1L

Does a “Not Real Job” On a Resume Mean Anything? Yes, and Here’s Why.

/ Catherine Beveridge / Leave a comment

The fall feels like the time of year everyone works on their resumes. Along with the changing New England leaves and pumpkin spice lattes, current and prospective law students all partake in a seasonal refresh after a busy summer. 

It was before one of these seasonal resume workshops I heard a common talking point. 

“Oh I’ve never had a real job.” 

“Is it bad that I have no political work on my resume?” 

“I was stuck working retail during the pandemic.”

This is an anxiety that many, if not all, law students have encountered at some point. Maybe it was during our application process, or maybe it’s manifesting now. We fear our experiences are not relevant to this field. Our skills from assisting with college orientation to dishwashing are not applicable to being an attorney. 

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Past Experience Pays Off: How A Podcasting Career Prepared Me For 1L

/ Ian Hurley / Leave a comment

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

A little more than four years ago, I found myself in the producer’s chair, attempting to put together my first podcast for Wondery Media. The episode centered around a mystery story, one that remains unsolved. It was no unsolved murder or whodunit yarn, but instead a tale about what happened to a 7-foot 900 lbs bronze statue of Joe Paterno, the disgraced former-head football coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions. The statue disappeared in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal that rocked the State College community back in 2011 and led to Paterno’s firing; a previously unbelievable outcome for a coach who at that time led the NCAA in career victories. The whereabouts of the statue remain unknown, and while that mystery remained, what became clear to me as I bumbled my way through putting that story together was just how little I knew about what an adequate producer does every day. 

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How Can Line Dancing Help Reframe 1L September? Let Me Explain.

/ BC Law Impact Guest Posts / Leave a comment

By Catherine Beveridge

As a 1L, you might think the torrent of information coming your way will start to slow after orientation. We covered the major bases like the academic success program, experiential learning, the job search, and even heard an inspirational talk with Fr. Jack Butler. However, when classes start, it ramps up even higher. Every club has an introductory meeting, networking events pop up, and the career office promised to leave you alone but here they are with a resume workshop right as you want to go home on a Friday afternoon. 

After another day of classes, introductory meetings and workshops I found myself on my bed, exhausted and staring face-up at the ceiling. That was when I discovered a way to step back. 

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Why Hurricanes and Oranges Sent Me to Law School

/ Samantha Torre / Leave a comment

When I was ten years old, Hurricane Sandy hit my hometown on Long Island in October 2012.  My concerns at the time were centered on whether the neighborhood would cancel trick or treating and if the medium-sized pear tree on our front lawn would survive after the storm knocked it over. For me, Hurricane Sandy represented a vacation from school and a chance to finish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Fortunately, circumstance shielded me from the extent of the damage — our utilities survived most of the storm and were replaced quickly. This was not the case for everyone. Friends who lived five minutes away lost water for days and power for longer. My aunt had to move after her home was flooded. A friend from high school still had nightmares when it rained — six years after the storm.

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1Ls, We’ve Got This (Don’t We?)

/ Alexandra Staller / Leave a comment

I’ve known I wanted to go to law school since I was in the 4th grade. My teacher decided to throw a mock trial competition, and I was assigned to be one of the attorneys for my client who had his tap shoes stolen from his neighbor. I had an absolute blast winning the case for him, and from then on I knew I wanted to do with my life what I did for that one week in 4th grade. 

That was almost 12 years ago. The other day as I sat in my Civil Procedure class I thought to myself: “I cannot believe I’m here right now.” It had always seemed like law school was just an idea, until it became a goal––and now it’s just what I do every Monday-Friday from 9am-3pm.

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“Proficient in Law, Grounded in Love:” Why BC Law is a Different Kind of Law School

/ Christine Lenahan / 1 Comment

1L orientation sometimes feels like trying to drink from a firehose. There’s so much crucial information being delivered, but it’s overwhelming to process it all while trying to navigate the maze of campus buildings—Stuart Hall to the East Wing, East Wing to the Yellow Room— and meeting professors and students who will surround and support your legal journey.

