At BC Law I get to be a College Professor

Did that title catch you? I hope it did, because it’s true. What else do we think about when we commit to graduate school except what opportunities will be open to us after such a monumental a choice? Before BC Law, I was a paralegal. I lived in Manhattan and London after college. To be honest, I thought I had peaked. Those experiences defined me, I think, and like many who would read this blog, there’s a lot riding on where you want to commit such a massive amount of capital. But at BC Law, I get to teach an undergraduate class. Right? It’s AWESOME!

A Brazilian man (an LLM, who I now count as an incredible friend) and I teach 26 bright young minds of tomorrow in a class focusing on Environmental Law and American Jurisprudence. At BC, if you focus in Environmental Law, you have the opportunity to teach a college class. You really can’t say that enough. I’ve done a lot in the law and in law school. I worked at Cravath. I’ve negotiated federal treaties with federally recognized Alaskan tribes. And because of the famous BC network, I got to work at the DOJ in my 1L year. But this, wow, this has been the best thing I’ve ever done.

The program is open to students in other Boston area law schools, but is the solely the product of BC. If we have this, imagine the other opportunities you can cultivate for yourself at this place. The sky truly is the limit.

BC Law moves up to #34 in US News

Yesterday, US News & World Report published the 2016 installment of its annual ranking of top law schools across the United States. BC Law moved up two spots from its 2015 ranking to number 34, putting it into a six-way tie with BYU, Fordham, Indiana, Ohio State and UNC.

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The merits of the methodology used to determine these lists, and indeed the idea of rankings themselves, are always debated. Unsurprisingly, most people tend to favor the lists that rank their schools most highly, especially if the disparities are at all notable. For example, while BC Law moved up to number 34 in the US News, that ranking still falls far below its place on Above the Law‘s listContinue reading

Tinker Bell or Prison Time? (Paradigms of Criminal Law Part One)

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sujatha baliga, Restorative Justice Project and Associate Director, NCCD, speaking at the Rebellious Lawyering Conference at Yale Law School, Feb. 21, 2015 (photo taken by me)

“What do crime victims actually want?”

That is a question that sujatha baliga is asked quite frequently as a facilitator in restorative justice programs that focus on making a victim whole after a crime rather than punishing the person who committed the crime. “You can never really predict what will make a victim whole. Sometimes, it’s Tinker Bell,” balinga said. Continue reading

Things I Wish I Knew, Vol. 4: You DO know things and you CAN do things, even if you’re “just a 1L”

“Just a 1L.”

I heard that phrase thrown around a lot when I was researching law schools. You shouldn’t expect to have a lot of stuff to put on your resume because you’re “just a 1L.” You shouldn’t expect to get a “real” job this summer because you’re “just a 1L.” What you have to say and what you bring to the table aren’t as important because you’re “just a 1L.”

So I think we can agree that all those people were very clearly wrong.

Me becoming one with nature at the Desert Botanical Gardens.

Me becoming one with nature at the Desert Botanical Gardens

Greetings from the desert! I’m extremely pleased to be blogging from sunny Phoenix, Arizona – which reminds me a lot of Florida (just substitute cactuses for palm trees). The best part? BC is sponsoring this mini vacation/incredible opportunity to get some hands-on legal experience.

I had the privilege of being selected to go on one of BC’s many spring break service trips. Our Phoenix quintet is spending this week working with The Florence Project, a nonprofit that provides legal services to unaccompanied immigrant minors. Last summer, the influx of children leaving Central America to escape persecution and poverty alerted many (myself included) to the fact that child detention centers are all around the country, often in our own communities. These children, who often speak only Spanish or a dialect from their home country and may be too young to read or write, rely on organizations like The Florence Project to advocate on their behalf in the hopes of reunifying with family members within the U.S., or, at the very least, not being sent back to their home country.  In the uphill battle to find grounds for asylum or some other visa that will put these kids on the path to become legal permanent residents, organizations like The Florence Project have to conduct a lot of case research and statute interpretation, not to mention finding out more about the conditions that caused the kids to flee in their countries in the first place.

