I Miss BC, but Mostly the Free Coffee Served During Finals

/ Dan Riley / 3 Comments

Studying for final exams in law school is stressful. The stakes are high, the hours are long, and the despair can…fester. I was generally aware of the pressure built into a grading system centered around distributive bell curves when I enrolled, but in my first week at Boston College the reality set in. Something terrible happened: I met my peers, and they were every kind of smart, impressive and terrifying. They were students coming from across the country and around the world, some from THOSE big name schools and others with remarkable professional experience. 

Naturally I compared them to myself, the dumbest person I know. That was a bad move for my self-confidence, but sometimes you just have to keep moving forward. So, that’s what I did heading into finals season. 

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BC Law Releases Virtual Experiences for Admitted Students

/ Rosa Kim / 1 Comment

As we remain in our homes for the foreseeable future, we are all altering our perceptions of what is “normal” to acclimate to the current reality. Amid law school selection season, prospective students face a unique challenge—getting a feel for law schools without actually being able to visit.

In response, BC Law recently held its first virtual Admitted Students Day on March 27 and 28. Administration, professors, alumni, and current students all contributed to the content, trying to encapsulate what makes BC Law so special in a series of posted videos and live webinars.

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A Business Lens on the Constitution

/ Roma Gujarathi / Leave a comment

Impact is running a series of posts that were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we think the messages are too important to go unshared. Stay safe everyone, and please reach out to us at bclawimpact@bc.edu if we can do anything to help, or if you would like us to consider publishing a guest post on your own experiences during the outbreak.

Before our first class for Constitutional Law, our assignment was to read the Constitution in its entirety. As a recent business school graduate, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel and think of the United States as a business entity. Then, I started wondering, would the Constitution be its mission or vision statement?

In my operations and strategy courses at my undergraduate institution, we learned that a mission statement identifies an organization’s primary purpose for existing. For example, Google’s mission statement is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” On the other hand, a vision statement is a high-level statement of what the organization wants to achieve in the future. Following the previous example, Google’s vision statement is “to provide an important service to the world-instantly delivering relevant information on virtually any topic.”

Of course, I know it’s an immense oversimplification to analogize the nation to a business entity. Yet, I do find it an interesting exercise to explore whether the Constitution more establishes an identity for the country based on the framers’ perception – a more “mission statement” purpose – or whether it sets forth a foresight of what the country should aspire towards – a “vision statement” type of objective.

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The Role of Business in the COVID-19 Crisis

/ Devon Sanders / 2 Comments

Today I am hosting a guest blog by Irit Tamir, an adjunct professor at BC Law who teaches Business and Human Rights. She is also the Director of Oxfam America’s Private Sector Department. In her role, she is focused on working with companies to ensure that their business practices result in positive social and environmental impacts for vulnerable communities throughout the world. Irit leads Oxfam America’s work on business and development including shareholder engagement, value chain assessments, and collaborative advocacy initiatives, such as the successful “Behind the Brands” campaign.

Business has an important role to play in addressing the health and economic impacts of this crisis. Here’s a checklist of what companies can, and should, do.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for governments to take their duties seriously in protecting people and their human rights. Society’s ills can never be solved by business and markets alone. For several decades, the US government has taken a back seat as it relied on the private sector to solve public challenges—a system that is now being shaken to the core as benefits tied to employment are lost with jobs, and business is forced to shut down.

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10 Ideas to Help You Survive Quarantine

/ Courtney Ruggeri / 1 Comment

As soon as I heard rumors about states issuing stay-at-home orders, I jumped in my car and headed home to the DC area. On March 30, Governor Northam of Virginia issued an order mandating that people only leave their homes for food, medical care, and exercise until June 10.

The thought of spending over two more months in quarantine made me realize that I need to create a list of things to do while stuck at home. So, I’m sharing my ideas with you, Impact readers:

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Visiting the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

/ Devon Sanders / 3 Comments

Impact is running a series of posts on student reflections from their Spring Break Service Trips and experiential work last month. Find the first post here, and the second post here. These posts were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we think the messages are too important to go unshared. Today’s post is from Marija Tesla, who writes about her experience as part of BC Law’s International Human Rights Practicum visit to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Stay safe everyone, and please reach out to us at bclawimpact@bc.edu if we can do anything to help, or if you would like us to consider publishing a guest post on your own experiences during the outbreak.

