedder, Keanu Reeves, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Miami Heat guard Jimmy Butler, as well as corporations Verizon and Facebook. (Side note–one of Rosengart’s clients, Sean Penn, described Rosengart as a “tough as nails street fighter with a big brain and bigger principles”). Rosengart also has an impressive record in public service, having served as a federal prosecutor and a clerk for Justice David Souter on the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

The speech is slated for February 22 at noon. Before then, you can check out BC Law Magazine’s article about Rosengart to learn more about this year’s Distinguished Lecturer.

Devon Sanders is a third-year student at BC Law and president of the Impact blog. Reach her at sanderdd@bc.edu.

Legal Movie Review: My Cousin Vinny

/ Dan Riley / Leave a comment

The time has come once again for me to write a post for the Impact Blog. And yet, my mind is an empty, barren wasteland. I’ve got nothing cooking, there’s no fuel in the tank, the store is closed, lights are off, doors are locked, we’re finished, done, kaput. I simply cannot summon forth another word of unsolicited law school advice from the darkest recesses of my weak and feeble brain to foist upon the unsuspecting masses.

What I can do is watch a legal movie, and then tell you about it. Last year, similarly incapable of riffing 500-800 words about outlining or whatever, I catalogued ten minor inaccuracies about the law school experience portrayed in the documentary feature-film Legally Blonde. This time, I’ll be comprehensively scrutinizing My Cousin Vinny, a film centered around beleaguered Italian Americans starring Joe Pesci, and therefore, I assume, directed by Martin Scorsese.

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Remembering Fred Korematsu

/ Seung Hye Yang / Leave a comment

Korematsu v. United States is easily one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time, and one that people are often unaware of until they get to the strict scrutiny aspect of their Constitutional Law class. In fact, I distinctly remember getting to the World War II portion of history in APUSH back in high school, seeing a brief mention of this case, asking about it in class, only to be brushed off because it “wasn’t important.”

Yesterday was January 30th, 2022: Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution, a day that is mostly only observed in California. On the anniversary of Korematsu, I’d like to draw attention to the article my APALSA mentor, Rosa Kim, wrote up a year ago–and also to weigh in with my own thoughts on the matter.

Korematsu is, undoubtedly, an ugly portion of US History that is often swept under the rug. Fred Korematsu was only 23 when he was ordered by the US Government to evacuate his residence and move into one of the Japanese internment camps prepared in the wake of Pearl Harbor, designed to herd the Japanese American population into controlled areas to supervise them. Anyone “at least 1/16th Japanese” were evacuated. Korematsu was the age many of us students are today when he changed his name and had plastic surgery done to try to avoid this mandate. As a US citizen, he did not understand why he was being herded off to camps as a prisoner merely for the way he looked. He chose to stay at home rather than relocate and was eventually arrested for his violation of the order. Korematsu then courageously appealed his case until it reached the Supreme Court, maintaining that the evacuation order was a violation of his 5th Amendment right.

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Why We Chose Environmental Law

/ Fiona Maguire / Leave a comment

The following post was written by 1L, Logan Hagerty. Logan is an avid member of the BC Environmental Law Society (ELS) and serves as a 1L Representative. ELS is the umbrella organization for the BC Land & Environmental Law program. We lead research, service, professional training, social events, and more. As President of ELS, it has been a pleasure working with the new students like Logan who share my commitment to environmental law. -Fiona Maguire

I read dozens of faculty bios and course listings when applying to law school. I keyword-searched more variations of “environmental law” than I thought was possible: “Land,” “energy,” “property,” “environmental justice,” and “natural resources,” just to name a few. You guessed it – I came to law school with an interest in environmental law. 

Professor Plater’s bio (and bow tie!) stood out on the BC Law website. I’d struck a gold mine. I explored the BC site some more, finding pictures from the Environmental Law Society (ELS) Barbeque and Winter Weekend events. I was hooked! (I also attended both of these events). Now I view the environmental law program as more than a “gold mine.” The program is an old-growth forest; it offers rich, deep-rooted connections, support, and development. 

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Imposter Syndrome: Who, ME?

/ Roma Gujarathi / 1 Comment

Today was the first day of my last semester of school, ever.* (*Unless I decide I want another degree down the line, but for now, after seven straight years of undergrad and grad school, I’m definitely done for the near future.) As I saw all of the “happy last first day of school” messages this morning, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of restlessness. I’m externing this semester and was working full-time for the day. I realized my anxiety was building up over being in this new externship placement. Here, I’m working in an area of law that I have no experience in, so before I began this morning, I felt incredibly nervous about this new position: What if I’m in a meeting and get asked a question I have no idea how to answer? What if I’m supposed to know about some substantive area of the law that I actually am clueless about? Until I eventually calmed down, I even started wondering how and why I landed the position in the first place. Who, me? How? Why?

This feeling of doubt and lack of confidence isn’t foreign to me. I felt similarly on my very first day of law school, my first case during my clinic experience, and throughout my 2L summer as a summer associate at a law firm. These feelings of self-doubt and uncertainty are a form of imposter syndrome, which is something I continue to struggle with as a final semester 3L. Imposter syndrome can come in various forms for various people. One HBR article defines it as “doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud.”

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Reminding Ourselves Why We “Do” Law School

/ Ismail (Izzy) Ercan / Leave a comment

Writing an Impact post at the beginning of the semester is never easy. How to recapture the excitement for school after a month’s vacation and a return to campus in the middle of a Boston winter? 1L’s gearing up for round 2, 2L’s grinding away, and 3L’s wondering why we are still on campus. In addition, with the latest Covid surge, another round of “when will this all be over” doesn’t exactly help the cause. 

But in this case the answer of what to write about seemed clear to me: my experiences in the Innocence Clinic working for my client. While I am not able to disclose many of the details about his case, I can say that my client had a clean record both before and after the arson he was wrongfully convicted of, and that our clinic recently filed a motion for new trial looking to overturn his conviction using newly discovered evidence that demonstrates his innocence nearly twenty years later. 

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