Some days, I can clearly understand why I am a law student at Northeastern. Generally, those days correlate with the days when something good happens to me. Couple weeks ago, I could not believe it was time to choose my next co-op already. I felt like I had just come back from my co-op at the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts, which was an amazing experience. Parts of me still cannot believe I helped the magistrate judge draft actual, real, federal court opinions. But apparently, summer is over, and it is time to apply for my winter co-op.

I had a clear mission when I applied for my last co-op. I knew I wanted my first co-op to be a judicial clerkship. Miraculously enough, that's exactly what I got. Now, the goal is less clear. So, I opened up the winter co-op list and sorted the list to only display those employers that are hiring for the winter - more than 900 employers were displayed on the screen. First thought: I love Northeastern because I love having choices. Second thought: but more than 900 choices?

To make a long story short, I spent the next couple of hours in the co-op resource room and narrowed down my choices to ten employers. For my second co-op, I wanted to explore the practice of law in a nonprofit organization or government agency and the 900-plus listing easily accommodated my wishes. Armed with my list of employers, I made a love package for each of them, consisting of my resume, transcript and writing sample and dropped the whole package off at the co-op office. Total time spent - about 6 hours. Total interviews received - 7 out of 10 employers replied after 2 weeks. I congratulated myself for being loved. Then after a couple of in-person interviews and phone interviews for those employers that are out of the state, I chose Equal Rights Advocates - an nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting legal rights and economic opportunities of girls and women through impact litigation and community outreach. I will be working on an equal education opportunity case when I arrive in San Francisco in December. That's right - San Francisco! The co-op system will not only give me the amazing opportunity to do impact litigation, but can also satisfy my thirst for the West Coast experience. In that moment, I knew for a fact Northeastern was the right choice for me.

It's exam week for the upper levels at NUSL. Check back next week for stories of my law school exams, moot court competition in NV, and getting ready for coop in SF.

This quarter has finally come to an end. I am exhausted – partially because law school is challenging but also because I may have over-extended myself just a bit. Law students often have opinions one way or the other about whether 1L or 2L year is more difficult. Having completed ½ of the academic portion of my 2L year, my vote is that they are equally difficult, but for different reasons. 1L year is challenging because of the distinctive learning method and environment, coupled with the sheer volume of material one must master. Both of those challenges are still present in your 2L year but you have learned to cope or even thrive on them. By your 2L year, the clean-cut structure and the predetermined schedule are gone. All of the sudden, your time is not taken up with classes and your LSSC project. Instead, you must make good judgment calls on what classes to take, what extracurriculars to participate in, and most significantly, what you should be doing for your career. I think making good decisions is a life, not school, skill. So for those of us who have not had the benefit of a lot of life experience, 2L year involved growing pains. For example, I just came back from the national round of the moot court competition that my partner and I have been participating in this quarter. The national competition unfortunately was during the same week of my exam week at the law school. Inexperienced and always overly ambitious, I decided that I could prepare for moot court and my four exams at the same time. To make a long story short, I ended up working on my take home exam on the plane ride to and from the competition, making myself completely nauseous the whole time. Lesson learned – know your limits and don’t be afraid to ask for help. I should have rescheduled one of my exams after the moot court instead of moving all of them up and taking them early.

Speaking of moot court, what an incredible experience it has been. The national competition was completely different from the regional, both in terms of competitors and judges. You definitely feel like you are competing on a different level there. 16 teams from around the country each competed in 2 preliminary rounds arguing both on brief (your own side) and off brief (your opponent's side). Then 4 finalists competed in the semi-finals and from that 2 finalists argued in the Supreme Court of Nevada in front of real federal and state judges. While we did not bring home any trophies, Team Northeastern was excited to make our first appearance at the nationals. Personally, my partner and I were pleased with our performance, and we’re definitely looking forward to passing on everything we’ve learned to next year’s team for an even better performance. I don’t know how moot court works at other schools, but the faculty at Northeastern has been amazingly supportive of us. Our coach traveled with us all the way to Nevada for the national competition while another professor came to support us at the regional in DC. All in all, more than half dozen professors at the school have mooted us in practice oral arguments. While I’ve never gone to another law school, from what I hear of other law schools, this kind of individualized attention really sets our school apart.

As you can tell, I am having another I-love-NUSL moment. Although I don’t always feel this way and like everyone else get upset about the malfunctioning heating/cooling system in the building, this has definitely been a quarter in which I really got to appreciate the incredible support network this school has built for its students from financial aid to co-op to career services to the faculty. Well, happy turkey day everyone! I’m off packing for my San Francisco co-op!

It’s a new quarter, and I will be bringing you my updates from San Francisco where I will be co-oping for the next three months! I arrived in everyone’s favorite city last night around 8 PM after seven long hours on the plane (thanks to “strong headwind�?- side story: I also extended my journey west by another good five hours because I volunteered to give up my seat and took a later flight in exchange for 500 bucks. When you’re on law student budget, you learn to be flexible). I couldn’t see much when I got to SF because it gets dark so early these days. So first thing this morning, I put on my best walking shoes and got ready for my first look at San Francisco.

