When Burnout Burns You Down

/ Roma Gujarathi / 2 Comments

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

― Anne Lamott

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We live in a world where we glorify the hustle. You worked for 10 hours? Well, I worked for 12. You slept 5 hours? Oh, but I only got 4. Business school and law school are feeding grounds for this kind of toxic environment, and I fed into it. I’ve always prided myself in being able to handle chaos and a busy schedule. I’m a yes-person; I pile things on my plate with complete disregard for whether I actually have the bandwidth to take them on. For as long as I can remember, I’ve subconsciously led myself to believe that this trait of mine is heroic. “Other people can’t handle this level of stress, but I can. Chug along and don’t look back. Taking breaks is for the weak, and that, I am not.” And for years, this lifestyle felt great. That is, of course, until suddenly, it did not.

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Five Silver Linings of Online Classes

/ kmallary / 1 Comment

I know I’m only four weeks into my legal education, and less than one sentence into this blog post, but I already feel compelled to start with a disclaimer.

This post is intentionally optimistic. The world has been feeling like a grim place lately. Although I’m presenting some bright sides to having class online, I don’t want to ignore the fact that the shift to online education has widened already existing educational  disparities.

With no further ado, let’s talk about some good things for a change:

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Return to BC, Online Classes, and the Strange Dog in My Backyard

/ Dan Riley / Leave a comment

We’re over a month into the fall semester here at BC Law, and things are falling into a new but familiar rhythm. Hopefully the 1Ls are feeling a little bit more on top of what law school entails now that they’re at the back-end of September. For us returning students, hopefully it feels like a return to some kind of normalcy and productivity.

But of course, this semester isn’t business as usual. We are all in a hybrid-learning model, with some classes online and some classes in-person. We track our health and take precautions like social distancing and wearing masks, all while spending most of our time bound in our homes for the sake of public health and safety. I am in a safe and secure place, so I can’t complain; especially considering all the uncertainty 1Ls must be experiencing as they start law school, and the challenges that students are facing from this economic decline, its impacts on the job market and recruiting, its implications for competitive grading among students, and the drudgery of social isolation. These days, I spend what feels like every hour of every day in my all-in-one bedroom/office/home gym/living room, just staring out a window waiting for a dog.  

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RBG Left Us a Roadmap for a More Just Nation

/ Jamie Ehrlich / Leave a comment

 

While attending University of Chicago in 2018, I had the good fortune to have a part-time job as a community outreach coordinator for the soon-to-be-released “RBG” documentary. On premiere night at the Chicago Gold Coast theater the Chicagoans I had come to know turned out in force. The gray-haired justice book group was followed by some little girls with their mothers. Film buffs, law students, elected officials, and a church group were all present and excited to learn more about this notorious intellectual giant. Everyone was moved by her story. The little girl who went in wearing an RBG costume came out standing a little taller in her black robe and jabot. This was the power of her transcendent appeal. 

More recently, as a CNN Associate Producer covering the Supreme Court, I was assigned a retrospective story about Justice Ginsburg’s most impactful decisions during her long career. I wrote the story factually and objectively, with no fanfare, and placed it in reserve for what I hoped would be a very long time. 

But she deserved fanfare. 

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10 Outdoor Activities to Try in Boston

/ Courtney Ruggeri / Leave a comment

Here at BC Law, community is a central part of student life. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic has changed the way that BC students can interact with each other, both inside and outside of the classroom. For instance, the BC Orientation Program for 1Ls, LLMs, and transfer students was completely virtual, and back on campus we must maintain proper social distancing and wear masks at all times. But still, the desire to maintain friendships and experience Boston is important to many, even if it looks and feels a little different. Therefore, I wanted to share with all of you some ways that my friends and I plan to enjoy the great outdoors before we get hit with the Boston winter weather.

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Black Art Matters

/ ianramseynorth / 1 Comment

About five years ago, I stumbled onto some Afrofuturist art in a market in northern Uganda. I was moving through a maze of kitenge stalls when I came to a makeshift gallery that a young artist had set up in a forgotten corner of the market. One of his pieces was of a dramatic skyline, with arched spires climbing into the sky, draped in tropical vegetation. In the foreground, people in stylized, angular kitenge clothes were walking through a bustling public square. I asked him what it was and he said, “It’s the Kampala of the future.”

