1L

Get to Know the CSO: Sarah Bookbinder

/ Tess Halpern / 7 Comments

A career services advisor can be an amazing resource in law school as you navigate OCI, externships, clerkship applications, and more. However, it’s important that you find the advisor who can best help you reach your personal goals! To do so, follow along with this new series to learn about each CSO advisor at Boston College Law School. First up is the Assistant Dean of Career Services, Sarah Bookbinder.

What is your role in the CSO?

As Assistant Dean, my main role is to oversee all of the ongoing work we do in the office, including individual advising, program planning, large scale interview programs, outreach to employers and alumni, and pro bono opportunities. I am also the main point of contact between the CSO and other offices in the Law School to make sure we’re coordinating our efforts, and I meet with students when they have ideas or specific needs beyond career advising. In addition to that daily work, I’m keeping a close eye on the market and the evolving goals and concerns of BC students to make sure our programming continues to reflect all of this.

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The Beauty of an American Legal Education: An International Student’s Perspective

/ Christopher Tan / Leave a comment

In the heart of Hong Kong’s Central district, under the watchful gaze of towering skyscrapers and amidst the city’s bustle, stands Lady Justice. Wearing a blindfold and delicately balancing scales in her hand, she acts as a beacon, symbolizing the enduring principles of fairness, equity, and the rule of law. She also represents Hong Kong’s British past, a colonial relic amidst ever-evolving cityscape and sovereignty that envelops her. As I left Hong Kong for Boston to attend law school, I thought of her journey, albeit stilted, through centuries of urban growth, shifts in sovereignty, and natural decay. With the statue of Lady Justice etched in my mind, I began my own legal journey in the United States.

So, as a Hong Konger, why attend law school in the United States? There are plenty of other common law jurisdictions to attain a law degree. The United Kingdom. Canada. Australia. Even Hong Kong itself. For me, the answer lies not just in the pursuit of a degree, but in the distinct ethos and philosophy of American legal education.

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Conquering the Cold Call

/ Sangeeta Kishore / Leave a comment

I’ve only been in law school for a few weeks, and I’ve already been confronted with my biggest fear: the cold call. It’s unlikely that I’m alone in this. Like many of us, my initial visions of law school came from that scene in Legally Blonde where Elle was publicly shamed by the professor and kicked out of the classroom, with even the overachieving readers of Aristotle riddled with fear. 

The film’s exaggerations aside, I still felt daunted by the idea of entering a law school class. I won’t deny the panic I felt seeing the dreaded phrase on nearly every syllabus. “Why can’t I just answer when I feel like answering?” I could already picture it in my head: doing all the readings, knowing the cases front to back, and still freezing up the moment I get called on. It seemed like beyond all preparation, my mortification was inevitable. 

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Breathe

/ Justin Sells / Leave a comment

“When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.”

Those words, spoken by motivational speaker Eric Thomas, inspired me after I was rejected by The United States Military Academy at West Point when I first applied as a high school senior. Nevertheless, I did not lose my focus, my resolve, or my commitment to attend West Point because I wanted to serve our country and to fight for the rights and freedoms of others. Following the route of General George S. Patton, who attended West Point after a year at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), I went to VMI.

VMI is an institution known for its challenging first-year experience, known as the “Rat Line,” its sexist history (United States v. Virginia et al., 1996), and its military support of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. As an African-American cadet, I had to come to terms with VMI’s past and the constant reminders on its campus that glorified supporters of slavery. For example, as a “rat” (a freshman who has not yet earned the title of “cadet” by completing a crucible known as “Breakout”), I was required to salute the statue of Lieutenant General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson—a Confederate officer who taught at VMI and who believed that African-Americans were incapable of becoming disciplined soldiers—prior to the statue’s subsequent removal on December 7, 2020. I was also required to participate in an annual celebration of the ten VMI cadets who died for the Confederacy during the Battle of New Market on May 15, 1864. At this celebration, my classmates and I were ordered to reenact a Confederate charge and seizure of a hill that was occupied by Union artillery forces, which I did with disdain.

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What Your Classroom Seat Says About You

/ Tess Halpern / Leave a comment

There’s nothing quite like the first few days of law school. Everyone shows up to class twenty minutes early to scope out the perfect seat that they’ll occupy for the next three-and-a-half months. I kid you not when I say that I showed up to one class seven minutes early last week, and I was still the last one to arrive before class started.

While this may just seem like law students being more Type A than usual, the stakes of this decision could be legitimately high. Are you going to do well in this class? Or are you going to become way more invested in the online shopping habits of the person in front of you than the ins and outs of civil procedure? It all comes down to the seat you’re going to be sitting in every day and the view it provides you.