First stop – Powell Street for the San Francisco Visitor Information Center, a logical place to start my adventure. Heeding to sound advice, I purchased my December “fast pass�? ($45) – SF’s version of a T pass that’s good on practically all public transit within the city. That means buses, trains, street cars, and even the world-famous cable cars. For those of you who do not know me, I can be a bit over the top sometimes. So naturally, I spent the next 45 minutes browsing through every brochure in the info center (there were about 150), afraid I might miss the time of my life contained in the next brochure.

Finally, after taking way too many maps and brochures, I left for Fisherman’s Wharf via cable car. These ancient things travel at exactly 9.5 MPH on some of the steepest hills in the city. A lover of all things historic, I enjoyed the ride as well as my walk around the wharf.

Third stop – work! I wanted to check out the place before I show up on Monday so I know exactly where it is and have a plan of attack ready. I took the F line street car to Market and Van Ness, which is about a 5 minute walk from my work. Now these street cars are my favorite means of transportation so far. They are each named after a city honoring the old trolley system there (I rode the “Kansas City�? but saw “Boston�? going the opposite direction).

By the time I checked out the office building where I will be working, it was already 3 PM Pacific Time, which is about dinner time in Boston. Before this narrative goes any further, you should all know that when I left Boston for SF, the biggest concern on the minds of those who know and love me is that I will starve to death out there. While I consider myself pretty self-sufficient otherwise, my housing arrangement in Boston did not exactly allow my culinary skills shine. Okay, here’s the shameful truth – in Boston, I come home to hot meals on the table every evening and usually have lunch packed for me by the time I leave for school in the morning. And people wonder why I live at home with my parents. So basically, I’m living on my own for the first time since college but this time – no dinning halls or meal plans. Well, I am happy to report that I have survived dinner tonight. I went to a nearby supermarket called “Lucky�? and purchased almost 50 dollars worth of food. What’s for dinner, you ask – spicy chicken wings with baby carrots and apple juice on the side. I even got my breakfast planned – honey bunches of oats, yogurt, and a pear. Please, people – I survived first year law school. I can do dinners.

It is day 5, and my fabulous adventure in SF is underway. Even though it’s only my third day at work, I already feel integrated into the team. This is partly due to the get-down-to-work attitude of the law firm but also because since my arrival, my co-op employer has welcomed me non-stop with lunch and potluck. How did they know yummy food is the fastest way to my heart? Allow me to recap –

Monday and Tuesday, I spent 2 full days training with the law fellow at the firm. I must say this was a pleasant surprise to me because in my experience, many non-profits often can’t spare the manpower to adequately train their new hires, which often causes issues down the road. After a thorough orientation, I was told that my duties at ERA (my co-op) will be threefold – responding to the sex discrimination hotline, legal research for summary judgment on a pending Title IX (discrimination in school settings), and community outreach and education. This week, I will be working exclusively on the hotline because we received many calls over the holiday break.

So basically, by the end of my training on Tuesday, they were ready to throw me into the deep end of the pool and have me contact the clients who left messages for us on the hotline. Although I have had intake and client management experience in the past, I felt a bit nervous and frazzled during my first call. But by the third call, I was hooked. I had just taken employment discrimination and labor law classes last quarter so it was incredibly meaningful for me to apply what I learned to the situations the callers were describing – the paradigmatic example of the applied learning of the co-op program at work. Today, I set up shop at the hotline desk and spent the entire day responding to the calls to our hotline. It is a lot more difficult than I realized – translating these personal narratives into legal elements and prima facie cases of discrimination or harassment, but I suppose that’s why the legal profession exists and we all (hope to) have a job. It is also emotionally difficult at times to hear tale after tale of potential claims of discrimination even though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed more than 40 years ago. The most difficult and frustrating aspect of the job for me is that due to limited resources, the hotline is only able to provide information and basic advice to people who may have experienced discrimination. We can’t represent any of the callers or go into great depth into their cases. I have to keep reminding myself that the hotline’s mission is to empower our callers so they know their rights under the law.

By 6pm pacific time, I’m exhausted from talking on the phone non-stop but also feel surprisingly content. I get on a bus to go home but decide to make a stop at the yoga studio so I can get my yoga pass. The studio is in the haight-ashbury neighborhood, which is about 15 minutes walk to my apartment. After walking along the main street for a couple of minutes, I think I understand why San Francisco is such a darling in the eyes of so many seasoned travelers. Take this neighborhood for example – it is completely beyond description. The best I can do is say that it is like an explosion of all things green, hippie, alternative, goth, flower power, which is completely weird, wonderful, and above all unique all in about 10 city blocks. No Starbucks, no CVS, and no Baby Gap. Now that’s a sight worth seeing!

My second week at ERA is off to a strong start with a favorable ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday. I was reading background material on Title IX in preparation for a case that I will be working on when I heard cheers and applause from the other side of the office. I rushed over there to find out that ERA has been litigating a sex discrimination class action against Wal-Mart since 2001. We had a huge victory back in February when the Ninth Circuit certified the lawsuit as class-action, making it the biggest sex discrimination case in the history of United States. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/business/12bias.html?ref=business Wal-Mart’s appeal of the class certification was denied yesterday by a three-judge panel. This decision is instrumental in paving the way for this landmark billion-dollar, million-plaintiff case to go forward.

