Benny, 2L

My last couple of weeks have been consumed by preparing all sorts of project documents for my Law Office (for those of you unfamiliar with NUSL lingo, "Law Offices" are the small sections -- 12-14 students each -- that 1Ls are split up into for their social justice project). It's been really interesting doing preliminary research on the issue that we're working on for our client, but it's also been taking up a huge share of my time.

And like that....Fall is here. This wasn't much of a summer weather wise, but as I look out my window right now it's very clear that summer is over. The leaves are changing, it's cooled down quite a bit (especially at night), the NHL season has started up again (go Bruins!), and the Red Sox are about to start the playoffs (go Sox!)

Oh!....before I forget. I got a question on my blog from a prospective student who was wondering about schedules. In an earlier blog posting I mentioned that I had a 3 week break after my 1L year, but the student didn't see this long a break on any officials NUSL calendars. I took this break right after my second semester was over this past spring. Although the break may have looked shorter on the calendar, students sometimes have flexibility in putting together their schedules. So in my instance, I took a longer break at the beginning of the summer, as my employer was happy to have my start June 1, but I also ended later than some of my friends that were on co-op. I had some friends that started their co-op as soon as exams were done, so they had a lot more time off at the end of the summer. As long as you get the requisite number of weeks in, then you're generally fine. Hope this clarifies things.

It's kind of funny to be writing this blog entry right now, because as I look out my window we are getting the season's first snow (while the wedding I went to in New Mexico, which I'm writing about below, was in the middle of the desert). I was not expecting it to snow this early, and usually when it does snow this early in the year, it's only for a few minutes. But so far, it's been about an hour (although it's too warm to accumulate right now).

Last weekend my wife and I went to New Mexico for a wedding. The bride and groom are old friends of mine who I worked with almost 10 years ago at a camp in Maine called Seeds of Peace, which is a non-profit coexistence camp. There were a lot of people there that I hadn't seen in years, and it was a lot of fun catching up. The wedding was about an hour outside of Santa Fe, and as you can tell from the picture below, it was quite a dramatic landscape (although I'm afraid the picture doesn't do it justice).

Besides catching up with old friends and family, the other great thing about New Mexico was the food. Virtually every dish came with a choice of either red or green chili sauce, but because I was feeling kind of indecisive, I decided to get a mix of both.

School is going well, and I'm amazed at how fast the quarter is going by. My Law Office is starting to work on its social justice project over the coming weeks, and we're going to be meeting with our client a week from this Thursday. The LSSC curriculum has changed quite a bit from years past, and I'm hopeful that shifting the project earlier in the semester will allow students to create an even better work product for their clients.

It's hard to believe, but I'm starting to think and apply for co-ops for next summer. Right now I'm considering going down one of two roads -- either working for a state or municipal agency, or for a small law firm that works in an area that I'm interested in, such as municipal law. The first co-op application deadline is in a couple of weeks, so I really need to strategize about what I want to do for my last two open co-ops.

***
On the LSSC front, I can't believe that I only have 3 weeks left with my Law Office. Tomorrow morning they're actually meeting with our client, who is flying in from the west coast to meet with them. It should be a great opportunity for them to engage on a deeper level with the project.

***
In Professional Responsibility today we talked about the ethics of attorney's advertisements, and we watched a couple of videos of ads from different states. Unfortunately there are a small but visible minority of lawyers out there who, in my opinion, give the legal profession a bad name, and this one in particular caught my attention (although I have to admit that it's entertaining in its own right).

***
And yes, the World Series is starting tonight. Although I'm bummed that my Red Sox won't be there, I can't say that I'm surprised that they didn't make it this far. Although they scored a decent amount of runs this year, I never felt that this year's team had the lineup go all the way. So I guess I'm rooting for the Phillies. . .