preparation

Lessons From My Leave

/ Caroline Reilly / 1 Comment

If you’ve been following my law school journey here on the BC Law Impact Blog, you know that it hasn’t been an easy one. I was diagnosed with endometriosis – a chronic reproductive health condition that can cause back pain, pelvic pain, fatigue, and infertility among other debilitating symptoms – in my first year of law school. After a failed surgery between my first and second years of law school, and a successful, more intensive one in the winter of 2L, followed by a semester long leave, I am happy to be back on campus.

I spent the spring and the summer doing research for If/When/How on abortion access for teens, watching way too much of the X-Files, and working on my recovery. Getting your life back after a chronic illness sidelines you is a longer, and harder process than I expected, and I’m still working on getting my body and my mind back to where it was before I got sick. In the meantime, I’m taking it slow at school, and reflecting on what I’ve learned in the last few months. Here are some things I’ve learned about myself and law school along the way, and how you can apply them to (hopefully) make your time at BC Law a little easier:

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The Infamous Cold Call: Should You Be Terrified?

/ Alex Bou-Rhodes / 2 Comments

In law school, the primary method of teaching, at least in larger classes and especially during the first year, is referred to as the Socratic method. A professor will call on and question a student (usually at random) about the day’s assigned reading, typically a judge’s written decision or case. You’re asked what happened to cause the dispute, what position the opposing sides took and argued, and how the court reasoned through the issue. This happens in front of the eighty or so other students in class.  Public speaking consistently ranks among our greatest fears. The cold call in law school has you speaking in public without much preparation because you cannot know exactly what question will be put to you.

I didn’t know cold calling was a thing in law school until family and friends started asking me if I was nervous about it. I did some research and became terrified – and while it’s normal to feel that way, let me tell you why it might not be justified.

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Project Dignity: A Happy Experiential Learning Accident

/ Caroline Reilly / Leave a comment

I’m so excited to be hosting a guest blog from 2L Lauren Koster on her public interest experiential learning experience.

For the spring semester of our 1L year, Boston College Law introduced an exciting element of choice: selecting an experiential learning elective to start building the skills it takes to be a lawyer. Some of our classmates opted for a course to practice negotiation or civil litigation. In the course of my choosing, “Leadership, Communication, and Social Justice for the Public Interest Practitioner,” our experiential element was driven entirely by a team project of our own design.

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Want to Practice in New York?

/ Venus Chui / Leave a comment

In the summer of 2016, I was faced with a dilemma: should I attend law school at BC, a school that I absolutely love, and at which I know I’ll receive a quality education? Or should I attend law school in New York – my home city, and the city where I want to eventually practice law – even though the school has a lower ranking?

After months of deliberation, speaking with lawyers and law students, and prayer, I decided to attend BC Law. I was convinced that it was the best place for me to receive the education I need to be a good lawyer, and to also enjoy the law school experience (and as a rising 3L, I can say that I was right!). However, a concern still lingered in my mind throughout my 1L year: will I be able to find a job back at home in New York City once I graduate? This blog post is for any prospective or current students who are wondering the same thing.

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Things I Wish I Knew Vol. 16: You can come see the school, even if you can’t come see the school

/ Charlene Ochogo / Leave a comment

Hi everyone! It’s been a while since my last post because I and the admissions committee have been hard at work on a few projects (one soon to come – stay tuned!) including this one.

We know that getting to campus for a visit may be cost-prohibitive or otherwise impossible for some of our students outside of the Northeast, and in conjunction with the Office of Admissions, we’ve made it so that you can take a tour from the comfort of your own home! Watch the replay on You Tube:

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An Activist at Heart, A Journalist by Training, a Lawyer in the Making

/ Caroline Reilly / 2 Comments

As a kid I toggled back and forth between lots of answers to “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Lawyer was always on the short list. So was journalism.

I read “All the President’s Men” for an eighth grade book report, and it didn’t take long for me to make Bernstein and Woodward my personal journalism deities. To me, the idea that two reporters could take down a crooked president was (and still is) the epitome of what great journalism can do.

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All Majors Welcome

/ Maria Colella / Leave a comment

A common question law school applicants ask is “which college major should you choose if you want to go to law school?” In reality, it does not matter which major you choose; all majors are welcome in law school.

When I was an undergraduate, I studied applied math. After taking a few Constitutional Law classes, I grew to love legal analysis. This substantially influenced my decision to go to law school. I remember telling friends about my decision to apply to law school. Some were very supportive, but others would ask: “Why did you bother studying math, then?” or “I guess your math degree is now kind of a waste, huh?” or “why don’t you use your math degree and do something like banking or consulting.” It was honestly hard to come up with a response. I truly felt more passionate about the law than math. But I was also certain that the logic and problem solving skills I had spent four years developing would be helpful.

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Things I Wish I Knew, Vol. 10: How to not be homeless before Sept. 1

/ Charlene Ochogo / Leave a comment

Greetings almost-1Ls!

So, by now you’ve probably done the math: orientation is August 20th, school starts on the 24th, and many of the leases for apartments you’ve been looking into start on September 1st.

Ruh-roh.

This is a sad reality about Boston (that most leases do start on September 1st), but the good news is that you will only be in this dilemma once in your law school career. I polled some of our rising 2Ls to see what they did for that week and boiled it down to a few options:

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Things I Wish I Knew, Vol. 9: Law school doesn’t teach you how to be a lawyer, and that’s kind of okay

/ Charlene Ochogo / 1 Comment

It defies our concepts of professional school, right?

Dentistry school: learn how to make people’s teeth healthy. Physical therapy school: help people regain lost movement. Electrician school, beauty school, you name it – all pretty much teach you everything you need to know to accomplish the job you’ll have after graduation.

Law school is the odd man out. Even attorneys I know who took classes in the area of law they now practice say that they learned most of how to do their job after they got it. That’s why I when someone asks me what type of law I want to practice, I always want to reply, “Well, I don’t think I know how to practice any type of law.”

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