Cases like the Wal-Mart case are what we call impact litigation. Many non-profit organizations like ERA use impact litigation to create social change. Perhaps one of the most famous impact litigation cases is Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court struck down segregated schools. Lawyers often seek out the perfect test case to bring a lawsuit that would have broad effect well beyond the single plaintiff in the dispute and shape the law for generations to come. Impact litigation is a particularly powerful tool on controversial social issues where legislative consensus is impossible.

Needless to say I can’t wait to get started on my first impact litigation case. It is a Title IX case brought by varsity female student wrestlers at a state university. More on the case later.

I encountered my first challenge at work this week. It, unfortunately, was not one that could be resolved by logging onto Westlaw (legal research database). As I described in an earlier post, I was told during my orientation that I would get involved in three different aspects of the organization – direct service, impact litigation, and community outreach. ERA is well know for its impact litigation and designates over 90% of its resources doing just that so I was expecting that to be a large component of my internship. However, I realized yesterday that it was my third week working and I have yet to see what impact litigation or community outreach is like. In fact, I have been working at the hotline eight hours a day for the past two weeks. Don’t get me wrong – it’s incredibly satisfying to be able to inform and empower those who could not otherwise access the legal system and exercise their rights under the law through the hotline. But I also want to see inside the world of impact litigation and get involved with community organizing and outreach. I want to get the most out of the internship as I can. So come Monday afternoon, I was at a cross road – should I say something?

Perhaps for many people out there, especially those that are older and wiser or just more determined, this decision would have taken them three milliseconds. For me, however, it took me a bit longer. Telling my supervising attorney that I want to work on other projects when the hotline messages have been backlogged for a while may seem like I’m complaining and am getting ahead of myself. This is particularly a difficult conversation to have because everyone has been so welcoming and helpful at work. You see, nothing in law school or any other school that I’ve attended have taught me how to handle this situation.

So I thought about it, and then thought about it some more until I finally decided that the difficult conversations are precisely the ones that we must have and are worth having. Yes, it’s somewhat unnerving to bring up a “concern�? with my supervisor, but what would really haunt me is if I kept quiet and ended up not getting the most I could out of these eleven weeks. How would my supervisor even know I am capable and willing to work on other projects if I just kept my mouth shut and worked away? If I always avoided these difficult conversations, I would never get anywhere! Arriving at that conclusion was the most difficult part of this challenge because my supervising attorney was totally receptive and happy that I gave her the feedback. Because ERA has not had a Northeastern law student for a while, they are not used to having interns around fulltime 40 hours a week. Anyway, I’m happy I did not keep my mouth shut because I will be getting a variety of projects after the holiday break.

That’s the latest from work. I also uploaded some pictures of my SF favorites so far.

I'm in love with these triple decker victorians.

The world's most photographed bridge.

I wonder if those cookies are named after this town

This is a part of the infamous Alcatraz prison or what's left of it. I thought it was going to be all depressing going to what used to be the supermax federal jail but the island of Alcatraz offers stunning views of the city and surrounding areas. This picture almost looks Mediterranean to me!

It is a brand new year! I hope everyone enjoyed some time off from work and / or school to rest and spend time with family. Conversations during the first couple days of the new year have always involved resolutions. I always thought of a New Year's resolution as the perfect affirmation that we’re all more alike than different. Getting in shape and losing weight is always on everyone’s list. So is quitting some undesirable habit. Among my peer groups, law students and twenty-something’s, figuring out “the future�? and managing personal finance are also common goals. On my way to work this morning, my pod cast informed me that as we become a nation of debt in both the micro and macro sense, youth debt has skyrocketed 50% in the past ten years. In addition to the ever mounting college loans, the average college student has more than $2000 in credit card loans. So for my first entry of the new year, I thought I would write about how you can survive law school without compromising your (relative) financial freedom.

It will not come as a surprise to those of you applying to law school that you will be taking on a substantial debt to finance your juris doctor diploma. This may be in addition to your existing college loan. Though these pesky loans may sit in their abstract form with all those zeros while you’re in school, trust me, they become very much real as graduation lurks in your horizon and you start to think about what kind of jobs will allow you to pay off those zeros. It would be a pity to forego your dream job after you earn your law degree just because it does not pay enough to cover your minimal loan repayment.

The only way to stay above all that is to think about the ways to minimize the debt you take on during law school. Just because a law school offers you a large amount in loans in your financial aid package does not mean you should take all the money out for a spin. Remember, for every penny you take out now, you have to pay two back. Only the scholarship and grant portion of your aid package is money that won’t come back to haunt you later. So seriously consider living at home, getting a smaller apartment, eating out less – you will have more time to study torts and you won’t be broke for the next fifteen years. For future Northeastern Law students, you will have the opportunity to earn a living and subsidize the cost of your education with four co-ops. Also make sure to take advantage of the endowed scholarships generously donated by alums who love us. So resolve to take on the little sacrifices now – you can live out your dreams of a rich and fabulous life when you actually become a big time attorney.

