Keeping Balance

We’re about three months into the Fall semester and finals are right around the corner. The Byrne Trial Team is finished for the term and my day-to-day schedule freed up considerably for a few days. But the short break has already ended and one job leads directly to the next. Now, those of us who decided to take Ethical Lawyering this semester have our mock interviews to prepare for and a sizeable portion of us who also have the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (the “MPRE”) to study for and take in early November. I was also able to start working about fifteen hours every week at Goodkin APC, the real estate litigation firm I worked at over the summer. Work actually helps to put the enormity of “THE LAW” into perspective and allows me to incorporate my classwork in surprisingly relevant ways.

For example, in my Business Associations (“BA”) class we had just learned about something called the Business Judgment Rule, or BJR. To give you a little preview of BA, the BJR is an automatic presumption that directors in corporations have fulfilled their fiduciary duties for ordinary business decisions and can be overcome (generally speaking) by showing that the director acted with bad faith or gross negligence. Sure enough, my very first day back in the office my assignment was to research the applicability of the BJR in California for homeowners’ associations. BA is actually my favorite class this semester and I’m really happy to have the opportunity to practice with a lot of the concepts I’ve learned in the class!

But work and school aren’t everything. Ever since Byrne ended, I’ve also made a deliberate effort to spend more time with my friends and family. While I was prepping for competition, I had zero time to spend on anything else. I was either in law review, class, practice, writing scripts, or asleep. I didn’t see much of my friends or Clau, my wife. Since then, I’ve made sure to have two Korean barbeque nights with the old study group, the Geriatric Society, and I always spend my evenings with Clau – whether we go out to dinner or just stay in. It is nice to stay busy and but it’s never too busy for a few hours a week to spend with the people you love.