TLS Student Blog

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to take care of a fellow law students eight-year-old daughter for four days. I want to begin by saying I have the utmost respect for any person who is a parent and a law student. After those four days, I was absolutely the most tired that I have ever been. This child is the most well behaved child that I have ever met, but after this experience I could not fathom being a single mother and having to deal with the challenges of law school all at the same time. For four days, I felt as though I was being pulled in twenty directions my number one priority being the child. One minute I'm driving her to school making sure she has her homework and lunch money; the next minute I'm driving to the Louisiana Supreme Court to see a fellow clinic student do her oral argument. My friend has done a magnificent job balancing single motherhood and life as a law student. After my elective trial-run as a single parent for a few days, I applaud and respect her more than I could ever express in words. Here's to all of the law student parents at Tulane!

It's been getting chilly here in New Orleans (mid 70s), and one of the city's most interesting diversions is right around the corner. The Halloween spirit has taken hold. As I walk down Freret Street to school nearly every house is covered in spider webs, orange lights, skeletons, and carved pumpkins. Everyone I know is getting a costume for the parties that will be happening all over town (though most will end up on Frenchman Street.) There's something invigorating about living in a community with such a demonstrable willingness to celebrate, to throw on a mask and throw out propriety for a single night. Man, I love this city! I remember when I was making my decision to go to law school, my brothers were encouraging me to go to a school in a small town. I knew myself well enough to know that even though I would be working hard, staying in a library 24 hours a day is not recipe for well being: the quality of life outside of school is incredibly important. As a community, I've always found New Orleans to be welcoming, diverting, and absolutely charming, (sometimes too much so - don't read this to mean you don't have to work your tail off if you come to law school!) That's all I have for now. Wishing you all a Happy Halloween, John Norris

     The first week of the new semester has come and gone. I can't believe summer is over, (especially since the New Orleans heat will likely last through October.) It's been great catching up with my fellow 2Ls and hearing about their summer adventures, so I thought I would share with you a bit about mine.
     I had a rather full summer this year, beginning with working down at the Louisiana Supreme Court with the Judicial Adminstrator's Office.  This was a great chance to meet some amazing people and gain insight into the administrative side of the courts, a subject rarely mentioned in the more academic oriented study in school. Working in the newly restored courthouse on Royal Street in the heart of the French Quarter was also pretty cool.
     To sate my nearly insatiable wanderlust, I also took advantage of two TLS study abroad programs. I first travelled to Siena, Italy, a well preserved medieval town about an hour south of Florence in the hills of Tuscany. The three week program there focuses on art law and cultural heritage, and is the only program of its kind in the world. My fellow classmates and I learned not just from law professors, but also art historians, museum curators, international treaty negotiators, and special police in charge of recovering stolen goods. After a year of standard 1L courses, (property, torts, contracts, etc.) it was refreshing to learn about such a fascinating and new area of the law in a place surrounded by some of the greatest works of Western art. Besides being a good learning experience, it was also an opportunity to connect with fellow law students, not only from Tulane but also from other law schools.
     Next, I travelled to Cambrige, England to participate in a different but equally amazing program directed by Dean Griffin. The program is located in Trinity College, one of the oldest colleges at Cambrige, founded by King Henry VIII, famous alumni include Isaac Newton and many princes, scientists, authors, and philosophers.  There's something indescribable about studying law at an 800 year old University. I took courses in comparative criminal procedure taught by a federal judge from New Orleans and European Community trade law taught by a Trinity fellow. Throw in pub nights, punting on the River Camb, and a few performances of Shakespeare in the college gardens and you have another set of unforgettable memories.
     After the typically cold and rainy weather of England, it was almost nice to return to the sweltering heat of New Orleans. Now I'm back at school getting back into the swing of things: class, International Law Society, SBA, Moot Court argue-on, and a myriad of other activities. Nevertheless, I'm still thinking of ways to make next summer just as great as the last.
-John Norris

