Everyone knows the saying “It’s the people that make the place.” That idea has held true in every phase of my life, from middle school on Long Island to college in Gainesville, Florida, and now law school in Boston. Law school – especially the first year – is stressful. It is demanding and can take a huge mental toll. While you’re navigating this new and challenging first year of law school, the people you surround yourself with become one of the most important aspects of your life that is within your control. Thankfully, BC Law already makes it easy for us to surround ourselves with good and supportive people, particularly the faculty.
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Five Things to Consider When Choosing a Law School
Deciding whether to go to law school can be a challenging question, but even after you make up your mind, you still have to decide where to go to law school – and that can be even more difficult. This is especially true for people who have jobs or other commitments that may prevent them from touring campuses before applying. Given that there are around 200 law schools in the United States, here are some factors to consider that can help you narrow your options.
Location
Listing location as a factor may seem obvious, but it is still worth mentioning. Where your school is located not only affects your experience as a law student, but also your career after graduation. This is because most schools have the strongest job prospects within their respective regions. While more prestigious schools can afford their students more nationwide opportunities, access to nearby networks of alumni and other attorneys still increases the odds of finding a job locally. Of course, this is not the case for everyone, so don’t panic if you don’t know where you want to work yet – I certainly didn’t when I was applying.
There are also non-career factors to consider like housing options, proximity to family and friends, and generally what kind of lifestyle you want while in law school. Part of the reason I chose BC was because it is located just outside of Boston, providing easy city access without the immediate hustle-and-bustle, and it allowed me to stay close to my family and friends in the Northeast. It was only after I decided I wanted those things that I looked more closely at job placements and other career-related factors to make my final decision.
Continue reading5 Professor Personalities That Make BC Law Great
In honor of BC Law earning a #8 spot on Princeton Review’s 2023 Law School Rankings: Best Professors list, I have attempted to distill the five most common BC Law Professor personality types that make them the best of the best. As a disclaimer, there are undoubtedly fantastic professors who were not mentioned on this list due to my limited experience and response sample size. Additionally, many professors will fit into multiple categories, and other amazing professors are in a category of their own that did not make the list for the sake of brevity.
Without further ado:
Continue readingWelcoming Our New Professors
As we pass the midpoint of the semester, you current students may already be thinking about the courses you’ll want to take in the spring. To ensure you can weigh your options effectively, you’ll need to learn a little bit about the professors, including their backgrounds and areas of expertise.
Even if you know most of the familiar faces on campus, you may have been unable to get acquainted with some of the newcomers who joined our community this fall. It’s an impressive list! The school’s newest full-time faculty (Thomas Mitchell, Lisa Alexander, Jenna Cobb, Felipe Ford Cole, and Bijal Shah) come from a diverse range of backgrounds and have brought their experience into our classrooms, teaching everything from property and constitutional law to immigration and international investment law.
On top of these five new full-time professors, Jeffery Robinson has joined the School as the Rappaport Distinguished Visiting Professor this year, and Cosmas Emeziem as the 2022-2024 Drinan Visiting Assistant Professor. Finally, Aziz Rana is coming to BC Law, first as Provost’s Distinguished Fellow in 2023–2024, and then as the J. Donald Monan, SJ, Chair in Law and Government in 2024.
To learn more about our new faculty, read their bios in the BC Law Magazine, or visit BC Law’s faculty directory.
Faculty Spotlight: Professor Dan Farbman
BC Law Impact Editor’s Note: We pride ourselves at Boston College Law School on our unique community that cultivates an incredible student body with a brilliant faculty. This post is part of an ongoing faculty spotlight Q&A series to help students get to know the members of our faculty on a more personal level.
What do you like most about BC and why?
As hokey as it is to say, the answer is the students. I have found it to be universally true that the students are super happy to be here, kind to each other, but also really open minded in the very best sense — the sense of being able to come into class and just engage with wherever we go. So, if we’re talking about something difficult, the students are open to it and respectful with each other, but also really curious. It’s easy to create really rich academic environments because there’s sort of a low barrier of entry for the students. Compared to other teaching I’ve done at other places, I’ve just found it incredibly gratifying to be able to come into a classroom and know that, whatever you bring to the classroom, students are going to be up for it. Even if they’re sometimes surprised or off-balance, they’re not hostile, and so that means you can really do stuff in class that otherwise might be harder to do.
Continue readingBC Law Adds Four New Professors
BC Law students are eager for the arrival of four new professors next semester. Thomas W. Mitchell, Lisa T. Alexander, Jenna Cobb, and Felipe Ford Cole will be joining the faculty in the fall. Their scholarship ranges from property and community development reform to criminal justice and comparative legal history.
I think we are very fortunate to be welcoming these talented professors. Personally, I am particularly interested in the property angle as it relates to environmental law and justice. I polled a few other students for their thoughts:
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BC Law: Impact 