In October of last year, Leslie Harris ‘84, former judge at the Suffolk Juvenile Court and one of the founding members of the BC Law Black Alumni Network (BAN), passed away. As highlighted in BC Law Magazine’s profile, Judge Harris was deeply involved in the BC Law community, promoting diversity on campus and in the legal community at large, and mentoring countless students and young alumni. BC Law Impact spoke with current students to reflect on their fondest memories with Judge Harris.
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The Ambiguity of Probable Cause: My Path to Law School
This guest post is by Dave Sainte-Luce, a brand new 1L student at BC Law.
My fascination with law enforcement stretches as far back as my childhood. I was your normal cop-loving kid, who always perked up and watched in awe as those Ford Crown Victorias roared by with their sirens blaring and lights flashing. With each visit to the store, I could never leave without convincing my dad to buy me a new toy police car. At that age, I only understood cops as being brave and strong, running headfirst toward danger to fight crime and maintain law and order. Accordingly, I thought all criminals deserved to be punished, and the cops did the dirty work of putting the bad guys away to keep our community safe. With such a simple yet honorable equation, how could I not love the police?
Continue readingReading List for Rising Lawyers
The number one question I get from incoming 1Ls is: how do I prepare for law school?
The short answer is: you shouldn’t prepare. Whether you’ve worked a long career or you’re fresh out of college like I was, use your time before law school to decompress and reset. I promise you won’t fall behind. The briefing, the outlining, the cold call, it’ll all come together eventually.
But if you’re looking for something to do or want to get the gears turning ahead of time, here’s a list of my favorite legal reads:
Continue readingThe Language of Law: Meet Alvin Synarong
There are numerous roads to law school, and no one-size fits all path to a successful legal career. Follow along with our series highlighting BC Law students and how they got here!
Our first three entries were with Sara Womble, a 2L from Winston Salem, NC, Elias Massion, who comes from Nashville, TN and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Samina Gagné from London and Columbia University. Today’s Q&A is with Alvin Synarong from Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Princeton.
Name, Hometown, Educational Background
Alvin Synarong; Murfreesboro, Tennessee; I went to Princeton and received a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Portuguese with minors in Finance and Latin American Studies (Brazil emphasis).
Documenting the Triumphs of Our Black BC Law Community
In 2023, only 5% of all attorneys across the United States identified as Black or African American, according to the ABA National Lawyer Population Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau (not including the 3% of attorneys who identified as multi-racial). In that same year, only 2% of Black or African American identifying attorneys were women.
These statistics lay bare the stark reality that Black attorneys are underrepresented in the legal community. The same census report cites 15% of Americans who identify as Black, or Black in addition to another race(s). However, the number of Black attorneys does not align with the magnitude of contributions they have made to, and accolades they have earned within, the legal field.
Within the BC Law community lies a special history of Black excellence. Boston College Law School’s new website “Black History at BC Law” and a companion BC Law Magazine feature story documents and praises the triumphs of our Black BC Law community.
Continue readingLAHANAS: Welcome Back to Campus
Welcome back, BC Law students! We, the student directors of LAHANAS, wanted to re-introduce ourselves.
LAHANAS is the student-led umbrella organization, open to all, with a particular focus on supporting BC Law’s affinity student groups, including:
- Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA)
- Black Law Students Association (BLSA)
- Disability Law Students Association (DLSA)
- Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA)
- Lambda Law Students Association
- Middle Eastern Law Students Association (MELSA)
- Native American Law Students Association (NALSA)
- South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA)
We are committed to addressing diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging issues on campus and we work closely with Lisa Brathwaite, Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, all of the student affinity groups, the Career Services Office, the Academic Success Program and Academic & Student Services to ensure that BC Law is and feels like an inclusive and supportive community.
We want all BC Law students to feel comfortable and safe being their full selves, and we recognize the importance of having an intersectional and supportive network to rely on. Please do not hesitate to be in touch with us directly via email should you have any questions about who we are and how we can support you. Welcome back again, and we look forward to an exciting year ahead.
Ali Shafi (3L), Jasmine Lee (3L), and Kristie-Valerie Hoang
LAHANAS Student Directors
The Land Loss, Reparations & Housing Policy Conference
On March 23-24, BC Law will be hosting The Land Loss, Reparations & Housing Policy Conference in partnership with Harvard Law School Food Law & Policy Clinic, The Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at the New School, and Institute for the Liberal Arts at Boston College.
