All posts filed under: Student Advice

Learning to Ask

I don’t even know what I don’t know. This was my mantra my entire 1LE year… and maybe even for a few of my 2LE classes. Law school is essentially a process to break down and rebuild the way you think and analyze information. As a 1LE, one of the first things you do is to spend hours pouring over the Bluebook, the citation reference guide for legal writing, trying to figure out how to cite cases that you hope are applicable to the paper you are writing. You also spend hours reading lengthy, wordy, Scalia dissents that have no bearing on the major takeaways from the case you’re reading, but that will be helpful to know down the line. More than likely, you are also in the throes of trying to figure out the different elements of ‘negligence’ and why a word that once seemed so simple, suddenly seems so complex. There’s also the added pressure to know those elements before Monday, because you’re on call and will need to answer questions in front …

My Philly Neighborhood: Commuting from the Suburbs

I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, but was always drawn to the city itself. When I enrolled in Temple Law, I was excited to throw myself entirely into city life. I thought that during my time at Temple Law, it was essential for me to live in the geographic boundaries of Philadelphia. However, I quickly realized that this was not the case. Living in the suburbs as a Temple Law student is actually a very real possibility. We all know that law school can be expensive, and for me, living in the suburbs was a way to offset some of that expense. Luckily for me, my parents still live in the same suburb where I grew up and were willing to have me move back home after years of living on my own. As a current third-year law student, I commute to Temple Law every day using Septa’s Regional Rail System. The Regional Rail has trains that run from Philadelphia to the western suburbs, northern suburbs, and even New Jersey. I take the Paoli-Thorndale …

Coming Full Circle Through Guided Research

During an undergraduate course on race in the United States, I was tasked with interviewing someone who identified as a “hyphenated American” to discuss this person’s experiences as nonwhite in America. I decided to interview my grandfather, a Mexican-American man who grew up in the American Southwest. While I was aware that all of my grandparents had faced some form of discrimination in their lives because of their Mexican ancestry, this exercise gave me a chance to learn more details about my grandfather’s experiences and contextualize those experiences with historical perspective. As that class ended, I knew that I wanted to continue to dive deeper into the history of Mexican-American people and other Latinx folks, and decided that I should double major in Chicano/Latino Studies. That decision completely changed the trajectory of my education. From that point forward, I viewed my political science studies through a new lens, analyzing the intersection of political systems and low-income minority populations. For most of my life I thought that the hardships my grandparents faced were those of a …

Temple Rome – An Internship Abroad

I came to law school as what you may call a non-traditional student.  Sixteen years after graduating with my bachelor of science and working in the financial sector and then employee global mobility, I decided to return to school.  I first entered law school as a part-time student in the evening division at Widener Delaware Law, and then I transferred to Temple Law after my first year.  After my first semester at Temple, I transferred to the day division as a full-time student. When I transferred to Temple, I was most interested in international studies and, in particular, the study abroad program in Rome.  My main fields of interest in law are global business and U.S. business immigration.  Not only was I interested in the breadth of courses offered to prepare me for the workforce, but I felt the Rome program would give me an opportunity to understand another culture, another law structure (Italy practices civil law, whereas the United States practices common law), and another way of life.  Getting outside of my comfort zone …

Integrated Transactional Program: A Student’s Perspective

During my second year at Temple Law, I was interested in developing practical legal skills that I could use at my summer associate job. I studied abroad in Rome and worked as a research assistant throughout my first summer of law school, so I didn’t have real world experience in the legal field just yet. The Integrated Transactional Program (commonly known as ITP) was the perfect opportunity to focus on my professional and legal skills in a classroom setting. The 2-semester, 10-credit sequence, led by Professor Robert Bartow, combines Trusts and Estates, Professional Responsibility, and an experiential component. Trusts and Estates is taught in the fall semester, while Professional Responsibility is held in the spring. One evening per week in both semesters, students are separated into smaller groups to practice lawyering skills with an experienced lawyer or judge as an adjunct professor. Students gain experience interviewing clients, drafting estate planning documents, negotiating contracts, and much more. Some exercises confront ethical questions in which students are required to put the Rules of Professional Conduct to use. …

About Your First Semester Grades: A Word of Encouragement for 1Ls

It’s that time of year again: the beginning of the spring semester at American law schools, when 1Ls get their first set of law school grades. By virtue of your presence in law school, it’s fair to assume that you’re used to some measure of academic success; your fall semester grades may feel like a departure from that history. No matter how you fared, as a professor who teaches 1Ls and as a former law student who’s been through this process, I’d like to offer a few words of perspective. You’re the same student you were before your grades were posted. Your grades haven’t changed how intelligent or how capable you are; don’t let them change how you see yourself. You were admitted to Temple Law because we saw in you the potential to do great things and to make a meaningful contribution to the practice and profession of law. We believe in you: you should, too. This first set of grades doesn’t define you or your law school career. If you take nothing else …

Social Justice Lawyering: A Student Advocate’s Perspective

As a 1L selecting courses for my second year, I immediately gravitated towards the experiential learning opportunities: things like clinics and internships that would allow me to figure out how to use what I was learning to serve the values I hold. My first year was difficult, but not in the ways I expected. Law school teaches us that the law is a neutral force, but I knew that to be false. I struggled to learn the first-year curriculum and simultaneously hold on to the people and values that had motivated me to come to law school in the first place. I found out about the  Sheller Center’s Social Justice Lawyering Clinic taught by Professor Lee through the course list. I was immediately interested based on the clinic’s name, so I looked through the Sheller Center’s  website and asked friends who had taken the clinic before for their opinion. Everyone said the clinic was an incredible opportunity, so despite the fact that I was terrified that I would do a bad job, I filled out …

The MPRE: When and How?

The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE) is a two-hour exam consisting of 60 multiple-choice questions.  The MPRE is required for bar admissions in all but three U.S. jurisdictions (Maryland, Wisconsin and Puerto Rico.)  The good news is that the exam doesn’t cover a huge amount of material so studying for the exam is not that arduous, but the bad news is you have to spend a Saturday taking the exam. When to Take the MPRE? This category is really two questions, first when can you take the MPRE and second when should you take the MPRE.  The MPRE is only offered three times a year so it’s something you should start thinking about early.  It’s important to register early for two reasons, many exam locations fill up so you need to register early in order to secure the location that is most convenient for you. Second, the regular registration fee is $95 but the late registration fee is increased to $190.  Save yourself the additional $95 and register early! Registration fees and deadlines can be …

I Got Through It – So Will You!

As a recent graduate from Temple Law I can still remember exam season very well.  As the Thanksgiving break approached my days were filled with stress and anxiety because I knew exams were right around the corner.  But I got through it and so will you! Here are some techniques that got me through exam season. Find out where you do your best work. Now is a good time to scope out the place where you want to hunker down for exam season.  It’s about this time of year that I would move from the alleyways in the Klein Library to the stacks where no one could find me.  I always did my best work in the library, where there were minimal distractions.  However, for some the library becomes too stressful during exam season so working from home or a coffee shop is another great option.  If you are meeting with study groups keep in mind there are rooms in Barrack you can reserve on the library website. Figure out which method of studying works …