People sometimes question what it means for Northeastern to have a focus on social justice and public interest law. When answering this question, many focus on the requirement that students complete at least one public interest co-op and the required first year course, Lawyering Skills in the Social Context (LSSC). However, every once in a while, there is a class or a professor whose approach to the subject reminds me why Northeastern is a different kind of law school (at least on its best days).

Monday was my first day of Employment Law with Professor Karl Klare, one of NUSL’s most beloved professors and also one of the field’s oft-cited practitioners, http://www.leiterrankings.com/faculty/2007faculty_impact_areas.shtml#Labor. We began the semester with a look at some statistics, specifically, the number of people in the U.S. workforce, and the number of employees who are in unions. Prof. Klare next moved on to even more sobering numbers – the disparity in pay between men and women, between white employees and minority employees. We examined the shockingly low national minimum wage (barely $10,000 a year for an individual, and just over $20,000 for a family of four) and the staggering reality that few people could afford to rent an apartment, stock their fridges, or raise a family on this pay.

To some this may seem an obvious place to start. But to others, this focus on the employee and not the employer is a radical departure from traditional law school courses on employment law. Don’t get me wrong, we focus on the employer as well, and important questions about what the government can and should be expected to provide, and what burden should fall on the employer. However, we start with looking at the millions of Americans who are employees, and what it looks like to be part of the ever-growing U.S. workforce.

Granted, this sort of focus doesn’t happen as often as many here at NUSL wish it would. And, then again, it happens more often than other students want. In my opinion, it’s a remarkable part of what is unique about NUSL and a welcome reminder of why I chose to go here. Regardless of whether you are going to work for employers or employees (or, yes, both!), I can see no benefit as a lawyer, an advocate, or a voter, in burying your head in the sand about the state of the American worker.

The transition back into the life of a law student has been harder than I expected. The upside of the NUSL lifestyle, of always running to a different location, job, task, set of people, has a downside of...well, of always running to a different location, job, task, and set of people!

Just two weeks ago (!) a day in my life looked something like this: wake up around 7, walk three sunny miles to work (with a stop for coffee at my favorite bakery), spend the day in the beautiful federal courthouse working on cases at my own pace, helping clerks as needed, and joking around with my fellow externs. Come 5 or 6pm, leave, have dinner with a friend, and spend the rest of the night doing. . .whatever I wanted!

My days now look a little different. I wake up in the morning, and it’s dark and cold out. I jump out of bed (ok, drag myself out of bed) and think about everything I have planned for the day. Go to at least one, and sometimes two, fast-paced and challenging classes. Read dozens of pages of cases for each. Work in the CISP office. Run from meeting to meeting. Serve as a research assistant to a professor. Stop into Chicken Lou's for my customary dose of fried food. Try to keep up with everyone over email and the phone. And, finally, at 8 or 9, trudge home for a late dinner, a dose of trash TV, and some final bed time legal reading. Yep, life has changed.

Don't get me wrong, I know I'm very lucky that my full time job is learning. It’s pretty incredible. But it has surprised me how hard it is to get back in the swing of school. The semester seems quick too, with a holiday break in a few weeks (Florida, here I come!), and then the quick descent of finals.

So wish me luck! I hope to find some way to kick start my brain soon.

Oh, one final note: I missed it last year, but it looks like I’m going to be able to make the annual Reblaw conference this year. I’ve heard great things about it, and I’m already excited about attending this February. Check it out if you’re interested in social justice lawyers and law students: http://islandia.law.yale.edu/reblaw

Hey everyone, I hope the New Year is treating you well! So far, so good for me - I'm tan and relaxed, thanks to my first vacation since the start of law school where I haven’t brought along one law book, one case to read, or my computer. Yep, a real, unadulterated, vacation….and it was great.