I’m beginning to understand why some litigators love what they do. Our firm is gearing up for a motion opposing summary judgment against us. As plaintiffs’ attorney, this means we have to convince the court that our case should not be dismissed on summary judgment and deserves to be tried in front of a jury. This is the last stage of a lawsuit before it goes to trial. Considering 99% of all disputes never go to trial, summary judgment is a big deal. The entire office is buzzing with energy – the people, the computer keyboards, the telephones, and the printers. It’s as if the firm has been transformed overnight into this litigation headquarter (I imagine it’s not unlike what is going on at the presidential candidates’ headquarters).
As for me, I have been busy collecting evidence in support of a key argument why our case should be allowed to go forward. It is a pretty interesting process. In an earlier phase of the lawsuit known as discovery, both parties get to interview key witnesses and collect documents. At these interviews called depositions, the witnesses are sworn under oath and their testimonies are transcribed word for word and entered into a database. The database also contains documents parties produced as part of the discovery. This makes my job a lot easier because the database is fully searchable. So all I need to do is search the database for a keyword of what I need evidence on and anything related to that keyword will pop up on the screen. Then I put all the key statements and citations to evidence supporting those statements in a table of material fact. These evidences will eventually be coupled with powerful legal arguments in the written statement we submit to the court called a brief. Because attorneys will sometimes realize that we need evidence on a particular point, they sometimes get to do supplemental depositions. I am heading out to partake in my first deposition as I write. I will let you know all about it in the next entry.

When I was clerking at the federal district court in Boston last summer, my judge said to me one day “we don’t do gut-feeling judging here.�? That simple statement sums up what I have learned in law school and on two co-ops so far. Humans are inherently judgmental and for the most part, we’re not to blame for it. Quick thinking and fast decisions were no doubt the winning genes in the game of evolution. Unfortunately, the same is not true for good judges and lawyers. We must consciously repress our primal instincts to make gut-feeling judgments and reach a quick conclusion. Instead, the legal education conditions us to carefully parse the fine prints on the specific facts of a case before arriving at a conclusion of “it depends.�? That’s why my judge rarely reached a conclusive decision about a case right after oral argument. She always went back to the record and reviewed it as a whole before writing the opinion.

Now I know the word “fine print�? is not exactly what excites a perspective law student or any normal person for that matter. It’s not as sexy as litigation or mergers and acquisition or rule of law in developing countries. However, I would like to make a case for fine print for all of its hidden marvel. For example, I went to my first deposition last Wednesday and witnessed first hand the power of fine print. A deposition is just legal jargon for an under-the-oath interview in which an attorney tries to establish relevant facts and evidence in support of his or her side by asking a witness questions – lots and lots of questions. This particularly deposition is a whole day affair from 10AM to 5PM.
By lunch break, my gut-feeling was too optimistic about our side. The deponent (interviewee) answered most questions with “as I sit here today, I do not recall.�? So I say to our attorney “this witness is the defendants’ dream deponent – she doesn’t recall anything!�? Right there – I made a newbie mistake of not reading the fine print of the case. Five hours later, our attorney miraculously got exactly what we needed to establish in this deposition.
I realized that all those questions she was asking before were merely setting a stage for the later questions so that the deponent could not backtrack or tell stories that are inconsistent with each other. Thus the winning strategy in a deposition is that an attorney not only needed to carefully choose the words in each question, but also ask the questions in the right sequence, at the right time – in other words, delve into the fine print. I understood right there that good lawyering is all about the subtle fine print. Everyone can have a knee-jerk reaction or a gut-feeling about a situation but only a well trained lawyer knows how to use the fine print of the situation to best advocate for his/her client’s interest.

Networking is very big among lawyers. You will see what I’m talking about when you start law school. It’s everywhere and apparently the answer to everything: you want to know what class to take? Network with the 2Ls and 3Ls; you need a job? Build a network of helpful contacts; you need advice on life? Reach out to your network. So we know networking is important, but what is it?

To network is to create and maintain a web of human relationships with people who share a similar occupation, interests or goals – think of it as making friends, for professional reasons. But how does one network? Well, 1Ls at Northeastern generally have a plethora of networking opportunities with either alumni or prospective employers. The school hosts this annual alumni networking event called “Connection�? where we meet literally hundreds of alumni from every kind of legal / non-legal job imaginable who show up just to network with the students. Then, there are the smaller events where the school invites alumni from a specific field (i.e. international law) to come back to the law school to talk to the students.

While the opportunity and benefits of networking are bountiful, it’s not always the easiest task. It sometimes requires you to go up to an imposing-looking senior attorney and introduce yourself as if you can possibly justify taking up his precious time. Other times, you have to put yourself out there and send an email to an attorney whose work you admire and ask for 30 minutes of her time. Once you’ve built these contacts, your work has just begun because you must diligently maintain these contacts so that you will always have plenty of resources when you need a lifeline. At times, all this will seem a lot to take on for a first year law student who is just trying to keep up with the readings in classes. But from my and many other people’s experience, it is one skill that will help you go far in your career. Think of it as planting seeds to your future success.

Speaking of networking, the entire ERA office went to the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area Luncheon today in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. There is nothing that says networking better than 600 lawyers having lunch together in one big room. It was interesting for me to see that networking does not stop after law school. Lawyers are constantly networking to share knowledge, opportunities, and clients.

