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.

I recently read this American Lawyer article about the up and coming generation of law students. According to the article, we are a serious bunch – not only in terms about the work we want to pursue but also the life/work balance we strike to achieve. I tend to agree. That brings me to my next thought – it’s time this generation of law students break down the barriers between public interest and business law.

As many of you may already know, Northeastern is a premier public interest law school. That may be because the professors and students here will push you to analyze issues from different perspectives. Or because we have built very close relationships with judges and government agencies over the years, they love to hire Northeastern students. Or maybe simply because you will never feel alone or “crazy�? if you came to law school to stop global warming, fix the broken criminal “justice�? system, or to achieve world peace for that matter.

But what should all that mean to you? Does that mean you should not come here if you have not chosen to accept some noble mission as your life purpose? Or does that mean if you are contemplating about world peace, you are locked in public interest if you choose Northeastern? I asked myself those same questions when I was applying to law schools. My experience here so far says “no�? to both questions.

Like many law school applicants, my exposure to law prior to law school was very much focused on public interest. This is at least partially because the opportunity to volunteer at a legal aid clinic is much more readily available to college students than say a Fortune 100 law firm. Whatever the reason, because of that exposure, I know for a fact that public interest law will always be part of my life/work balance. However, it’s absolutely archaic to insist that you are either a “public interest lawyer�? or a “business lawyer�? and that you have to choose by the time you enter law school. I came to law school because I believe lawyers are change agents – whether they change their client’s situation by helping her seek political asylum or by restructuring business deals to minimize tax exposure. Knowing I have the knowledge and skills to change any situation for the better is what I hope to achieve in obtaining a legal education. The designation of “public interest�? or “business law�? is merely what a lawyer chooses professionally not who she/he is personally. Of course, I’m not denying the huge lifestyle differences between someone who professionally chooses the 80 hr work week and someone who chooses the 40 hr week for half of the pay. That’s a personal decision. In my book, every lawyer, possessed with the tools for change, should be a public interest lawyer – whether they choose to do it as their day job or as a passion in life. So I hope the article is right. I hope the new generation of law students realizes that they are more than what their business cards say about them.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.