Benny, 2L

My apologies for taking a while to post. Law school has the tendency to occasionally consume everything in its path, and that's exactly what happened the last couple of weeks.

Despite the challenges, one of the main reasons that I'm really enjoying my first year in law school is all the opportunities to get involved on campus. I wasn't involved much in campus activities when I was an undergraduate, and I was amazed to see how many opportunities there are to get involved here at NUSL.

There are a few types of student organizations here at Northeastern. The first focus on issues/topic areas, such as labor law, international law, and family law. I've joined both the NUSL chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Constitution Society. Although I personally haven't done so, there is lots of opportunity to get involved in the direct governance of these groups by being elected Chair, Treasurer, etc. Because of NUSL's co-op system, a lot of the responsibility for managing student groups falls on 1Ls (at any given time, half of the upper level students are off campus on co-op).

There are also groups that represent the needs of specific cultural and ethnic groups, such as the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA), the Black Law Students Association (BLSA), the Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA), and others.

Finally, students can also get involved through student government via the Student Bar Association Council (SBAC), which is the formal elected representative body for NUSL students. Students representatives on the SBAC interface with the administration on a wide array of issues, including admissions, co-op, and curriculum, and also represent law school students on the university-wide graduate student senate.

I hope everyone enjoys this last weekend before this election. Next week I'm thinking of talking about the co-op application process (which we 1Ls are just starting), but let me know if you have any suggestions or things you would like to hear about.

Before I get into discussing co-op, I received a question from a reader about Legal Skills in Social Context (LSSC), which is a cornerstone of the 1L experience here at NUSL. I'll stick to talking about the "social justice" component of LSSC, and will not be covering the research and writing component. If you are interested in hearing more about the research and writing component, please let me know.

The issues that we discuss in the social justice component include race, gender, and class differences. In our first semester, our focus has been on how individual lawyers, and legal institutions more broadly, address (or don't address) and account for (or don't account for) differences in these areas. The dynamic in every law office (translation: LSSC section) differs significantly. For some law offices, these conversations can often become quite difficult and contentious. In others, the challenges are not as significant. It really depends on the group dynamic. The purpose of the social justice component of LSSC (aside from the inherent value of having these discussions) is to prepare each law office for its second semester project, where we will represent an organizational client in an actual legal project. Thanks for the question, and feel free to post a comment if you are looking for more information. I would also encourage you to check out the link, above.

Now to co-op. One of the primary reasons that students decide on Northeastern is the co-op system, which gives each student the opportunity to have 4 3-month long internships throughout their law school career (for more on co-ops, you can look here). Co-ops starts after the first year, and students are either on the summer/winter co-op rotation, or the spring/fall rotation. I've elected to be on the former, which means that every June-August and December-February until I graduate I'll be out in the field working for a different organization, firm, or agency, doing actual legal work. Co-op gives law school students to apply what they have learned in the classroom in real world legal settings.

Because I am going on co-op in the summer (when students from virtually every other law school are also interning), I need to start applying soon, with my first deadline next week. I am leaning towards doing my first co-op in a government setting, where I hope to continue to build on my legal research and writing skills. For me, I am looking at the first co-op or two as a chance to build my general legal skills, as opposed to gaining expertise/experience in a specific area of the law. NUSL works with close to 900 co-op employers, and you can find a representative list here. Students have access to a comprehensive database, and students also often develop their own co-ops, meaning that instead of applying through NUSL's co-op office, they apply directly through the organization or firm.

Co-ops do vary significantly in how much they pay. Oftentimes co-ops with legal services organizations or small non-profits come without pay, while co-ops with large, big city firms can be several thousand dollars per week. For those co-ops that pay little or nothing, there are a variety of supplemental funding sources.

Back to work -- memo, reading, and more reading. See you all next week.