NUSL alums have a way of showing up at unexpected corners. NUSL does not mass produce attorneys (in fact we admit a pretty small class each year compared to other law schools) nor have we been around forever. So I never expected NUSL alums to play much of role in my life. Interestingly enough, while I’m out here in the wild west on coop, I’ve already met two and heard about many more alums. During one of my first few days at ERA, I learned that one of the senior staff attorneys there graduated from NUSL. Whenever I go to lawyerly social events and I introduce myself as a student at NUSL, people always tell me they have a best friend / niece / sibling who went to NUSL and loved it. Most impressively, when a recent alum heard that I was going to be doing a coop in San Francisco and didn’t know a soul in the city, she called me and took me out to dinner. We had a fantastic time and found that we were both involved in APALSA and competed in the Thomas Tang Moot Court Competition.

Statistically speaking, I should not be randomly bumping into alums as much I have been. But of course, NUSL was never about the statistics. I’ve discovered that our alums will often gather at public interest events regardless of whether they are public interest attorneys. If you travel in the public interest law circle, you will feel like they are everywhere! So even though NUSL may not have the largest alum network, it feels like a pretty good one when alums take time out of their day to help me out.

Lastly, I hope everyone exercised their right to vote today and happy lunar new year to those of you who celebrate it.

I see discrimination unfold on a daily basis through the advice and counseling hotline and the ongoing litigations at my current co-op. While it can be overwhelming at times, I have learned to cope with its existence and accept my small role in the fight against it at ERA. Yet, I know there are many people who would whole-heartedly question the very existence of such “backwards” notions of sexism and racism in today’s world. And why shouldn’t they? Things seem fair enough. Women are no longer disenfranchised. People of color are no longer forced to sit at the back of the bus. Anti-discrimination statements appear at the end of every job posting. However, if sexism is merely a vestige left over from the last century, I wonder why ERA’s hotline is flooded with shocking stories of inequality every time I pick up the phone. The truth is while antidiscrimination legislations outlawed the most visible forms of discrimination, it did not eliminate our prejudices and biases. And these biases, in their less overt manifestation, constantly challenge the existing antidiscrimination legal framework.

Case in point - last Friday, I went to a conference sponsored by UC Hastings’ Center for Work Life Law on the emerging legal claim coined as “Family Responsibility Discrimination”. A few pioneering cases and state statutes have recognized that discrimination based on an employee’s family responsibility (such as giving care to children, elderly or disabled parents or relatives) is unlawful. One of the highlights of the conference for me was the scientific hard data on what the researchers called “motherhood penalty”. Research shows that a mother’s earning is reduced by 5% per each child she has. Over a lifetime, the motherhood penalty for a college-educated woman is approximately $1,000,000. Furthermore, a 2007 study by researchers at Cornell University confirmed the biases against mothers by submitting over one thousand identical resumes to real-life employers. While about 6% of women received call backs from these real-life employers, only 3% of mothers (those resumes that contained subtle hints of family responsibilities such as “member of the PTA”) were called back. That roughly translates into this: if you are a woman and have children, your chance of being hired for a job is reduced by a half compared to a childless woman. And these findings came, not from a lab, but the world we live in today.

I cannot believe this is my last week in San Francisco. It really feels like last week when I wrote about checking out my new work place in anticipation of my first day of work. These past three months in SF have been a meaningful experience to me both professionally and personally. I have no hope of capturing my experiences with words as I am still processing most of them, but I thought I’d follow Laurinda’s example and give you my top five lists for working at ERA and living in SF, in no particularly order.

ERA
1. seeing the inner works of the biggest sexual discrimination case in U.S. history
2. writing a portion of a brief opposing summary judgment
3. attending a key witness deposition in a Title IX case
4. being part of an organization that has been at every seminal discrimination case from Geduldig v. Aiello (1974) to Meritor Savings Bank (1986) to Harris v. Forklift Systems (1993) to Burlington Northern v. White (2006)
5. getting to know amazing attorneys who actually do what law school applicants aspire to do – change the world!

SF
1. painted ladies
2. classic cars
3. dim sum to-go
4. san franciscans, and their cultish and yet admirable obsession for recycling
5. sunny, blue sky, skirt-wearing, 50 degrees winter weather that makes me smile each morning

I will miss you, San Francisco.

One of the first things that comes to mind when people talk about NUSL is “co-op”. All NUSL students get to go on four “co-ops” during their three-year legal education and we absolutely adore it. But while “Co-op” officially stands for our “Cooperative Legal Education Program,” I have learned that it means a lot more than just four legal internships. It also means we recognize the value and importance of teamwork. For example, as a 1L last year, I completed a major project on potential legal remedies for reducing children’s exposure from second-hand smoke along with more than a dozen other law students from our law office. As you can imagine, working with 13 people to produce one single written product is both intellectually and administratively challenging. But these were not just any other 13 people – these were 13 often-opinionated law students. Although I’m not certain if I will remember what my project is about ten years down the road, I know I will remember the lessons I learned about how to work and lead effectively in team settings. And that skill can make or break one’s career in law. Just when I thought the emphasis on teamwork was just an 1L year thing, I realized that three out of four classes I am taking this quarter involve varying degrees of teamwork. Some classes like administrative law place such heavy emphasis on teamwork that our final exam will be done in a small group. To be perfectly honest, I was and remain very hesitant about a class in which I will be evaluated on how well my group does. But that’s precisely the point. We all are much more comfortable relying on ourselves than other people in our group. Yet to succeed in law, we must rely on others in our firm or organization. By taking these cooperative classes, we get an invaluable opportunity to develop these “teamwork muscles” that will come handy and give us a head-start once we start working. Meanwhile, I’m sure there will be a lot of growing pains for me this quarter.