But now I’m back, heading into the last months of my winter quarter and exams are starting to look like a reality. Yikes. Anyways, today I thought I would briefly write about clerkships. Clerkships are an opportunity you hear a lot about as a law student…and not a lot about as a non-law student. Basically, a clerkship is a one (sometimes two)-year position with a judge. Most judges have clerks, whether they are state or federal, trial or appellate, magistrate or Article III judges. Each judge has a preference for clerks – some prefer experience after law school, or in a specific subject area, while others take clerks right after graduation on the basis of their academic experience. No matter what judge you are applying to, however, there is stiff competition for the position. Most judges look for students at the top of their class, with Law Review experience, and outstanding letters of recommendation. Obviously the height of clerkship heaven is clerking with the United States Supreme Court. Beyond that, the competition is stiffest for positions with Circuit Courts (especially with certain circuits, such as the District of Columbia, notorious for being a “feeder court�? for the Supreme Court clerk positions). Generally, positions with federal judges are more competitive than state court judges; however, even this can vary by geographical area and specific judge.

Why are these positions so coveted? First, clerkships are prestigious. People will try to tell you that the prestige did not play into their decision to clerk, however, I would be doubtful of such claims. Clerking with a judge, almost any judge, can help you land a position with a firm, or, really, with almost any job. Additionally, clerkships can show a dedication to a certain geographical area. Say, for instance, you went to law school in Boston but want to settle in Florida – a clerkship with a judge in Florida can help demonstrate to future employers your commitment to the area. Beyond the prestige, clerkships provide invaluable experience to get a sense of what it's like on the other side of the bench. The chance to see how judges make decisions is incredibly helpful to any future attorney. Additionally, the hands-on reading and writing experience is highly valued.

So, why am I writing all this, you ask? Well, it’s because even though I don’t graduate until May of 2009 (you better believe I’m counting the days), there are already some judges accepting applications for 2009-2010 clerks! And even one I found who is hiring for 2010-2011! While I don’t feel quite ready to start applying (I haven’t got letters of recommendation in order, and don’t have the time to do all the application assembly at the moment…just passing my classes is the immediate priority!), I’m already doing research on judges, checking out different courts, and thinking about where to apply. State judges, federal judges, appellate judges, oh my… A clerkship is a long shot, but I think it’s worth the effort.

There is under a month until final exams roll around, and I'm busy attempting (or at least thinking about attempting) to get into review mode. When you are a 1L, the horrors of the first year of law school are tempered in part by reading week - you get a week of no classes to prepare for finals. It might not sound like much, but boy is it wonderful! My first semester, reading week took the form of a friend and I (hi Julia!) heading to my aunt and uncle's house in Cape Ann for seclusion and 24-7 focus on our books. Second semester, I holed up in Boston, which was less quiet but meant I had access to study groups.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as reading week during your second and third years of law school. This means that you are both learning new material AND reviewing at the same time. Every semester I hope that the teachers will take pity on us, and leave that last week for reviewing in class, but with the short quarters here at NUSL, we need every class we can get in order to cover the material in the syllabus. So that’s where I am now - trying to prepare for the end, while in the midst of still figuring everything out! And there is a lot to figure out - in Fed Courts we are up to our necks in the 11th Amendment, in Employment Law we are drowning in Unemployment Insurance, in Law and Economic Development we are broaching that teeny-tiny and completely accessible subject of Transnational Corporations (TNC's to those in the know), and in my Independent Study we are looking to start making some modest recommendations about national tobacco control. Can you sense my sarcasm and slight panic? Yep, it all feels a little overwhelming right now…but such is finals season! And on the other side? Co-op, the holy grail of NUSL.

We are in the midst of some changes over here at the law school. For years, NUSL has prided itself on not having grades, and instead having narrative evaluations, individually done for each student by the professor. Coming to NUSL, the lack of grades was not a prominent consideration in my mind. However, having been here almost two years now, it has taken on greater significance. I have seen first hand, again and again, how lack of grades (and consequential lack of class ranking) really leads to a community of cooperativeness. This wasn’t a reality to me until I met people from other schools who knew the exact rank of others in their class, and I realized what a different environment there is at Northeastern. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I have felt no competitiveness while studying for finals. There is no incentive not to share notes and outlines, or not to study together, because no one benefits by another doing poorly on the exam (there’s no such thing as a curve here at NUSL!). I credit this almost entirely to the lack of letter grades and rankings. To be sure, the eval system has had its disadvantages: quality, length, and clarity of evaluations varies greatly between professors; some employers are (understandably) confused by the system; and the process of converting these evaluations into page long transcripts as required by some federal employers can be unwieldy.