Hi! My name is Carrol Hand, and I am currently a 2L at Tulane Law School. I am from the Midwest originally- Detroit, Michigan to be precise- but I moved to NOLA a year ago for law school with the intent to study environmental and maritime law. I never thought I would live this far south. But I do, and aside from the (at times) sweltering heat, I love it. So I am writing a blog talking about law school and NOLA in general, and Tulane in particular. Disclaimer: I have never written a blog before, so please bear with me. So with no further ado, here is installment 1: When you are considering going to law school everyone who is a lawyer, knows a lawyer, or has ever watched “Law and Order” has an opinion on whether you should go, and what you should do once you get there. As someone who has now been on both sides (guilty as charged: I love giving advice), the best “advice” I can give is listen, smile and do exactly what you would have done had your mother’s-brother’s-uncle’s-cousin’s barber not told you he knew a guy once who loved or hated law school. It’s your life: make your own decision! I do wish, however, that with all that unsolicited advice being proffered someone had told me that the first week of 2L year would be like running into a brick wall. People will tell you “they” work you to death your 2L year. That is a lie. “They” have nothing to do with it: any craziness in your life is completely self-inflicted. You (and by you, I mean me) signed up to join a journal, be the treasurer of this club, on the executive board for that club and generally get involved. And you (I) love it: you (I) just didn’t expect it to all start up so quickly. I wrote on to the Maritime Law Journal at the beginning of this summer, which means I get the title of “Junior Member” and all the perks that go with it. For those who don’t know, the write on process begins at the end of your 1L year (though you can also write on at the end of the summer or potentially at the beginning of your 3L year). On the last day of exams you are given a packet with all the materials you can use and told to “Write!” You are not allowed to talk to anyone about your work, you just go home every day and compose to the best of your ability, trying desperately to remember all those tips your LRW (Legal Research and Writing) professor told you when you never imagined there was life beyond your 1L year. You submit this product to the journal of your choice (we have 8 journals at Tulane including the Tulane Law Review), wait a couple of weeks and then find out if you made the journal. Fortunately, I managed to write on to the Maritime journal. Yay! Unfortunately, some small, unrealistic part of me wanted to believe that I would write on, my mom would tell me she was proud of me and it would be easy sailing from there. Not so. No one mentions during the write on process that journal work is front-loaded at the beginning of the semester. This is something I know I will be exceptionally thankful for later on this semester, but right now I am wondering how anyone could think 200+ pages counts as an article. Isn’t that already a book to most people? Apparently not. So now I get to work with a partner making copies of all the sources in that 200+ page article- I bet you can’t guess how many citations there are- and once that is done I get to edit the article for grammar. Believe it or not, I am excited about this last assignment. Maybe I am eccentric, or maybe there is a little “grammar queen” in us all, but I love wielding a red pen in the pursuit of proper grammar. Ok, so maybe I am a bit eccentric. Anyhow, now you all know what I will be doing for the next couple of weeks: keeping my head above water with a red pen in hand. Is being on a journal worth it? So far, absolutely. Just don’t ask me at 11:59pm when I have a midnight deadline.

During the fall of my 1L year, I joined the Maritime Law Society. There were a few reasons for this. Although I’m not actually interested in Maritime Law per se, I am interested both in boats and the law. Additionally, it was my first semester in a new place, so I wanted to branch out to activities I didn’t think I’d be interested in in order to meet as many new people as possible. While these thoughts played into my decision, the truly decisive factor was that MLS had a reputation for having really good food at their meetings. Despite being in law school, there’s still a business major buried in me somewhere who recognized that at $20 a year, the benefits of the MLS food orders outweighed the cost of dues. After the first meeting, people naturally stuck around to socialize a bit. I got to talking to a few of the then-2Ls, and when talk of the previous summer came up, a handful of them told me that they’d done the Tulane Study Abroad Program in Greece. While I was happy for them and generally fascinated, I for some reason didn’t picture myself going to Greece a few months later. Aside from the maritime focus of the particular program they were talking about (one of the three programs Tulane has in Greece), it for some reason didn’t seem like a practical option. After all, Greece is far, and I knew nothing about these people telling me what a good idea it was to devote my summer to studying abroad. As I started giving more thought to my summer, however, the seed the MLS crowd had planted grew into a definite desire to study somewhere. The only problem is that everyone who’d done a Tulane program in a different city told me theirs was the best and had compelling reasons for why if I went to ______ it’d be the best summer ever. Eventually, after talking to more of the people who’d gone to Greece (and seeing their pictures), I decided I’d study Maritime Law in Rhodes and International/Comparative Law in Spetses. Several months later, I recently returned from the best summer of my life. While picking up 6 hours of law school credit from outstanding professors (Tulane faculty and international practitioners), I hiked mountains, spent countless days on amazing beaches, snorkeled, watched fireworks, sailed, and even rode 2 donkeys (one up a mountain and one through a town). I met law students from Ukraine, Athens, and all over the United States. And I even realized that Maritime Law is a very interesting branch of law despite my initial apprehension. Lessons Learned: keep an open mind regarding academic interests and extracurriculars; study abroad; the crepe stand in the Spetses town square won’t accept a used snorkel as payment for a dessert crepe.

Happy Mardi Gras!!!

In an attempt to avoid once in a lifetime experience that is Mardi Gras, I am doing what so many locals do – leaving town for the weekend – actually I am travelling on business for the American Bar Association, but nevertheless will not take part in the parades this weekend unless California celebrates Mardi Gras as well.

Right now, I am sitting in the airport waiting for the travel desk to call me back and tell me which flight to get on.  Fun?  Of course!  I thought it would be worth writing in a few times this week since I haven’t seen too much activity on here.

One week ago yesterday, the legal industry undertook massive layoffs.  It has been nicknamed Bloody Thursday and the Valentines Day Massacre.  I was sitting at a meeting in Boston with the American Bar Association and held my breath as I scrolled down my blackberry to see if my firm would be one of the firms to make these decisions.  Every time I felt my blackberry buzz from an incoming email, I cringed just a bit at the thought that it could be an email from my employer to let me know that my services would no longer be needed.  I met some of the freshly laid off a few nights later, and they were as you could imagine, slightly shaken.