Amidst the flood of presentations on clinics, externships, career services, and the basics of legal education, one question lingers: When do we actually start “thinking like a lawyer”? Right now, I’m more concerned with absorbing all this information and keeping track of acronyms (CSO handles OCI… right?).

Then, on day two, a man in clerics appears in East Wing 115A/B. Enter Fr. Jack Butler.

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Four Things I’m Looking Forward to in 2L

/ Sangeeta Kishore / Leave a comment

With less than a month before finals, the reality has dawned on me. After I take my last final for Con Law, on May 13, I’ll officially be done with 1L. Law school, thus far, has been a rewarding experience. I’ve learned more about the law than I could’ve ever imagined possible in just one year. 

Here’s what I’m looking forward to as I take the next step in my law school journey. 

  1. More free time 

Let’s face it. The 1L schedule is rough. In one way, it’s great to come away with exposure to all different types of law. But I definitely won’t miss the 8:30 am-4:30 pm school days. The main piece of reassurance I’ve received from my older peers has been that “it only gets better from here.” Having more of a work-life balance next year will certainly help. 

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5 Reasons to Join Law Review

/ Jonathan Bertulis-Fernandes / Leave a comment

Over the next few weeks, Boston College Law Review will begin its outreach and recruitment program to encourage 1Ls to consider applying to become a staff member next year. The annual journal information session will be held on Tuesday, April 9 on Zoom (details to be circulated nearer the time) and there will also be a range of other opportunities to speak to current staff members and learn more about the different journal opportunities at BC. With this in mind, I thought I’d write a post to share some of the main reasons I think 1Ls should consider joining law review.

The first thing I think it’s important to say is that no one must do law review. I repeat: no one must do law review. And no one should feel pressured to do law review if they’re not interested. If you genuinely don’t want to do law review, two years as a staff member will be an unhappy experience. I would be the first person to tell you not to apply if you definitely don’t want to do it. But I do feel strongly that no one should self-select out of applying because they think it’s not for them. 

Everyone knows the discourse around the potential career benefits of joining law review. There are lots of other articles that discuss this and I intend to leave it to those authors to make their case. I just wanted to share some reasons why you might want to think about joining law review, building on previous posts on this blog in years past such as this and this.

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Two Takeaways on Property Law (So Far)

/ Sangeeta Kishore / Leave a comment

Here are two of my many takeaways from 1L year so far–one surprising, and one not so surprising. First, I find Property Law extremely fascinating. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been shocked. After all, property rights are essential to our everyday lives. The Fifth Amendment declares that the government cannot deprive anyone of three fundamental things—“life, liberty or property”—without due process. But then there is my second takeaway: the government has not always upheld this. Looking at the law with a critical lens, it is clear that unequal administration of the law is as old as the law itself. 

This is where the Heirs’ Property and the Racial Wealth Gap Conference comes in. Hosted by BC Law’s Initiative on Land, Housing, & Property Rights (ILHPR), this two-day conference set to begin a week from today (March 21) will tackle a pressing issue: $32 billion of heirs’ property in the United States is at risk. A wide-range of speakers, from officials at the USDA and HUD to academics and researchers, will speak about the rising racial wealth gap and how to uplift black property issues. 

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7 Realistic Ways to Start Preparing for Finals Now

/ Reilly Doak / Leave a comment

If your last semester’s GPA wasn’t what you hoped, there’s still time to improve! Although this article is geared towards 1Ls, I’ve followed these tips throughout my law school career.

It’s true that 1L grades set the tone for summer internships and OCI, but demonstrating improvement, resilience, and an ability to learn from past mistakes can be similarly valuable in your job search. Below I’ve included some tips that helped me significantly improve my 1L GPA between my first and second semesters. Remember that at the end of the day, your best is enough!

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