I went to an interesting AALAM (Asian American Lawyers of Massachusetts) event on Monday with two fellow NUSL students entitled “Guide through Cynicism to Success in Private Practice - Asian-American Attorneys Tell All”. Since I have been thoroughly indoctrinated in the challenges of private practice, it was nice to meet attorneys who have persevered through the obstacles and came out ahead. Some of the difficulties they shared were typical of any attorney in a big law firm – the long-hours, getting plum assignments, rigid billing structure, and business development but they also shared difficulties they faced as Asian American attorneys. It was somewhat surprising to me that the four attorneys on the panel had such varying experience. While one attorney felt that his Asian American identity rarely played a role in his legal career, others said gender/race stereotyping still exists to some extent. Still other attorneys there said that they have been able to use their Asian American identity or language or cultural capabilities to advance their career. Throughout the discussion, one message that spoke to me loud and clear is that a young attorney must take control of his/her career by actively developing competencies. That means doing a great job on the assignments you are given but also taking initiatives to take on different types of assignments if you have only been assigned to document reviews. While it was perhaps too much information to take in for a second year law student, I think it’s important that I heard it. For one thing, I feel more prepared for my summer co-op.

I hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend. Although this is my second week as a summer associate at Bingham McCutchen, I along with 600 other people saw our new office space for the first time today. This is because after two decades at 150 Federal Street, Bingham has moved across the street to accommodate the expanding business. It is a truly logistical marvel to pack, move, and set up everything from furniture to files to wall paintings for over 600 employees all during the memorial weekend. What is even more impressive is how functional everyone was today. They just all showed up for work at the new office and conducted business as usual. It made me appreciate that it's not just the lawyers who make this large law firm work - it's also the moving team, the IT people, the support staff, and of course the paralegals and legal secretaries. In fact, every attorney at Bingham is supported by two employees.

So I arrived at my office on the 30th floor of One Federal Street this morning and was immediately taken back by the amazing view of East Boston I had right behind my chair. There was a nice welcome package waiting for me on my desk explaining to me where everything was located complete with a tin of customized M&Ms. The best part has to be the fact my name was imprinted on the glass wall outside of my office. All this work enabled a extremely smooth and functional transition and I was up and running by 9:30AM. I'm looking forward to getting my first two assignments from two different practice areas later today. It's so exciting that we get to put our attorney hats on for 12 weeks and see the world from that perspective.

The third week felt a lot more real than the first two to me - real in the sense that I felt like my days looked a lot more like the days of a first associate. I have been working on my first two assignments for the past 1.5 weeks and am nearing the end for both. For the past three years, Bingham has put aside its formal rotations for its summers and instead adopted a more flexible approach where each summer can work on assignments in different practice areas simultaneously. This allows the summer associates more opportunities to follow a case or deal from beginning to the end. So my first two assignments were to write a legal research memo for an employment discrimination litigation and to provide general assistance in a private equity deal. Both projects have been very rewarding experiences to me so far but each with its own challenges.

With respect to the litigation project, I felt pretty comfortable with the assignment because I have written many research memos for school, for a judge, and for an impact-litigation firm and I have taken a course in employment discrimination in law school. The challenge for this project is to correctly judge the scope of the project or to put it more simply--to know when to stop. Unlike first year associates, I was not faced with a strict deadline so with a sincere desire to produce my best work, I probably spent a lot more time than I should on the project. I definitely came away feeling like I need to work on my efficiency. After all, this is a business and nobody wants to pay me for 20 hours worth of work for a simple memo. The corporate assignment, on the other hand, involved a very steep learning curve for me. Law schools, unfortunately, are not very business-orientated. We learn about plaintiffs, defendants, causes of actions, burdens of proof etc and not about memorandum of understanding, stock certificates, and debt-asset ratio. As a result, I felt pretty useless when I first met with the assigning attorney and the partner on the deal. I quickly picked up a couple of text books on mergers and acquisition and am now beginning to understand the general ideas behind an acquisition. Also, Bingham has weekly training for summer associates to help us understand each of the Bingham's key practices areas. After the first corporate practice session, I felt like at least I could begin to see the forest. Even though I have a lot less experience in corporate law, I find the practice area and the idea of business deals fascinating. In a way, it's like taking a law school class in an area you have close to zero knowledge of. It's challenging and completely exhilarating.

No doubt you have heard the rumors about the cutthroat environment in which law students and lawyers work. You probably also have heard about the adversary system, the money, the greed, and the power struggle etc. I have heard of them, too. In fact, I have also seen them all on Law and Order. As I finish my fourth week as a pretend practicing lawyer, I must confess that I have seen very little cutthroat and, instead, a lot of cooperation.

