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!

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 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.

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 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.

One of the most amazing ancillary benefits of attending NUSL that I hope you will come to utilize is the free admission to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston. Not only will you be within one block of one of the most recognized art museum in the country, you also receive the privilege of getting free admission to the museum anytime just by flashing your NU id. For most of us negative net worth law students (but with huge earning potentials I comfort myself), it is one of the few places where we can get the VIP treatment. In any case, I went to the MFA today for their annual “Art in Bloom” exhibition. It is one of my favorite exhibitions at the Museum. Objects selected from the Museum’s collections are interpreted in fresh spring flowers by sixty-three New England garden clubs. It was absolutely awe-inspiring, for example, to see vibrant vitality of fresh flowers exhibited side by side with the stillness of a four thousand year old Egyptian statute. The exhibit was displayed throughout the Museum in accordance with the time period and origin of the art pieces. So I saw flower interpretation of Egyptian, American, European, and Asian art objects. In addition to the exhibit, the Museum is also hosting seminars and workshops on floral arrangement and home decoration as well as a Sunday brunch and an elegant tea party with music. I can’t tell you about those events because they were price prohibitive to me but the exhibit itself was absolutely breath-taking and miraculously, free!

Sorry I have been MIA. As always, things got really busy during exam week, and I have not gotten a chance to update you since my stress-filled entry from two weeks ago. Well, I have officially survived the second year of law school. I thought it would be fun to share with you one of my favorite rituals in law school - the end-of-the-quarter purge. I finished my last exam on Friday exactly at 1:02 PM. I pass in my exam answer and head straight to the lockers. I take everything out of my locker and make three piles: 1) things that I never need / want to see again and have little resale value (this pile goes to the huge blue recycle bin), 2) things that retain sufficient resale value to pay for my victory lunch with fellow law students (this pile gets sold to the bookstore / half.com), 3) things that I want to have by my bed side when I go to sleep (I’m a code lover so that means the Uniform Commercial Code and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure). As I take my trusty combination lock out and double check for anything left behind, I exhale a huge sigh of relief. It is done. All that stress, all those late nights, and all those pages of outline all lead to this singular moment when I get to clean out my locker. It is one of the best feelings in the world. I go to the bookstore and sell one of my casebooks for almost seventy dollars. Satisfied with my lunch money, I head to Uno’s where my fellow law students have been congregating for a while and I say to myself let the celebration / commiseration begin.