In contrast to a lot of antiseptic and tech-centric futurism, his mix of sci-fi architecture, verdant ecology, traditional culture, and civic harmony suggested that the ideal future would incorporate a healthy dose of the past. It reminded me of an aphorism from the other side of the African continent, embodied in the adinkra symbol, Sankofa, which depicts a bird with its head turned backward, retrieving an egg. The Sankofa symbol and word convey the idea that in moving forward, it is important to bring along what is essential from the past.

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Welcome Back Guide

/ Devon Sanders / 1 Comment

The start of a new school year is a hectic time. Figuring out new classes, learning brand-new material, and readjusting to the school-year schedule can be a bit overwhelming. I have been finding myself jotting down dates, searching my emails for important information, and panic-texting a classmate or two to make sure I am not missing anything. 

In an attempt to quell the chaos, I put together some pertinent administrative information for the semester. Whether it’s knowing when the next shuttle is arriving to get to school or having resources to learn more about different BC Law departments, this guide has helped me keep everything in one place. 

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My Unexpected Summer Experience

/ Courtney Ruggeri / Leave a comment

To put it simply, I did not have the summer I expected. Like many of my peers, my summer associate program was cancelled, I had to put vacation plans on hold, and I was forced to think about the post-grad job market way more than I wanted. But this unexpected turn of events (thank you, COVID-19) led to an incredible opportunity at Citrix.

During the fall of my 2L year, I took a Privacy Law course with Peter Lefkowitz, Chief Privacy & Digital Risk Officer at Citrix. I had gotten to know Peter pretty well over the course of the semester, and had gone to him for career advice before. So, when I discovered I suddenly had no summer plans, I took a chance, reached out to Peter, and asked if he had any suggestions for how to gain privacy-related experience while I had this downtime. Lucky for me, Citrix was in the middle of launching its first legal internship program, and Peter had the perfect opportunity.

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Going Beyond Doctrine: Critical Perspectives at BC Law

/ ianramseynorth / Leave a comment

When this year’s 1Ls sit down for their first Property Law class they are likely to discuss Pierson v. Post. The case concerns a dispute over who owned a wild fox killed during a hunt. Lodowick Post and his pack of hunting dogs were in pursuit of the fox, having chased it through a stretch of the town commons when Jesse Pierson suddenly intervened to kill and claim it. Post insisted that the fox was rightly his, as he and his pack of hounds had been in pursuit and were on the verge of capturing it. Pierson countered that a wild animal is no one’s property until it is definitively captured or killed.

Pierson is a 1L classic because it dramatizes the legal construction of ownership. The dividing line between the fox’s state of nature and its state as property is whatever the majority opinion says it is. More subtly, the case also dramatizes a key assumption driving much of Anglo-American property law: settling the question of ownership clarifies many of the rights and responsibilities that shape our relations as political subjects. Pierson can feel anachronistic, with the majority discussing obscure legal treatises and the minority perseverating on the noxiousness of foxes. But the case was not really about a fox.[1]

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Examining White Privilege

/ Courtney Ruggeri / Leave a comment

Today I am hosting a guest blog from alumnus Michael B. Goldenkranz ‘78.

Part of what drew this Jewish boy from Brooklyn to BC Law in the mid 70’s was prior Dean Robert Drinan S.J., who left to become a U.S. Congressman shortly before I began law school. Both his and the School’s continuing and unwavering commitment to human rights and social justice, and the mission to “prepare students to not only be good lawyers but lead good lives,” still resonates with me today.

I have tried to instill those values in my now grown children, and to remind them to always question assumptions, as I remember doing during my time at BC Law.  My son David, a former primary/secondary school teacher who has also worked on documentary filmmaking, is taking the opportunity to use today’s calls for racial justice and equality to examine his status as a privileged white male in ways that may be sometimes viscerally painful, but certainly necessary. His recent essays include “Pajamas are a Privilege,” “White American PTSD,” “A Black and White Matter,” “What Kind of a Dog are You?” and “Colorblindness: The Façade of Equality.”

Like the cases we studied at BC Law and the discussions we had in our classes, I find David’s writings thoughtful and provocative. They make me think about uncomfortable but really important issues in ways that I think would please Fr. Drinan. My hope is that we may continue to strive to lead good lives and fight for social justice and equality for all.

David’s website can be found at https://davidgoldenkranz.com.

-Michael B. Goldenkranz, BC Law ‘78