The conference will bring national experts in the areas of land loss, housing, and reparations for a two-day discussion of Black land loss, potential strategies for redress, and housing inequality and affordability issues, and is part of Property and Housing Law Week at BC Law, which will take place March 20-24.
The conference is the kickoff event for BC Law’s new Initiative on Land, Housing, and Property Rights (ILHPR), which is the brainchild of BC Law Professor Thomas Mitchell. Professor Mitchell, who joined BC Law’s faculty at the start of this academic year, is a national expert on the ways that the property system can adversely impact marginalized communities in the United States. In particular, his research has explored the ways in which property laws have been used to systematically strip Black landowners of intergenerational wealth. In just one sector (agriculture) between 1920 and 1997, an estimated $326 billion in intergenerational wealth was taken from Black farm families. In addition to conducting research, Professor Mitchell has also drafted the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (UPHPA) – a uniform act promulgated by the Uniform Law Commission, which aims to help preserve family wealth passed on through real property.
The sign-up link for the conference is here and for a more detailed overview of Prof. Mitchell’s work, see this recent BC Law Magazine article.
Continue readingStudent Org Spotlight: SALSA
1) What is your name, year in school, and post-grad plans?
Ayesha Ahsan, 2L, public interest law/civil rights litigation related to voting rights, criminal justice reform, racial justice, and immigrant justice.
Jonathan Bertulis-Fernandes, 2L, public interest appellate/civil rights work related to housing instability, disability, prisoners’ rights (it’s an evolving list…)
2) Can you give me a quick rundown of what SALSA is all about?
Ayesha: SALSA is a space for South Asian students to be in community with each other. Law school is a very white space and there are few South Asians in law school and in the legal profession generally, so we aim to create opportunities for our community members to feel comfortable and supported as they navigate this chapter in their lives.
Jonathan: What Ayesha said! I would just add that we really try to help build community and a “home base” for South Asian law students: both on campus but also with South Asian law students at other schools and members of the South Asian Bar here in Boston and Massachusetts.
Continue readingA Statement on the Monterey Park Shooting
Lunar New Year is one of the most important holidays for the Asian-American community. For Asian immigrant families in particular, it is a day to gather with family and friends, celebrate with good food and drinks, and prepare for an auspicious year going forward. The last thing that anyone would expect on such a joyous day is a mass shooting.
The Asian-American community was rocked by the sudden shooting in Monterey Park, California this past weekend. Ten victims, five men and five women, were shot dead in Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a Chinese-owned ballroom known for being popular with older Chinese-American patrons. This occurred during a local 2-day street festival for Lunar New Year. Ten others were injured, and the gunman fled and tried to re-enact the shooting at a nearby dance club in Alhambra before being disarmed by locals. The Monterey Park shooting marks at least the 36th mass shooting in the United States in January 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and the second mass shooting this year in California alone.
Continue reading‘Taking pride in one’s own culture:’ Daniel Li’s Path to Law School
Over the 2022 holiday break, the BC Law Impact blog is running a series of some of the most powerful and fascinating admissions essays from first-year students. These personal statements, submitted as part of their admissions applications, tell a variety of compelling stories, but the thread connecting them all is an example of the kind of person who is attracted to a BC Law education: one who is driven to work collaboratively with others, achieve great things and make a real difference in the world.
We want to thank the Office of Admissions, and all of the student essay writers, for agreeing to share their stories with us. For more Admissions tips and other content, check out BC Law’s new TikTok channel.
During the first thirteen years of my life, living in Hungary, I cannot count how many times I felt embarrassed for doing something that was only natural to everyone else at school: talking to my mother. The only difference was that my classmates spoke Hungarian, while I spoke Chinese. The difference is minute, but it was significant for me. As my mother picked me up from school and asked how my day was, I chose either to stay silent or occasionally, say “hao,” which means “fine” and is a short and sweet, one-syllable word, just sufficient to answer my mother’s question and to not embarrass myself in front of my Hungarian classmates. But the source of embarrassment did not stem from being different in general—it rather stemmed from being Chinese, as my classmates made countless “harmless” jokes about eating dog meat, or engaged in “well-intentioned” stereotyping about having “almond eyes.”
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BC Law: Impact 