When Professor Daniela Urosa chose me to be a part of the inaugural International Human Rights Practicum, to say that I was elated would be an understatement. It was a dream come true for me! She told me that it was a dream come true for her as well. Having guided instruction from her in our weekly meetings and in her seminar is the best part of my law school experience thus far. I am truly grateful to her and to Boston College Law School for making this clinic a reality. I know that it involved many years of hard work on the part of many, including Professor Judith McMorrow and Professor Daniel Kanstroom. 

My partner in the clinic is Nadia Bouquet, who is an LL.M. student from Paris, France, studying at Université Paris Nanterre. We are working on writing an amicus brief to submit to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) which relates to a case that is going to be heard by the Court in San José, Costa Rica later this year. There are six of us in the clinic, and we work in pairs of two on one amicus brief, each amicus relating to a different case and a different set of issues. Four of us are J.D. candidates and two are LL.M. candidates, which makes the conversations and the work that much richer. Most of us are also transnational thinkers, speaking multiple languages and having lived in different parts of the globe. We recognize the importance of IACtHR, which is an amalgamation of both the civil and common law, while also being its own unique regional system. It is why it is great to have students with such diverse backgrounds and different lived experiences who also come from both of the legal systems in the clinic, and who appreciate both the importance and complexity of international law and regional systems. 

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LSA Elections at the Zoom School of Law

/ Tatiana Becker / Leave a comment

As our entire academic reality has shifted onto Zoom, fundraisers have begun to raise money on behalf of the Zoom School of Law which many thousands of law students now joke is where we all go to school.

And yet in some ways the world keeps turning, and that provides minor solace to those who crave a scheduled life. We press on, talking about final exams, registering for fall classes, and daydreaming about future plans.

In that scheduled rhythm, we find ourselves in LSA elections. ‘Tis the time of year where our peers campaign for our vote to lead us through the twists and turns of the next year of law school. It involves campaign promises, town hall style forums, and this year, a very stable internet connection.

Our current LSA president Tyler Hendricks had these wise words to share with us on why we should continue to care about this election cycle:

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Miami Service Trip: Catholic Legal Services

/ Ismail (Izzy) Ercan / 1 Comment

Impact is running a series of posts on student experiences during their Spring Break Service Trips last month. Find the first post here. These posts were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we think the messages are too important to go unshared. We will share our third post tomorrow.

Stay safe everyone, and please reach out to us at bclawimpact@bc.edu if we can do anything to help, or if you would like us to consider publishing a guest post on your own experiences during the outbreak.

Spring break is often seen as a way to relax from the rigors of law school and recharge for the sprint to the end of the school year. But for 65 first-year students, Spring Break was a way to get a taste for what working in the public interest field entails. The trips ranged from helping Native American legal offices to aiding asylum-seeking immigrants living in Miami.

In addition to raising their own money to go on these service trips, students were broken up into teams assigned to these different cities, working for different pro-bono organizations.

Four students traveled to Miami to volunteer at Catholic Legal Services in Miami. Below they reflect on their favorite parts of the trip.

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BC Law’s Spring Break Pro Bono Trips: Executing Law in Alabama

/ Devon Sanders / 2 Comments

In the past few weeks the world has changed in ways most of us could never have imagined. While much remains unknown, one thing remains stable—the sense of community that both comforts and uplifts us, even in the midst of trying times.

The post below is a riveting reflection from 1L Ryan Kenney, who was among a group of BC Law students on this year’s Gulf Coast Pro-Bono Spring Break trip to Montgomery, Alabama. It was scheduled to be posted several weeks ago, but was postponed due to the emergency situation COVID-19 created. That said, we think the message is too important to go unshared. We will share several other related service trip stories this week.

Stay safe everyone, and please reach out to us at bclawimpact@bc.edu if we can do anything to help, or if you would like us to consider publishing a guest post on your own experiences during the outbreak.

When people asked us where we were from and we replied that we were on spring break from Boston College Law School, gently raised eyebrows and clarifying questions invariably followed. As if on cue, our neighbor on the puddle jumper from Charlotte, then the barista, the lobbyist in the state house elevator, and virtually everyone else we encountered who wasn’t already expecting us conferred a “Well, welcome to Alabama!” and a warm smile.

This week, we witnessed how people make, interpret, and execute laws in Alabama.

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