Summer in the City

For those of you who followed my blog post last year, I left you on a bit of cliffhanger as far as my job hunt. I was actually able to land a great position as a law clerk at Goodkin Law in Century City. Goodkin is a boutique firm that specializes in real estate litigation – exactly what I hope to practice after law school. I found out about the position through Loyola’s spring job fair. I met the firm’s founder, Daniel Goodkin, and senior associate, Michael Shakouri, and even though they were actually looking for 2L applicants, they encouraged me to apply after we chatted for a few minutes. I applied and was thrilled when I found out that I got the job. What’s more, I found out that I’d be working alongside my classmate and fellow Wine & Spirits officer Rebekah Hoelscher!

Over the summer I got to work on everything from discovery and pleadings, to temporary restraining orders (TROs) and motions for summary judgment (MSJs). The wins are satisfying but one of the most important things I learned is the reality that, as great as you think your arguments are, you’re just not going to win every time. All you can do is make the best case for your client and when things don’t go your way, you’ve got to learn to roll with the punches, react with purpose, and move on to the next battle.

In addition to my work at Goodkin, I started Bootcamp with Loyola’s Byrne Trial Advocacy Team. Bootcamp started in mid-July and right out of the gate, the workload was surprisingly tough. Last minute reading or writing assignments were commonplace. The Bootcamp is only about a month long but they pack a huge amount of information in including evidence primers, trial basics like moving exhibits into evidence, how to talk to juries and TONS of reading and writing. The whole thing culminates with Bootcamp trials at the end of the summer. I and my Byrne teammate, Rima Sahakyan, prepared for and actually competed in two trials in a week. It was an intense and rewarding experience.

Now Rima and I are both headed to Texas for the Lone Star Classic trial ad competition and I couldn’t be happier! My teammates, Rima, Anders Iversen, and Ilia Borisov are all incredibly talented advocates and we have amazing coaches in John Henry and Melissa Lyons (pictured below with me after a 4-hour Monday night practice). We’re all eager to go represent Loyola and show off everything that we’ve learned and practiced this summer!