1. Apply to all the opening positions you are interested in. Yes, you read right ALL OF THEM. Even if you think that you do not meet all of the employer’s “requirements.” Even if the position says top 10% (and you are not), apply. Those requirements are not set in stone. More often than not, employers are flexible if they meet a strong candidate that does not necessarily check all of “the boxes.”
2. Your GPA or rank is not the most important thing when applying.Most employers will tell you that experience is more valuable than a high GPA. In the end, it is more valuable for an employer that you know how to do a discovery motion than having a 3.80 or being in the top 10%.
3. Confidence is Key!If you do not believe in yourself, why would a stranger believe in you. Replace words like “I think to I know.” Be confident and portray yourself as the strong candidate you are!
4. Don’t forget:
    

As I mentioned last year, every law student is required to complete forty hours of pro bono work to graduate. In my 1L year, I got an early start working over the winter break for a tenant advocacy firm, the Tenant’s Law Firm. Because I was a 1L, I was limited to claiming a maximum of ten hours, even though I actually worked closer to forty within the two-week break.

Last year, I completed the bulk of my hours, acting as a bailiff in Loyola’s National Civil Trial Competition. I acted as a timer and event coordinator over an entire weekend and was even credited for the time spent at the pro-competition party! The event added another 28 hours to my pro bono total.

This year I finished up my forty hours by working in a landlord/tenant law clinic. Loyola offers a wide variety of clinics from landlord/tenant to criminal justice to international refugee assistance. I am interested in real estate law and had not had much experience in residential real estate or landlord/tenant law since my volunteer work as a 1L. The good news about clinics is that it is a regular class for credit with instruction on the relevant area of law. The first half of the landlord/tenant clinic focused on the basics of landlord/tenant law and on the newly enacted regulations and prohibitions to address the pandemic. The bad news about clinics (for me anyway) is that each clinic requires each student to work 2 to 4 hours per week in addition to regular classes. The time commitment meant that I was not able to rejoin the Byrne Trial Team again this year.

During the pandemic, the city of Los Angeles, the state, the county and the CDC all enacted emergency regulations which prohibited evictions for failure to pay rent, though contrary to popular belief evictions for cause were still allowed. Tenants were, however, still required to pay all rents owed according to a pre-established timeline once the pandemic had ended. I (rather optimistically) guessed that the pandemic would have subsided enough by the fall semester of 2020 that housing would be a hot issue. My belief was that tenants and landlords would be busy negotiating repayment options and that there would be a glut of wrongfully evicted tenants as landlords reacted to eased evictions restrictions. Unfortunately, the pandemic had not subsided by the fall so I mostly spent the time cataloging the new pandemic laws into a new questionnaire for the clinic to use during client intakes. I did get to do one intake myself but it was far from the busy workload that I had expected. Nevertheless, I did learn a lot about landlord/tenant law and was able to complete my pro bono hours.

Hello again, Jury of Peers! Today we are talking pro bono hours which is kind of perfect since I’m working on my pro bono hours right now!

LLS requires that all students complete 40 hours of pro bono work. Loyola has so many opportunities to complete pro bono hours from clinics to helping trial teams prepare for competition by being a witness. The way I am getting the majority of my hours is through Young Lawyers Program (YLP) which is a student run mock trial. Law students mentor high school students to help foster their interest in law as well as teach some basic legal skills.

My little YLP group is my mentee (who is a freshman in high school!) and a 1L who is starting his hours early. We are working on doing a direct examination of the primary defendant. Since I have the most law school experience as a 2L, most of my job is to explain principles in the simplest way I can. One thing I really feared when I learned we had a pro bono requirement was that I wasn’t going to be knowledgeable or prepared enough to actually do anything productive. But it really amazed me how much I have learned (and retained) in the last 3.5 semesters!

Pro bono hours give you a chance to exercise your knowledge. To make a cheesy analogy: pro bono is like going to the gym for your law brain, and your classes are your personal trainers. You know, the one who makes sure you stay in proper form. It’s actually really fun to get to use my knowledge outside of a class or an exam setting. And yes, I know that sounds nerdy, but if you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re nerdy too.

If I don’t complete all my hours this year, I would love to do clinic work to complete the rest. I am planning on doing a clinic anyway next year to fulfill my experiential learning requirement, but I also am genuinely looking forward to doing more work!

To finish off this post I’ll say this: it’s hard to explain pro bono until you do it. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to foster someone’s interest in law (YLP) or help them with a legal problem (clinic). Those little moments of realization that you do remember what hearsay is AND can recall some of the exceptions. I know I’ve gotten a lot out of it, and I know you will too!

See you in the next one,

Kelsey