We’re coming up on the 60th anniversary of the television becoming a staple in American homes. And I can’t be the only one who’s noticed the spectacularly colorful fall line-up of shows this year.
Marvel’s Luke Cage (Netflix). Insecure (HBO). Atlanta (FX).
But I’m already fearful for these shows’ longevity. Because there are some who feel uncomfortable by their very existence.
I’m very excited to host a guest blog from a go-getter BC Law 1L, Brianna Marshall. She is originally from central Pennsylvania, and graduated from Bucknell University in 2015 with a degree in Animal Behavior and a French minor. During her gap year, Brianna lived in New York City, working for several nonprofits dedicated to food policy and global hunger. At BC Law, Brianna is now a 1L Section Representative for the Art Law Society and a Staff Writer for the Intellectual Property and Technology Forum (IPTF) Journal. Have questions about life as a 1L? Contact Brianna at brianna.marshall@bc.edu.
Election season is fully upon us and, as expected, BC Law is abuzz with many of the same tensions, fears, and frustrations felt throughout the country given the current political climate. Continue reading
“We got married August 9th, 2014. We went to the Caribbean for three days, and then we came up to move in and go to orientation the next day. 1L year, we basically did everything together except go to class. We were both here that summer, and we realized that we both wanted the same thing: to go to a big firm and do corporate work. And then this past summer, our 2L summer, we were both in New York, and we’ll be going back there after graduation…with a baby! Continue reading
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.
Hi everyone and happy summer! I am very pleased to be able to host a guest blog today from the BC Law Alumni Board member Ingrid Schroffner, Assistant General Counsel at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
I am passionate about—and feel fortunate to be able to work on—diversity and unconscious bias issues at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS). My cross-cultural upbringing and my experience as an Asian-American lawyer contribute to my interest in this area.
My maternal grandfather immigrated from Okinawa to Hawaii in the first part of the 20th century to work in the sugarcane fields. I attended Japanese school when I was a child, and my household was filled with Japanese culture.
I also have a cross-cultural, East-West perspective. My father is a first-generation immigrant from Salzburg, Austria. I learned German from my father (and later, in school) and spent a summer living and working in Austria with my relatives. None of my grandparents spoke English. These two diverse heritages comprise my background.
What’s it like to be a judge?
It’s my sixth week of working for Judge Dineen Riviezzo of the Kings County (Brooklyn) Supreme Court. Judge Riviezzo hears felony cases and Article 10 civil confinement cases. Also, every Friday, she’s in charge of the juvenile offender part, where she hears cases involving 14, 15, and 16-year-olds who would normally be heard in Family Court, but because they commit certain serious crimes, are heard in Supreme Court (but are often afforded youthful offender treatment).
View of Brooklyn from the Judge’s chambers
So far, I can say that being a judge requires three major qualities.
First, it requires patience. Whether it’s dealing with an attorney’s mistake, sorting out a disagreement between the parties, or waiting for a defendant to be produced or parties to show up, I’ve learned that for judges, every day is a test of patience. Continue reading
Okay, so granted, I was also a summer associate last year.
Last summer, I wrote to you about what it was like to be a 1L at a firm and how much I was able to do despite how little we feel like we learn in law school. After having the honor of being asked back to the same firm for this summer, I decided to shake it up a little bit. I was feeling inspired by BuzzFeed’s recent posts of the same nature on Season 6 of Game of Thrones, so I decided to give you all an “unfiltered” peek into what my first week as a summer associate at a firm in Western New York was like, with some Michael Scott references peppered in — because, after all, I do work in an office.
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!
Hi everyone! I have the pleasure of hosting a guest blog from our two fearless Law Student Association leaders from this past year, President Nirav Bhatt and Vice President Andrea Clavijo.
Nirav was also a civil procedure teaching assistant for Professor Mark Brodin, the former president of the South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA), and a former 2L and 1L representative of the LSA. Andrea (or Dre, as her friends know her) was the founder of the BC Law Ambassadors program, a member of the Criminal Procedure Moot Court Team, and executive board member of the Latin American Law Students Association (LALSA), and a former secretary and 1L representative of the LSA. Both are amazing Eagles, friends, and people, and, on a personal note, my law school experience would not have been the same without them.
Dear BC Law,
Thank you. As your outgoing elected leaders, we want to first and foremost send a huge thank you to all of you for your votes in confidence, your support and attendance at events, and, ultimately, your insightful and thoughtful suggestions to improve the student experience at BC Law. It has been an honor to represent the interests and needs of each and every one of you.
The BC Law community rightfully expects the Law Students Association (LSA), the student government on campus, to voice student concerns to the administration, preserve traditional programming that students have grown accustomed to, and use our resources and access to administrative leadership to continually improve student life at BC Law on all fronts – socially, academically, and professionally.
What do I do now?
It was the fall of 2000. Tom Ridge, who was Governor of Pennsylvania at the time, appointed me as a Court of Common Pleas Judge (the top level trial court in Pennsylvania), and I was confirmed by the State Senate. I was about to preside over many trials. What should my next step be—and what about hiring for that all-important position of law clerk?
As the president of the BC Law Alumni Association’s Philadelphia-Area chapter, I thought it would be great to have a BC law graduate serve as my clerk. Given the distance from Philadelphia to Boston, I didn’t know if that would be possible. I contacted the Director of Career Services, who was thrilled that I had reached out. She knew a recent alumnus who wanted to practice in Philadelphia. Before I knew it, I was interviewing Gabriel. He was impressive, so I hired him.
