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

/ Charlene Ochogo / Leave a comment

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

/ mptierney / Leave a comment

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

/ Amelia M. Wirts, Esq. / 1 Comment

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

/ Luciabc / Leave a comment

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

/ Rob Rossi / Leave a comment

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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Student Life: the APALSA Lunar Dinner

/ Elizabeth Blass / 1 Comment

This weekend, the Asian and Pacific American Law Student Association (known as APALSA) hosted its annual dinner to celebrate the lunar new year. I didn’t get a chance to attend as a 1L, but heard amazing things, so I made it a priority to buy a ticket this year.

The dinner is held in Chinatown, which is in downtown Boston near a neighborhood called Back Bay, and let me tell you, I was not disappointed. BC Law students pay $8 for an 8-course meal. Let me say that again: Eight dollars. Eight courses.  Continue reading →

Things I Wish I Knew, Vol. 2: Your story matters

/ Charlene Ochogo / 1 Comment

What the frack am I going to write my personal statement about?

A thought that has probably haunted many a person reading this for the past few months. And even after you’re done writing it, you have to read it, which is a lot like hearing your own voice on camera – i.e., “Gross. Do I really sound like that?” Even worse, you have to get someone else to read it to catch the typos and confusing tangents. And most people fall into one of two categories: the ones who tell you it’s perfect and not to change a thing (thanks, Mom!) and the ones who basically tell you to rewrite the whole thing.

To say that I was nervous about submitting my personal statement to BC is kind of like saying Boston got a few snow showers this past month. Race is such a sensitive topic of discussion, and I felt like I was really throwing caution to the wind in dedicating my entire admissions essay to the subject, but I couldn’t help it – it didn’t make sense to me to write about anything else. Then when I got the request to publish it in BC Law Magazine, I was even more anxious. I typed the confirmation email quickly and hit “send” before I could change my mind.

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Life Behind the Firewall

/ DQuattrochi / Leave a comment

“Welcome to the Firewall,” Yaxin said with a grin as she tapped her card to the clear, glass door of the fifth floor’s southwest corridor. I couldn’t help but grin too. Two clicks sounded as she reached out, grabbed the door handle and pulled it towards her. “Are you ready?” she asked, looking back at me. I was still in awe. I nodded and walked forward, calm and poised on the outside, but bursting with excitement on the inside.

stairs

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Law Revue Is Coming

/ Rob Rossi / Leave a comment

Happy Friday the 13th!  Given the unbelievable amount of snow we’ve had recently, I’m celebrating mine with a pair of make-up classes to kick off the weekend.

In lieu of a really in-depth post about career paths, social justice, or anything really heavy, I thought I’d lighten the mood a bit by reminding everyone – law revue is not far away!

I don’t have an exact date for when the new video(s) will drop (I hear it’s soon), but since last year’s hasn’t been posted on this blog yet, now seems like the perfect time to embed it. Enjoy!

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BC Law Magazine: John Kerry AND Amazing Law School Admissions Essays

/ Luciabc / Leave a comment

For anyone thinking about law school, and BC in particular, the latest issue of the BC Law Magazine (http://lawmagazine.bc.edu/) is not to be missed. One of the things BC prides itself on is educating future lawyers who go out to serve their communities in a variety of ways. This issue of the magazine profiles a number of such leaders who got their start at BC Law, including of course Secretary of State John Kerry. As if that wasn’t enough, there are also a number of exceptional law school admissions essays reprinted which are great examples of the kind of succinct and compelling narratives which can grab a reader’s attention. Enjoy!

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