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BigLaw Hiring Stats: Good News for BC

Yesterday, the National Law Journal published its annual list of the “Go-To Law Schools.” Unlike many other publications, NLJ uses only one piece of data to order its rankings – percentage of the graduating class heading to a job with one of the 250 largest law firms in the U.S.

BC moved up two spots in the 2015 rankings, from 23 to 21. The Class of 2014 sent 66 grads into first-year associate positions, 13 more than the Class of 2013.

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Columns, sorted from left to right: Rank, School, Number of Associates at NLJ 250 Firms, 2014 Grads, Percent of Grads at NLJ 250 Firms

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Things I Wish I Knew, Vol. 3: Admitted Students Day is well worth your time

Okay, so I should preface this by saying that I didn’t have the opportunity to attend an Admitted Students Day event and the first day I set foot on the BC Law campus was two days before orientation. I spent the next month entirely overwhelmed by the things I didn’t know, and even more so by the things I didn’t know I didn’t know.

But it didn’t have to be that way.

I had the opportunity to volunteer with the February 20th Admitted Students Day and I’m retroactively kicking my butt for not making time to come to one of these, because I got so many of Pre-1L Charlene’s questions answered in one fell swoop.

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Seachanges and Drag Queens

With the current state of the world, Environmental Law is only going to get bigger. At BC Law, there’s no question that we’re at the tip of the spear on a number of pressing environmental legal initiatives. Our environmental law review, Environmental Affairs, is the second oldest and most subscribed such journal in the country. Our professors of environmental law are luminaries in their field. And our student run Environmental Law Society boasts a proud, longstanding tradition of meaningful social and academic engagement. This January, the Environmental Law Society made a trip down to Provincetown as part of its annual Winter Weekend excursion.

Winter Weekend is tough to capture. It’s part lecture series, part bonding adventure, and recently, part drag karaoke jam fest. Let me explain. For the last three years, the Environmental Law Society has journeyed down to P-Town, famous for that old Cape magic, not to mention the town’s established LGBT community.  Law students come to learn from great speakers, enjoy the best seafood, and croon a Journey song or two with the locally famous Dana Danzel II.

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Passion Killing and Mercy

Finding one’s wife in the act of committing adultery, flying into a rage, and killing her or her lover is probably not a murder. At least that is the way American law has treated that scenario. Passion killing is an old term that used to designate small set of circumstances, like finding your wife with another man, in which intentional killing did not amount to murder. These circumstances, including such chivalrous acts as ‘mutual combat’ and ‘resisting illegal arrest’ were fixed, and they could drastically reduce your sentence.

The distinctions that structure our law are often also the distinctions that structure our shared values, and sometimes in the middle of a criminal law class, you can get an insight into those values.  Continue reading

Five Things to Do Before Law School That are Actually Worth Your Time

1. Relax

First of all, if you have some free time, enjoy it! While my time at BC Law has been a lot of fun, it is also been a lot of work and I often feel like I’m going from one thing to the next without much of a break. So if you have some down time before law school be sure to hang out with your friends from college and high school, and go on that family vacation your mom keeps bugging you about. Try the new restaurants you’ve been wanting to try, grab drinks with your friends, and do some reading for pleasure before you’re consumed by casebooks!

2. Build your network

The one thing I hear over and over again from the career center here is the importance of networking and making contacts for getting a job. If you have family members, family friends, or acquaintances who are judges or attorneys reach out to them! A short email saying “Hi [name], I hope you’re doing well. I wanted to get in touch because I just got accepted to Boston College Law School! I know you’re very busy but I’ve heard a little bit about your career in [x legal field] and if you have the time I would love to grab coffee or chat on the phone about the work you’ve done and your thoughts on working in [x legal field].” At the very least you’ll get some advice on law school and practicing, and who knows, you may end up finding a connection for a summer job.

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Mardi Gras Fundraising and the New Orleans Spring Break Trip

Hey everyone, my name is Tom. I’m filling in for Rob this week to talk about one of the pro bono service trips open to BC Law 1Ls. There are four different spring break trips through BC Law: the Haiti Service Trip, Navajo Nation Service Trip, Gulf Coast Service Recovery Trip (New Orleans), and the Immigration Law Service Trip (various cities across the U.S.). Rob went on the New Orleans trip last year, and that’s the one I’ll be doing this year.

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