Law school is an ivory tower. It exists hundreds of miles above our clients’ on-the-ground experiences. We sit in these rooms—divorced from reality—deriving “holdings” from age-old judicial opinions. We theorize, contemplate, and speculate about principles of law from our aerial view. And in the “elevated” exercises of the traditional law school class's Socratic method, we… Continue reading Get Out: Becoming a Practice-Ready Lawyer
Tag: law school clinics
Reflections from a Courtroom
I had never walked into a courtroom before law school. The only people I knew who had been in courtrooms entered as defendants. For me, courtrooms had a very serious and almost terrifying power about them. And yet this year, I have walked into a courtroom at least once a week. To say the experience… Continue reading Reflections from a Courtroom
Vivian Kim
Conversations with Practitioners is our ongoing series in which we ask current practitioners about their careers. 1. What do you currently do? I am an Assistant United States Attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia. Our office is a little different from other U.S. Attorney's offices. Since there is no D.A.… Continue reading Vivian Kim
A Common Bond
Most often what attracts us to different things – people, places, jobs – is a common bond. For me, I definitely share a common bond with the work that I want to do as an attorney. As the daughter of a biracial couple, I found myself naturally drawn to civil rights work. After all, it… Continue reading A Common Bond
Michelle Harrison
Conversations with Practitioners is our ongoing series in which we ask current practitioners about their careers 1. What do you currently do? I am a staff attorney at EarthRights International (ERI), a nonprofit human rights and environmental organization with offices in SE Asia, the Amazon, and Washington, D.C. ERI uses transnational litigation and advocacy strategies to… Continue reading Michelle Harrison
An Education Beyond the Classroom
I’m going to tell you what may seem like a very obvious thing, but it’s also a very important thing: law school does not prepare you to be a lawyer. Law school prepares you to be a law professor. 1L year is spent teaching you to “think like a lawyer.” I’m still not totally sure… Continue reading An Education Beyond the Classroom
Far from Bored
There is a popular phrase used to summarize law school: “The first year they scare you to death, the second year they work you to death, and the third year they bore you to death.” On top of that, I have heard countless times about how law school does not prepare you for actual legal… Continue reading Far from Bored