Fortunately, you still have a few more days before the opportunity to choose a new seat is over until January. But, the window is closing fast. Here’s the vibe of each possible section at your disposal.

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Four Things I Wish I Knew Before Law School

/ Eddie Godino / Leave a comment

Time flies when you’re having fun — and apparently it flies in law school, too. Jokes aside, as my 1L year comes to a close, I can safely say that I’ve had a great experience at BC so far. Still, looking back, there are certain things I wish I had known beforehand or done differently. For those of you with lawyers in the family or who did a lot more research than me before enrolling, some of these tips may seem like common sense. But for those who are less informed — and as an ode to a classic impact blog series — here are four things I wish I knew before coming to BC.

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Should You Apply for Law Review?

/ Tess Halpern / 1 Comment

After my last final of 1L year, I basically wanted to nap for a month until my internship started in June. However, that isn’t an option if you’re going to apply for Law Review.

Law Review is a scholarly journal, and a majority of law schools have their own versions of this journal that publish research drafted by students and professionals. To become a Staff Writer on the Boston College Law Review, there’s an extensive application process that begins right at the start of the summer. This means, if you aren’t sure whether you want to apply this year, you’ll have to decide in only a few short weeks.

As a 2L who’s nearly done with her first year on Law Review and who lived to tell the tale, I can say with confidence that I’m glad I applied and had this experience. However, there were definitely some things I wish I knew beforehand that could’ve helped me make an even more informed choice when deciding to apply. To ensure you make the right decision in May, weigh the following pros and cons.

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What’s Law School Really Like? Let Me Tell You.

/ Michael Deere / Leave a comment

When I was applying, I brought my wife to Admitted Students’ Day. It was a Big Deal. We both dressed up. She sat with me through the mock class. We had lunch together in the cafeteria. She came to the panels, went on the tour, and generally learned as much about law school as I did. It was a good day. A really good day. And though I learned a great deal, I still wanted to know: what’s law school really like? How do people dress for class? Is cold-calling really as bad as it seems? Will I make friends? Are the professors like Kingston in The Paper Chase? That kind of thing. 

I think what I was looking for was the law school equivalent of those really detailed product reviews on Amazon that you just kinda trust. You know the type. The reviewer always sounds like they really want to like the product, but they’re just not sure. They go over the results of their research. They compare models. And they’re always weirdly specific about little things: “yeah, I ran the Samurai Slicer on full speed. Noticed a slight wobble, but that’s pretty standard on models like this one that use a polymer base instead of steel.” It sounds authentic. It sounds real. 

Where was that for BC Law? Not the HR presentation, not the Tour Talk, but the weirdly specific Amazon review. Well, guess what? It’s right here. So after you unsubscribe from the r/lawschooladmissions subreddit and join r/lawschool, take a moment to yourself, crack open a Success Beer, and read on to find out what BC Law is really like…

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The 1L Summer Internship Search: Four Things to Keep in Mind

/ Tess Halpern / Leave a comment

When I was a 1L, I thought I would secure my summer internship over winter break. However, I quickly realized that was a bit of a pipe dream as I kept applying to opportunities and getting little response. I wasn’t too concerned until February rolled around, when I started to fear it wouldn’t happen for me. I was a hard-working student! I had good grades! What if I never got an internship?!

If you’re at this point in your 1L summer internship search, be sure to remember the following:

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The Most Important Advice I’ve Received about My Summer Job Search

/ Michael Deere / Leave a comment

Along with every other 1L, I am applying for a summer job. I’ve been to networking events, workshops, panels, and how-tos. My notebook overflows with well-meaning advice and guidance. The problem is that none of it applies to me. I don’t have a resumé; I’ve never had one. 

I’m what people call a “non-traditional” law student. I came late to law school after building a career as a professor. I did have a distinguished undergraduate career, filled with awards, accolades and accomplishments. But I can’t put those things on my resumé. That was twenty some years ago. It would look weird, my notebook says. Out of place (underlined). They were important things. Bright, big things. They mattered then, and they matter now. But it won’t help me land a summer job. Employers don’t want to see that, quotes the notebook. So, /select/highlight/delete, and just like that, parts of my life are cut away. Besides, I need that space so I can focus on my strengths (circled; exclamation point). Because the resumé manuals tell me I have to…wait, where is it…oh, right. Lead with my core competencies (question mark). And above all, circled and twice underlined and given arrows all around it, the number-one-most-important-thing-to-remember-is…just be yourself!

But the problem with being yourself is that it’s hard to know who that is.

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