For better or for worse, however, this system is changing. Starting next year, students will continue to receive written evaluations but will also receive key words such as "good" and "excellent." Some (including me, to be honest) fear that this will create a system tantamount to traditional grades. Others welcome the standardization. Multiple school wide meetings have been held about the issue, with various student groups giving their two cents. Regardless of your opinion on the issue, it’s a conversation that’s going on here, and one you should be willing to get involved in if you come to NUSL.

With less than two weeks left till finals, the pressure is on. Honestly, this is when I am probably the worst person to talk to about law school, or to ask about my experience, because I am tired and cranky! Every time I give a tour I tell students "Anyone who tells you law school isn’t hard is lying." They just are. It’s a hard experience, with a lot of challenging coursework, a sheer overwhelming bulk of tasks and materials, and a pretty intense work ethic surrounding you. It's at these times when finals are breathing down my neck and I'm berating myself for all those nights spent watching Law and Order instead of studying the law that I start to wonder if I'm really cut out to be a lawyer. Who could possibly work so hard for the rest of their career?

Luckily, I have friends. Specifically, friends who remind me that I don’t always feel this way. Although it seems like long ago to my mind, my friends tell me that when I was on co-op I didn’t feel this way. I didn’t feel too stupid for the law, or in over my head. I felt (or so I hear) excited about the challenges, enlivened by the intellectual stimulation, and like maybe, just maybe, it was something I could actually be good at some day.

So I'll push through these next two weeks and make it through finals. At the end of it all, I probably won’t feel filled with a love for the law, or a sense of my place in it. However, hopefully my co-op will bring back those feelings. It’s important to feel like you may, someday, be good at what you have spent so much time and energy working at. I hope co-op gives me the chance to feel that again.

Ira and I were talking a few weeks ago about how one of the most common questions we get from prospective students is "How many hours a day do you work?"...and how hard it is to answer that question. It's hard to answer because I don’t think most of us think about it that way (it would probably be too overwhelming!) and also because it just varies so much. But it occurred to me today that I can still give you a sense of things. Below are two days, one during a regular week, and one during this week (the week before finals!). They are ripped pretty much verbatim from my planner so...enjoy!

Monday, December 10 (Non-Finals Time)

Wake up at 7, grab breakfast on the way to school (thanks Dunkin Donuts!)

8-12: Work in the CISP office, selling NUSL merch to people, inventorying used text books, and studying in between tasks. This is a work study job, so I get paid about $10 an hour.

12 – 1:30: Employment Law with Prof. Klare

2 – 3:40: Law and Economic Development with Prof. Danielson

I’m out of school by 4! Usually I’ll go home to drop off my books and take a walk. Back at home by 6, have dinner, watch some TV, and get in a few hours of studying. In bed by 11.

Tuesday, February 12 (Finals Time)

Wake up at 7, grab breakfast on the way to school

8-10: Table for CISP, get people to vote on which of their peers should receive co-op funding for public interest co-ops

10-12: An Employment Law study group with friends, going over a past exam

12-1: A meeting on loan forgiveness, and the new federal loan programs

1:45-3:15: Federal Courts class with Prof. Burnham

3:30-5: Work on finals outlines, discuss exam anxiety with friends.

5-6: Federal Courts study session with friends. Only get through about 1 page of notes (out of 50!). Wow.

6-8: Work in the CISP office.

8 onwards: Walk home, have dinner, talk on the phone to my boyfriend, catch up on emails, do reading for class tomorrow.

In bed by 11 or 12.

