In my undergraduate years, I was all about the extracurricular – student-faculty committee, peer leading, student government, volunteering. But, no doubt you’ve heard, scarcity of time is something law students have in common. I often feel like I’m racing against the clock, persistently ticking away. This problem is made worse by the fact that there are always so many enticing events going on at the law school. All this meant I had to make some hard decisions about how to allocate my precious “spare time�?. One student group I have committed myself to since my 1L year is APALSA – Asian Pacific American Law Student Association. Last year, APALSA organized some pretty neat events like the potluck fundraiser for Greater Boston Legal Service – Asian Outreach Unit, the dinner event at an Asian American professor’s house, inter-APALSA cruise around Boston harbor where we mingled with APALSA kids from other Boston law schools, community service at Boston Living Center – the list goes on.

APALSA only got better this year. We sent two teams (yours truly included) to the Thomas Tang National Moot Court Competition. Moot court, as you will find out, is the law school equivalent of mock trial. It is an old-fashioned but invaluable part of the law school experience that allows you to hone in on both of your brief writing and oral presentation skills.

A fellow law student and good friend of mine told me about the competition over the summer and we decided to enter the competition together as a team. By the time fall quarter started, we had sent in the application, received the fact pattern for the competition, found a professor to coach us, and dedicated Fridays as “moot court day�?. What followed was a pretty demanding experience of weekly researching, brainstorming, writing, citation checking, and oral advocacy. This was on top of my classes and the fall recruiting. I’d be lying if I told you that there weren’t days when my partner and I wished we had never heard of moot court and could enjoy Boston’s postcard-perfect autumn Fridays like everyone else. But as I often say to myself – no pain no gain. And what a tremendous gain it was.

Participating in the regional competition was one of the most rewarding experiences of my law school career thus far. I had very few expectations going in as everything is brand new to me. After submitting our written brief 2 weeks prior, my partner and I arrived at American University, the host of the Northeast regional competition, bright and early on competition day. We first argued “on-brief�? on behalf of the respondent in the case in the preliminary round. This meant we argued the position we took in our brief. We argued off-brief next, which meant we switched from the last session and argued the exact opposite position on behalf of the petitioner. A panel of 3 “judges�? (litigators and lawyers from the DC bar) asked my partner and I some good questions, and I thought we did well answering them in both sessions. It was a huge relief to me that we survived by the time lunch time came around.

We rendezvoused with the other team from Northeastern and their coach who was traveling with us and exchanged stories from the preliminary round. It was really great to have the moral support of your fellow teammates and professor there. By that time, none of us wanted to set our hopes too high so we all thought we were not going to advance to the semi-finals in the afternoon. When the competition official announced that team 8 was one of the four teams advancing to the semi-final competition, I looked around the room waiting for team 8 to reveal themselves. No one moved. In retrospect, I must have forgotten my team number in all the excitement. So just like that my partner and I defeated 14 other teams from the region to compete in the semi-final round in front of six real judges from the Maryland trial court and court of appeals. To make a long story short, my partner and I are going to Las Vegas in two weeks for the final national competition!

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 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.

Commencement
It’s hard to believe that the 3Ls whom I have come to trust and depend on are leaving the school for good. Even though the commencement is still one month away, there already has been a lot excitement in school because Justice Stephen Breyer is one of our commencement speakers this year. For those of you who haven’t read “The Nine,” that is Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 after serving on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for more than a decade. We have already read several landmark opinions by him for classes so I can’t wait to see him in person. Did you know that he is married to a British royalty?

Speaking of awesome people that come onto campus, the Northeastern Law Journal, of which I am a member, is hosting a symposium entitled To Gitmo or Bust: Practical Challenges in Representing Guantanamo Detainees. It will take place on April 25, 2008 and will consist of a keynote speech by one of the first attorneys to take a Guantanamo client, Tom Wilner, a partner at the D.C. law firm of Shearman and Sterling. Three panel discussions will follow, with panelists from a variety of backgrounds, who have all represented detainees. The Symposium is free and open to the public so please drop by if you are in the area. You can find out more about it at http://nulj.org/.

Also today, the 1Ls and 2Ls hosted APALSA’s annual 3L going away dinner at Brown Sugar on Commonwealth Avenue. As their parting / graduation gift, they each got a monogrammed business card holder. It is our way of saying thanks to all the 3Ls who have been such an amazing support for us through it all. I really am going to miss all the 3Ls.

This past Thursday I went to my first Passover Seder sponsored by Jewish Law Student Association (JLSA) at the law school. The event is open to the entire law school community, including family and friends of law students and faculty. And like most great events at the law school, it was free. Even though I am not Jewish, I have always been curious about Jewish traditions having grown up in a predominantly Jewish community. So I invited my boyfriend, who is Jewish but had not been to a Seder since he was young, to come along and learn about the Passover Seder. It turned out to be an evening of delicious food and amazing stories. As I sat down at the table carefully prepared by JLSA students in the commons (a lounge at the law school where we gather), I was surprised to see professors, their families, students on the other rotation, the Dean of the law school, people who have never been to a Seder and people who can recite the Seder stories in English and Hebrew. It immediately made me feel more comfortable knowing how my knowledge of the Passover Seder consists of what I looked up the night prior on Wikipedia. I learned that the Seder is as much as about celebrating the exodus from Egypt as inviting the attendees, especially the young ones, to ask questions about the tradition, the history, and the religion. I also learned that I like matzah ball soup but not gefilte fish. Among the many stories I heard that night, my favorite was the story about the placement of an orange on the Seder plate.

Susannah Heschel, a professor of Jewish Studies at University of Dartmouth, was once invited to speak on a panel at Oberlin College. While on campus, she discovered Oberlin students have devised a ritual of placing a crust of bread on the Seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians ("there's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the Seder plate"). At the next Passover, she placed an orange on her family's Seder plate and she asked everyone to take a segment of the orange, make the blessing over fruit, and eat it as a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community. This is because she believes the symbolism of bread suggests that being lesbian is being transgressive, violating Judaism whereas an orange was suggestive of something else: the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life. I was happy to be part of a Seder that continued that tradition. So next time you see an orange on the Seder plate, you will know the story behind it.