About three times a day some attorney at the firm will send out a system wide email asking for assistance or expertise on a specific topic and take advantage of the collective knowledge pool of a large law firm. They get responses within seconds from their colleagues on questions that might have taken them hours to research. Perhaps even more frequently, one client matter gets referred to several different attorneys each with their own expertise to provide the client with a comprehensive solution. Even as a summer associate / pretend attorney, I quickly realized how practicing law is all about utilizing and contribution to the power of people.

I was given an assignment to research enforcement actions states’ Attorney General brought under the authority of a certain regulation. Unlike judicial decisions, these enforcement actions are typically not published or readily available. So I had to get creative with my research. After some preliminary research on the internet, I found out that one practicing attorney / internet law professor has published several articles on the topic in question. I found his contact information on his firm’s website and even though I knew it was a long shot, I e-mailed him anyway with my question. Much to my surprise, he called me within thirty minutes offering his insight and expertise for no profit or fame. The same thing happened when I called a state administrator. He answered my email within ten minutes. I was getting a lot of good information from these folks when I suddenly realized that I have a family friend who works in this field and deals with this question on a daily basis. A conversation with her gave me almost all of the information I needed for my project. A while back, I wrote a blog entry on the importance of networking in the law profession. I realized this week that it is important because the law is a people profession. We need each other to best serve our client.

I’m back just in time for the celebration of the independence of our nation. The last couple of weeks have been busy and rewarding. It is hard to believe it but my summer program is half way over. I had my mid-summer evaluation this past Tuesday and was pleased to be reassured that I’m doing a decent job as a summer associate. This made me think about the difference between law school and law practice and appreciate the importance of a systematic feedback in law firms. Unlike law school where you are entitled to feedback for all the work you do, law practice is a business and highly time-sensitive. Everyone is trying to squeeze that extra half hour out of the day so as well-intentioned as everyone is, voluntary evaluations are rare. Because I believe that getting feedback is the only way a young attorney can learn the trade and learn it well, I really appreciated the fact the summer associates get evaluated twice during the 12-week summer program – once at the six-week mark and once more at the end. Getting this feedback not only helped me become more in tuned with my strengths and weaknesses but also made me think about which practice areas suit my interests and skills.

In addition to the mid-summer evaluation, we also switched offices. I moved from the 30th floor to the 15th floor and am getting to know an entirely different practice area and group of attorneys. Although we have no formal rotations in terms of our assignments, it is nice to be able to “live” on different floors and get a flavor of different practice areas.

To celebrate our apparent success in the summer program, my firm took all the summer associates and their guests to the Symphony Hall (5-minute walk to the law school) for dinner and a Boston Pops Concert. I had never had the opportunity to visit the historic Symphony Hall or experience the Boston Pops so I was completely blown away by how much fun it was. The theme of the concert was “Take me out to a ball game” so they played a lot of baseball related music and even had a former Red Sox player doing a poetry reading. All in all, it was a great conclusion to the first part of my summer associate experience.

I have experienced the ultimate good life this past Monday when my firm treated all the summer associates to its Red Sox box at Fenway Park. Prior to this, I have only seen the beloved Red Sox play from the very last row of bleacher seats, and that was before they won the world series and I could still afford those bleacher seats. To see the red sox from the box was, well, a whole different ball game. First, instead of entering the park with the masses pushing and shoving, there is a special door and escalator for the box guests. The box itself is about the size of a large living room with all the amenities of a five-star resort: leather sofa, flat-screen TV, your own rest room with a smaller version of the flat screen appropriately positioned so that you never miss a moment of the game. Then there is the view. What’s amazing is that you can see both the panoramic view of the park and the players up close in the dugout. If you want to get really close to the action, you can leave the air conditioned room to the porch where you are practically watching the ball game on air. Of course all these great views will likely cause you to cheer or boo more loudly than ever so there are tons of food and drinks to replenish your energy. My favorite part was the ice cream cart that came knocking on our door during the seventh-inning stretch. My only regret is that my favorite, David Ortiz, was injured and couldn’t come out to play. But we won anyway, of course.

It is hard to believe that my time as a summer associate is running out. This is my second to last week at the firm so I am trying to talk to as many attorneys and staff as possible in my remaining time. Many people often ask me what kind of events summer associates go to so I thought I would use this blog to talk about the events I have attended this summer.
In my previous entries, I told you about the Boston Pops dinner and concert and the Red Sox box. We actually kicked off our summer with a volunteering opportunity at a local co-op farm where we planted eggplants. It was so interesting because the farm actually employed local youth in the summer to do their planting and harvesting and at the same time use the work as an opportunity to teach them about sustainable farming and conservation of resources. They then sell the fresh locally grown vegetables to their members and a significant percentage of the proceeds go back to charity. The next major event was the softball tournament at Fenway Park. Enough said. Nothing beats seeing your name displayed on the jumbotron at Fenway Park. We also had smaller events such as bowling, Jazz night, and dinner parties at various partners' homes.
The most talked-about event of the summer is probably the hiking trip. Each year for the past thirteen years, my firm has organized a trip for summers, associates, and partners to camp overnight near the White Mountains and hike Mount Chocorua the next morning. It was wonderful because everyone brought their spouse, children, and dogs and got a real sense of each other, not just as attorneys but as people, and over camp fires and s'mores no less.
I know you must be wondering how we get any work done with all these festivities. Well, we apparently found a way. Our managing partner recently informed us at the monthly associate meeting that the billable hours of the summer associates increased fourteen percent compared to the summer class last year.

