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?)
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.
Continue reading3L is Finally Here: Why This One is so Special
Thank goodness the library doesn’t issue noise complaints on the first day of school.
My friends and I — running on the high of eating a grocery store salad in the Yellow Room — skipped to the fourth floor of the library. There, we each took turns accidentally playing Instagram Reels on full volume. Like clockwork, anxious 1L’s flooded the library atrium at 3:00 p.m., muttering reflections about their inaugural lectures and cold calls to new friends.
There’s nothing like the first day of 3L — or as my friends and I have dubbed it, “senior year.” Novelty accompanies familiarity: freshly-painted Stuart Hall walls and large-scale portraits dot the paths we’ve spent pacing between classes. Somehow, Legal Grounds manages to brew better coffee every year. And even the light streaming through the library’s fourth floor windows cuts different shadows on the books and reports lining the shelves.
Continue reading“Proficient in Law, Grounded in Love:” Why BC Law is a Different Kind of Law School
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.
Continue readingWhat Does “Are You IPTF” Mean? Let Me Explain.
I first heard someone ask that question as I passed through Stuart House my first week of 1L year. I thought to myself, what on Earth is “IPTF?” Is it an acronym signifying some state of mind, or perhaps some other law school-specific parlance related to the trials and tribulations of being a law student? I was never really good at keeping up with the lingo in high school or college, so to find a possible definition of “IPTF,” I first consulted a secondary source that some young people consider to be persuasive authority: Urban Dictionary. To spare you the trouble of visiting that source, it defined “IPTF” as follows verbatim (with typos): “‘iptf’ stands for I PITY THE FOO!!! famous saying of Mr. T”.
Not relying on a sole source, I continued my research and found that at Boston College Law School, “IPTF” actually stands for the “Intellectual Property and Technology Forum.” The IPTF is both a club and a student journal. As a club, the IPTF helps prepare students to be zealous advocates in intellectual property (IP) and technology law by hosting various guest speakers, firms, seminars, and “technology bootcamps,” and by connecting students with alumni of the IPTF who actively practice IP and technology law. As a student-run journal, the IPTF publishes legal scholarship with the goal of furthering the development of legal thought in IP law (including trade secrets, patents, trademarks, and copyright) and technology policy (including inter alia web-based civil liberties challenges, data privacy, and telecommunications law). 1
Continue readingTwo Weddings, a Funeral, and a Naturalization Ceremony
Two weddings, a funeral, and a naturalization ceremony. This pretty much sums up my time in law school, in many ways. I lost my dad suddenly at the end of my 1L Spring semester (during finals: really wouldn’t recommend). During my 2L and 3L years I had two weddings: one in the U.S. and one in the U.K., where I grew up and my family still live. (For the sake of clarity: these weddings were to the same person. I’m nothing if not consistent.) And after having lived in the U.S. since 2016, I became a citizen in February of last year.
Of course, my time in law school was marked by a great deal more. But, when I think back to my time at BC Law, these are the progress points—the proverbial highway markers as it were—that map out the last three years for me temporally. These events were the points at which “life” most intruded into law school. Law school is all-consuming in a way I do not think I fully comprehended before I began my 1L year. I had worked for five years before returning to school, including three and a half years in a high-pressure role in New York City. But nothing prepared me for the way that law school threatened to take over and take me away from my sense of self. The death of my father, marrying my wife, cementing my life over in the U.S.: these were the events and the life-is-what-happens-to-you-while-you’re-busy-making-other-plans moments that burst the illusion of the bubble of law school for me.
Continue readingIf It’s Meant to Be, It Will Be
When I was around 9 years old, my mom bought me a brown dress to wear to my sister’s Bat Mitzvah. I loved that dress, but we knew it would be difficult to find shoes to match. My only real option was to find a pair in the same, specific brown, so we put the dress in a shopping bag and went to the mall.
We went to store after store finding shoes that were too uncomfortable, too hard to walk in, or, of course, the wrong shade of brown, until we found the perfect pair. Not too high of a heel, a flattering shape, the right price, and almost the exact color of the dress. The only problem was, they didn’t have my size. This was in 2006 and online shopping wasn’t exactly what it is today, so if they didn’t have the shoes in the store, we weren’t going to be able to buy them. My mom put the shoe back on the display, looked at me, and said, “It wasn’t meant to be.” She walked out, and I followed.
Continue readingThe House TikTok Ban is an Empty Threat
This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in TIME, and was reposted in the AEIdeas Blog.
Last month, the House of Representatives proudly voted to ban TikTok unless its corporate parent sells the app within six months. But proponents eager to strike a blow against the Chinese government might not celebrate just yet. There are three main problems with the proposed TikTok ban: it’s probably unconstitutional, it’s practically unenforceable, and, even if it worked, it wouldn’t solve the problem of China gathering sensitive data about American users.
Other than that, it’s fine.
Continue readingA BC Law Bucket List — Five Things You Should Do Before Graduating
As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, it’s a sure sign that the school year is rapidly coming to an end. Graduation is nearing, and part of me feels like I’ve been at Boston College forever by now, but another part feels like three years have passed by with a blink. As I reflect on what is likely (definitely) my last year ever as a student, there are some experiences that I’m grateful to have had, but also some opportunities that I wish I hadn’t let slip by. If you have more than four weeks left in your time at BC Law, here’s a list of things I did that I would recommend to anyone, along with some things I wish I did when I had the chance.
Continue readingDo This One Thing to Protect Your Sanity During Law School
One of the best pieces of advice I got in law school is to march to the beat of your own drum; in other words, pay little heed to what others are doing and focus on yourself. This has been invaluable in retaining my sanity and mental health.
Law school is designed to urge people to compare themselves to others. The unhealthy truth is that law school can be a breeding ground for comparative anxiety. Being graded on a curve means students are pitted against each other, because your own individual grade is adjusted based on how well (or not) your classmates have done. The uncertainty of job prospects also often incites fear in students; there is no guarantee that one’s actions will ultimately culminate into a result proportional to the effort put in. In this sort of environment, protecting your mental health requires a mindful effort, and the best way to do this is to tune out the noise and balance life to your needs.
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BC Law: Impact 