Hope this gave you some sense of being a law student! My advice would be to know your own tendencies before starting law school. If you’re someone who tends to over commit to activities (ahem), acknowledge that now so that you will avoid it in law school (especially 1L year!). If you are someone who studies well with others, make that happen, but if you aren’t, don’t try to participate in study groups just because you feel like you should. And don’t be afraid to change your strategy. One week my computer was broken, and I realized that without that hunk of plastic in front of me, I made a lot more eye contact with the professor and looked at the case a lot more closely (instead of the formatting on my computer). Once I realized that, I tried to incorporate those things into my class habits, even once my trusty computer was back. Bottom line: no one can tell you exactly what its going to be like to be in law school….and that’s why it’s important to know your priorities ahead of time. Want to spend a lot of time with your family? It’s probably best you try to avoid living far away, with a commute. Want to stay in shape? Schedule those work outs in. Most of all, go easy on yourself. All of us thought we would be the exception to the rule, the law student who can do it all. None of us can. The sooner you accept that, the happier you will be.

Hello from the midst of finals week! I am done with my two in class finals, Federal Courts and Employment Law. Now, I have about 24 hours to finish a take home exam for Law and Economic Development and a paper for my Independent Study. On top of that, I have only a few days left to clean my whole apartment, and pack up to leave for Puerto Rico! All and all, I'm worried I won't get it all done, but I guess I don't have a choice! At least the end goal is worth it...another semester of law school down, and, soon, a warm island beach to sit on...

A few weeks ago I mentioned the Daynard Fellows program and since one of the Fellows is visiting right now, I thought it was a good time to fill you in on some details! Named after one of my favorite professors, Dick Daynard, the program was established in 2004 by Prof. Daynard and his wife. The Fellows Program brings two public interest law practitioners to the Northeastern campus each academic year for a three-day visit. The Fellows serve as role models for students, demonstrating how legal skills can be used in the “real world” and how a public interest career path might be formed. In addition to a talk open to the school and the public, the Fellows also meet with individual students and student groups, to answer specific questions.

This week NUSL welcomes our second 2008 Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow, NUSL alum Christina DeConcini ('88). Christina has spent 20 years representing, working with, and advocating on behalf of immigrants and refugees. Christina currently works on issues related to climate changes as the Director of Legislative Affairs for the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank. Christina will be a valuable resource to students interested in immigration and refugee law issues; climate change legislation, the various political forces in this debate and prospects for enacting legislation; the notion of "environmental refugees" eventually being recognized for protective status; and generally "forging a career" after law school. I love that the Daynard Fellows are practitioners, not just academics, and give us a chance to get a sense of the law beyond the walls of the school.

Also an important part of the program is that the selection process for the Fellows includes students! Involvement in programs like this is a great way for students to take part in the curriculum and focus of the school, as well as to get a chance to see how the legal skills we are working to hard to learn may, eventually, help others.

Well, I'm inching closer and closer to being a 3L (a third-year law student)! With only 3 weeks left at the firm (which I will miss a lot more than I expected), I just signed up for my fall classes. Assuming I get the schedule I want, I will be taking Corporations, Trusts & Estates and the Domestic Violence Clinic. Also, I will not have class on Thursday or Friday - wohoo! Here's why I chose to take these classes:

First of all, with two quarters left to my academic career in law school, I have 27 credits left to fulfill. The above schedule comes to 13 credits, so I will have 14 left to complete in the spring - pretty do-able. Next, Corporations is not only on the Bar exam, but has also been recommended to me by a variety of people - regardless of what sort of law you practice, corporations are an integral part of how our society is structured, so its important to learn how they run. Or so I hear.

Next, Trusts & Estates. It's another Bar subject. Also, it just seems to me like one of those things lawyers should know. There are certain subjects lawyers get asked for advice on fairly regularly, and I hear that trusts, wills and estates are among the most common.

Finally, the Clinic. Prior to my last co-op, I didn't really "get" the clinics thing. My feeling was "classes are for classes, co-op is for experiential learning"....and never the two shall meet. However, after my trial experience at the Federal Defender, I realized how desperately I needed more experiences that would challenge and reaffirm my love for helping clients, the thrill of being in court and my own faith in my abilities. I'm hoping the Clinic will give me more experiences like that.