My second to last day as a summer associate went something like this. I took the commuter rail into South Station and got into my office around 8:15 AM. I realized that throughout the countless hours of orientation, training and q&a this summer, no one ever told us our official “working hours.” It is usually the first thing they would tell me at my previous jobs (your hours are 9-5 or we expect to see you 9 in the morning). It dawns on me both the trust and responsibility that have been placed on my shoulders. We are professionals and are treated as such. Instead of official workings hours, attorneys follow established practices within their practice area. Most arrive between 9 and 10 in the morning. I come in a bit earlier than that because the 45 minutes of solitude in the morning is crucial for me to have a good rest of the day. I set out and prioritize tasks to be completed that day, focus my thoughts, and mentally prepare myself for a productive day all while eating a healthy and nutritious bowl of oatmeal.

This day was no different except next to my 11 AM slot the words “final evaluations” stared back at me. I wrote about mid-summer evaluation in my previous entries. The final evaluation is similar to that except this is the time when summers learn whether or not they will receive a permanent offer to come by in the fall as an associate. Even though our small class of 18 was assured in the beginning of the summer that we each had an offer, performance warranting, it’s still a big day. I tried my best to focus on the tasks on hand wrapping up a couple of projects until about 10:55 AM. At about 11:10 AM, after going through the feedback from my supervising attorneys in the second half of the summer, the hiring partner said to me “so it is with great pleasure that we extend an offer to you to come back in the fall of 2009.” That was it. I expressed my gratitude and felt happy, relieved, and excited. I sent a text message to my parents and my boyfriend telling them the good news. I then decided that I should have lunch with my boyfriend to celebrate. My boyfriend actually works in the same building as I but because this summer has been so action and lunch packed; I only had the chance to eat lunch with him once. So today was the perfect opportunity to spend some time with him.

After lunch I finished a couple more tasks before heading out to our farewell party at 4PM. I walk into venue one three, our version of a large auditorium, and could not believe that the white stately room has been transformed into a tropical celebration with delicious food and chocolates of every variety. I talked to the staff and attorneys I worked with, the legal recruiting folks who made sure we had an absolutely amazing summer, and of course my fellow summer associates. It was a bit surreal that it was all coming to an end. I was talking to another summer associate when I heard cheers and squeals from another corner of the room. I went to investigate and found out that a fellow summer associate just accepted her offer and everyone was overjoyed. At that point, accepting the offer that day had not occurred to me not because I had reservations but because I thought it was a pen and paper type of thing where the firm sends me a letter and I sign on the dotted line. So I said to another summer half jokingly that had I known it was such a big deal, I would have accepted on the spot. The truth is it never crossed my mind that I would work anywhere else after graduation (if I received an offer). I truly believe that it is one of the greats when it comes to big firms and the right place for me to start my career. I guess someone heard what I said and mentioned it to the hiring partner. In no time at all, there were cheering, squealing, and hugging all around me. And that’s how I accepted my offer.

Even though one third of the law school journey still remains ahead, law school has already been one of the most amazing and transformative experience of my life. I came to law school full of anxiety and trepidation. Am I smart enough? Will I succeed? Will I still have a life? And who has not met those members of the bar who absolutely loathe law school and being a lawyer? I came to law school despite of all this because I wanted more than a 9-5 job. I wanted a career that is intellectually challenging, personally meaningful, and financially stable. I knew the dangers of proceeding ahead with law school (though they were greatly exaggerated in my mind) but I also knew the danger of remaining still in life.

When I was looking for a job after college, one of the interviews I went on was for a non-profit marketing position which sounded like a perfect combination of learning real life skills while helping to advance social justice. When I got to their loading-dock type of office, I was told that this interview involved an on-the-job component. The next thing I knew, I was being driven to Harvard Square to solicit donations from people on the street on behalf of a non-profit organization I had never heard of in 15 degree sleeting weather. I remember feeling grim and dejected and an urgency to find a real job. Less than three years later, not only am I learning law from incredibly bright and intellectually curious law students and professors, I have assisted a federal judge in drafting judicial opinions, helped non-profit attorneys in litigating the biggest sexual discrimination lawsuit in history, and gained a world of business law knowledge as a summer associate at one of the best law firms in town. This winter, the coop system will take me even further to the Beijing office of the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative. I will be working with the staff there to promote good governance and increase public interest advocacy in China. And this is just what my law school education has afforded me so far. I could not have imagined better things for myself.

This is my last entry on this blog. I have accepted a post as a teaching assistant to the incoming 1Ls this year and thus will not have adequate time for blogging. It has been a pleasure to share with you my lessons and adventures, victories and defeats. Thank you for reading it. I hope it has provided some insights into the life of a law student at Northeastern University School of Law.