Where To Ask Legal Questions For Free

What is the most effective way to have work?

My law firm has been receptive to adapting my requests for flex time plus a reduced-hour schedule. A proactive partners changed my caseload to allow more time in the workplace and with more chances to me when I returned from my first leave. As soon as I returned from my pregnancy leave, my firm accepted my proposition. I'm confident a schedule could have worked for at least a few decades, in my family situation had been different.

Can you see a bias against individuals who attend law school later in life?

In fact, no book, no professor, without a mock trial can actually be a replacement for life experience. Something as simple as learning how to work in an office or studying how to work and socialize with different people is, without doubt, "on-the-job" training. Possessing that basic "know-how" provides later-in-life students a distinct advantage in a lot of ways over their younger classmates. Really, among the first things a career student (one who has gone directly through) will need to learn is how to operate in a workplace environment. The learning curve for that skill can be steep and take a very long time. The later-in-life graduates are prepared to operate from day one and do not share the exact battle.

What do you like most about your job? Least?

Immigration is one of the most political regions of law and it's constantly changing, which keeps my practice intriguing.

Was there anything you wished you would have done otherwise in law school that you did not understand until you started to practice?

I wish I had dealt with my distress over talking to folks about, and asking them for, money. When I opened my practice to speak to customers about cash and ask them write me a test it was very uncomfortable. I had read Jay Foonberg's book, How to begin and Build a Law Practice, which had suggestions on addressing this part of practice. However, I wish I'd worked with a cash trainer (or perhaps done job playing with buddies) for over my discomfort of saying, "The retainer inside this matter is X, and I cannot begin work without it." Practice saying this till it seems like second nature if you do nothing else.

Did any classes prove particularly useful as you began practicing?

After legal writing and research, I discovered the abilities courses I took, as well as some extracurricular activities, were very helpful not so much when I worked in a firm but once I began my own training. Abilities drafted interrogatories and I took a complete year of trial advocacy, and eventually prepared witnesses for a trial. The class gave me confidence on the basics when I had my very first trial. Likewise, moot court prepared me to draft briefs and assert (a course on appellate advocacy can do the same).