I thought I would spend this week's blog piece talking about activities that are available to first-year students. Because most blog readers are interested in my specific experiences as a NUSL student, I will limit my comments to activities that I have been directly involved in. Accordingly, there are lots of student activities and organizations that I am omitting. I should also note that the first year of law school can be pretty demanding, the upshot of which is that there are more interesting activities than there is free time. As such, I only got involved in three student organizations during my first year.
First and foremost, I participated in the Domestic Violence Institute. This experience was one of the greatest highlights of my time at NUSL and I would recommend that all first-year students seriously contemplate getting involved in the program. You can get more information about it here. As a first-year student, I also ran for inaugural president of NUSL's chapter of the American Constitution Society ("ACS"). ACS is national organization committed to progressive principles of law and policy. One of the great things about getting involved in a national organization like ACS is that participation facilitates tremendous network-building and quickly integrates a first-year law student into the broader legal community. For instance, I attended the past two national conferences in Washington, which were great opportunities to meet other law students and attorneys from all over the country. Moreover, ACS provided me with unique opportunities like serving as editor-at-large of ACSBlog. Finally, it gave me opportunities to distinguish myself through its moot court competition in constitutional law.
As a 1L, I also got involved with the work of the Innocence Project. I was first exposed to the Innocence Project through the LSSC program. After attending the national conference and meeting people in the innocence movement, I decided as (as a second year) to volunteer to screen a lengthy criminal case for the review board of the New England Innocence Project. Although reviewing this case and drafting a proposal took lots of work over several months, I found it tremendously rewarding and would recommend it to anybody, although not to first-year students.
When thinking about what activities to devote time to during a busy 1L year, I would recommend that perspective students consider three things. First, it is often a good idea to consider activities that complement your career interests. For instance, as a somebody who is interested in appellate litigation, I got involved in ACS because I knew it hosted a moot court competition and ran a highly-regarded constitutional law blog.
Second, there is tremendous value in activities that connect you to the broader legal community. When I would go on interviews, it was terrific to be able to talk about the activities I was pursuing and have the interviewer understand exactly what I was talking about. Organizations like ACS and the Innocence Project are hardly obscure; they have general recognition throughout the legal community. Other prominent examples that come to mind are the Federalist Society and the ACLU. Most people in the legal community know what these organizations are and what they stand for.
Third, it is always a good idea to try to find activities that are emotionally rewarding. 1L can be a stressful time and it is important to have some sense that you are not just spending all of your time reading casebooks. The Domestic Violence Institute gave me that feeling. Getting into the emergency department and seeing how the legal response to domestic violence directly impacted human lives right here in Boston proved a nice reality check for me.
Well, that is all I have for this week. See you next week.