The rest of the meeting (a post to come later) was fascinating and exciting, but I couldn’t help but wonder how we were going to respond to this.  I guess first I should define “we.”  I first meant the profession, what changes will the profession need to make in order to respond actively and efficiently?  What changes will help save clients money and keep the profession as inclusive as possible?  The next meaning was the American Bar Association.  What is the ABA going to do to help our brothers and sisters looking for work?  Finally, I meant Tulane Law School.  How is Tulane going to respond?  What are they going to do to keep their students in jobs and aid them in building their careers even in these challenging times?  Of course it would be a bit presumptuous to respond for any of these three groups, but I feel qualified to look at what Tulane is doing now.

The Tulane Law School Career Development Office (what you will all learn to call the CDO) has been monitoring the financial downturn since it first started.  I will never forget speaking with career counselors in the CDO and hearing the most up to date new developments from them, before I had read it on a blog or news outlet.  Immediately, I felt better.  Then I watched the programming that the CDO has done.  Just in the last two weeks the CDO has hosted a Speed Networking Event (almost like speed dating for your career!) and hosted Ari Kaplan (an amazing resource on marketing yourself).  The CDO has brought in two new career counselors who thus far have proven to be some of the most caring and engaged individuals in the entire school.  It is refreshing to attend an evening club meeting and see the CDO there.  Katie Wilkinson has kept the school up to date on unfilled judicial clerkships.  There are so many, and it is by far one of the most prestigious positions for after graduation!  The CDO even relocated for a day into one of our activity rooms so students could literally drop in on their way to and from class.  In addition to all of this, I have seen more interview programs and résumé collections than ever before.  It isn’t just the CDO that looks out for students.  One of my favorite professors at Tulane Law School announced to her entire class that she would be happy to discuss careers in criminal justice and possibly even recommend students for certain jobs.  What would be even more amazing is if this were the first or even the fifth professor I have witnessed do this in class.  Yesterday an alum even stopped by to mention that he would like to keep in touch with the school for hiring purposes in case anyone has questions or needs help.

I came back from the ABA meeting and immediately ran into counselors from the CDO at the school.  After talking a bit with them individually about the opportunities that arise from networking, I thought for a bit on how the financial downturn was going to affect job opportunities for Tulane Law Students.  It would be a bit crazy to say it won’t affect us at all.  But I think it is fair to say it will not uniquely affect us.  Further, Tulane Law School has gone above and beyond to insure that the effect is minimal.

Oh – I guess I forgot to tell you.  Was I safe?  Well that wasn’t the point of my post.  I still plan to work for the same firm that I have planned to work for all year, and I wouldn’t go anywhere else.  But if I did need to go elsewhere, I know that I would have a good team on my side.

I thought at some point, some information about what it is like to live in a city that may require you to evacuate would be in order.  Although, I have not had to bear some of the trials and tribulations that those that came before me were forced to endure with Katrina, Tulane Law students did evacuate this year.

You may or may not even know about it.  The media downplayed the entire thing.  Hurricane Gustav came through New Orleans and hammered into Baton Rouge and central Louisiana.  The situation appeared serious in the beginning and as such Tulane University closed for about one week and the city underwent a mandatory evacuation.  You can get all the boring details from the administration i.e. buses and housing provided for all students unable or unwilling to evacuate on their own, communication from the administration and live chats about the state of the University, text messaging from the school, functional email, an emergency website, updates from our career development office, etc.  If you come for visitor’s day, we will be happy to explain to you that we easily made up for a lost week of classes by simply coming in on a few Saturdays.

What you WON’T get from the administration are the stories of “evacucation.”   My evacuation began Thursday night before the storm.  The school had closed for noon on Friday and having no Friday classes, I packed my stuff and planned to leave Thursday night.  I called my best friend to make sure he had a ride out of town and he agreed to go with me.  We went over to a friend’s place to help them eat their groceries before leaving (one learns the hard way that in a hurricane power goes out and refridgerators that are stocked smell . . . interesting).

Within the hour, we had convinced everyone there to evacuate with us.  We then began our trek to Dallas.  Fortunately the school closed enough in advance that traffic was not very bad.  We arrived in Dallas eight hours later and began one of the better weeks of my law school career.  I spent the morning coordinating volunteer efforts and compiling information about existing relief efforts while my best friend worked on an article he is writing and his job search.

The afternoons and evenings were a totally different story.  We found that large amounts of Tulane Law School had evacuated to the same destination.  Large groups of my classmates went to the lake together, had a barbecue, played laser tag and minigolf, hung out in pools and hot tubs, and visited local night venues.  It felt as though we were not evacuated.  In fact, it felt as though I had gone on a vacation with all my friends.

I won’t lie to you.  When the storm hit, my eyes were glued to the television.  I couldn’t shake a fear that my place had been damaged by the storm.  I checked the internet to see if there was any information on my neighborhood available.  But, I did so with my good friends and colleagues.  A support network is important and is not something I had realized would be present at Tulane.

Ultimately, everything was fine.  I came back to school a week later, and it was just as if no hurricane had come through.  But I had learned a lot about Tulane.  If the same friends and support network stay with me throughout my career, I have no doubt everything will be fine.