1L

The Cases We Read: Pennoyer v. Neff

/ Charlene Ochogo / Leave a comment

What comes to mind when you hear the words, “personal jurisdiction”?

Fear? Loathing? Confusion because you’re a 1L or prospective student who has no idea what this is?

One of the things that fascinated me most when I came to law school was the fact that here we are in the 21st century and we’re still studying cases from close to 200 years ago. Frankly, I was rather annoyed when I realized this—was I supposed to have come into law school with the word “forsooth” as part of my working lexicon?  Continue reading →

You’ll Be Fine. Trust Me.

/ Caroline Reilly / Leave a comment

My first year of law school was hard for a number of reasons. I commuted from the North Shore everyday to avoid the debacle of finding an apartment, but this meant a ninety minute trip to school and back every day. To make my 9 am Torts class in the Fall, I would take the commuter rail into the city, and then an hourlong Green Line train ride to Cleveland Circle, where I would either pick up the shuttle or bum a ride from a fellow student heading to campus (thank you Colleen, and thank you Karla, you two saved me).

Imposter syndrome compounded my anxiety and I went from being someone who was hard on herself to someone who was impossible with herself. I was convinced that I wasn’t good enough, that I would fail my finals, and that graduating (or even making it to 2L year) wasn’t a given. I spent most of the year walking the ever-thinning tightrope of telling myself I deserved to be at BC, while not getting so confident that I would slip up and lose focus.

Then my dog died.

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These are a few of my favorite things

/ Venus Chui / Leave a comment

Yesterday was a day of celebration for me and my fellow 1Ls. It was the day that the writing competition was due. It was the day that we could finally embrace summer.

While all of us are understandably eager to have a break from school, I always like to leave a little room for nostalgia. Below are a few anecdotes that I gathered from my 1L friends about their favorite memories from this year, to remind us of what made our first year of law school so special. Enjoy!

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The Admitted Students Guidebook: the definitive treatise on “Things I Wish I Knew”

/ Charlene Ochogo / 1 Comment

My mom always taught me that wherever you go, you should try to leave that place a little better than when you found it.

For those of you who don’t know my segment on Impact, I’m the “Things I Wish I Knew” gal, bringing you little tidbits of hopefully helpful advice from the perspective of someone who felt like she had quite a learning curve for this whole law school thing. I figure that my mistakes and triumphs might make things easier for some of you, so I’m happy to share whatever wisdom I can.

But among all the studying and class and work and job searching, I’ve been working on a little something else, too.

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Meet the Affinity Group Leaders: Amani Kancey (BLSA)

/ Marx P. Calderon / Leave a comment

Name: Amani Kancey

Year: 2017 (2L)

Photo on 9-15-14 at 8.19 PMOrganization: Black Law Students Association (Co-President)

Undergraduate Institution: Howard University

Experiences between college and law school: 

Upon graduating from Howard University I served as a White House Intern. After my internship, I was appointed by the White House to work at the U.S Department of Transportation as a Political Appointee. For two and a half years I was Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

 Favorite event that your organization plans:

My favorite event that BLSA hosted this year was “Black Excellence: A Celebration of Black History in Academia and the Legal Profession”. Black Excellence featured our Black deans and faculty sharing their personal stories in life and practice.

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Things I Wish I Knew Vol. 16: You can come see the school, even if you can’t come see the school

/ Charlene Ochogo / Leave a comment

Hi everyone! It’s been a while since my last post because I and the admissions committee have been hard at work on a few projects (one soon to come – stay tuned!) including this one.

We know that getting to campus for a visit may be cost-prohibitive or otherwise impossible for some of our students outside of the Northeast, and in conjunction with the Office of Admissions, we’ve made it so that you can take a tour from the comfort of your own home! Watch the replay on You Tube:

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Diversity Month Kicks off with the Taste of Diversity

/ Marx P. Calderon / Leave a comment

BC Law officially kicked off Diversity Month with the “Taste of Diversity.” The event offers an opportunity for students to interact and sample food from the different affinity groups. Prior to the event, LSA President Nirav Bhatt ’16 said, “Every year students are excited for the tasty food and thought-provoking conversations that arise during the buffet style event. I’m looking forward to it!” Indeed, it’s an event that students have been talking about for weeks leading up to it. We all know students love free food, especially quality food!

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An Activist at Heart, A Journalist by Training, a Lawyer in the Making

/ Caroline Reilly / 2 Comments

As a kid I toggled back and forth between lots of answers to “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Lawyer was always on the short list. So was journalism.

I read “All the President’s Men” for an eighth grade book report, and it didn’t take long for me to make Bernstein and Woodward my personal journalism deities. To me, the idea that two reporters could take down a crooked president was (and still is) the epitome of what great journalism can do.

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Things I Wish I Knew, Vol. 15: Mentors are basically life’s “Google Search” feature

/ Charlene Ochogo / Leave a comment

“Mom, Dad, why don’t you just Google it?”

It’s a phrase I must have said a million times in my short 23 years. The basic premise there is that someone out there in the big wide world has had the same question, and there is always someone who knows more than you who has the answer.

Okay, but it’s one thing entirely to ask Google why a certain word you misspelled in a  text once has suddenly become your phones default spelling, and another entirely to ask how to navigate law school or find a job doing what you want with the salary and work-life balance you want given all of your specific life experiences.

That’s where mentorship comes in. And in a lot of ways, it’s even better than a Google search.

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