I am finished with my last law school classes and finished with last papers. The only requirement left before graduation is to complete two final exams – Criminal Procedure and Law of Sales. I don’t really get excited or emotional for things like graduations but I will admit, attending my very last law school class was a bit surreal. Everyone always says that the three years of law school fly by in a flash. It’s absolutely true and in some ways, I feel like I just started. It is also strange because I’m hardly done with my classwork. After finals, I transition immediately into bar prep – learning new areas of law and relearning things I’ve forgotten.

I had already started bar prep back in December. I am reading through a few books and sample problems on marital property, going back over old contract and property outlines, and doing some multiple-choice questions. I have already purchased my bar prep course. I decided to go with Kaplan over Themis and Barbri because I felt Kaplan offered the most comprehensive package for developing my essay-writing skills. The plan is to work on bar prep as though it is my 9-6 job. I have already carved out some time to attend a wedding in May but I have made a point not to fill my schedule with new plans.

I’m still rather focused on my finals so I can’t say I’ve given a lot of thought to my specific study schedule. I know that I need to learn at least the basics of marital property and wills and trusts in the next three months before the July Bar Exam. Those two subjects are not tested on the Multistate Bar Exam (aka the MBE, which is the multiple-choice section of the exam) but they could be tested in the essay section. I also need to extensively review criminal law and basic property law which I have not studied since the fall semester of my 1L year. I am more confident about contracts because the Law of Sales class, which I’m taking this semester, is grounded largely in concepts covered in 1L contracts classes. I’m also more confident about civil procedure because I’ve gotten a lot of experience over the last three years working with statutory deadlines, pleading requirements and motions. I am also very confident in my knowledge of business associations because of my experiences in the corporate concentration. Nevertheless, I am treating bar prep as an opportunity to start my law school education from scratch. I’m sure there are things in every subject that I have forgotten. I cannot afford to skip reviewing any part of any subject.

The great thing about bar prep is that there aren’t really any cases to read. The course books give the relevant rules without “hiding the ball.” Although this means I won’t get the richness of the case history, I can go through the basics of each area of law pretty efficiently. Wish me luck and I will see you on the other side!

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.

I recently had the privilege of attending the spring Student Organization Fair, helping to represent the Loyola Wine & Spirits Law Society (WSLS). The fair is a chance for new and prospective students to come meet current students, see the different student groups that Loyola has to offer, and, most importantly to ask questions. It was great to talk about what Wine & Spirits does and what we have to offer so I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about the organization.

In Vino Veritas is an old saying that mean, “In wine there is truth.” WSLS takes that phrase literally as a way to shed light on various aspects of the law in a fun, sociable and interesting way.

WSLS was founded in 2015 by Lucas Noble and Maddie Page, so it is still a relatively young group. The overall mission of WSLS is to provide a forum for Loyola students and practicing attorneys to explore the legal realities that producers, distributors and retailers in the alcoholic beverage industry face today. Within that overarching mission, the group changes slightly from year to year, reflecting the goals and interests of the officers in charge. For example, I and my Vice President, Rebekah Hoelscher, are interested in corporate law so our events and activities this year have largely focused on the business issues that producers and regulators face. In the past, we have hosted events focus on a wide range of topics from environmental law to criminal justice.

WSLS has been an amazing opportunity to meet and work with some amazing people, including Matthew Botting, General Counsel for the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and Teo Hunter and Beny Ashburn, founders of Crowns & Hops Brewing Co., one of the few black-owned breweries in Los Angeles. I’ve learned all about California’s regulatory system and how that system has changed due to the pandemic. During our event with Teo and Beny, we confronted some hard truths about how race and privilege, still create inequity in the brewing industry. We also talked about some possible approaches to combat those issues.

WSLS has been an amazing experience for me. I’m confident that our leaders next year and years into the future will continue to bring fun, interesting and insightful events to Loyola and provide opportunities for students to come together over a common interest in the alcoholic beverage industry at speaker events, happy hours and tastings.

Over the past two and a half year, I’ve written about some of my experiences and classes at Loyola. For this post, I asked to my legal drafting professor, Prof. Karin Bohmholdt, if she would consent to an interview so you could get to know one member of Loyola’s amazing faculty. She was gracious enough to answer a few of my questions, which are transcribed below. Due to social distancing requirements, this interview was conducted via email exchange.

Prof. Bohmholdt graduated from Loyola Law School in 2004 with magna cum laude honors after serving as the Articles Editor for the Loyola Law Review. She is now an adjunct professor and is also a practicing partner at Greenberg Traurig where is the co-chair of the firm’s Los Angeles Litigation Practice.

How long have you been a litigator?

17 years.

Why did you decide to become a litigator?

My last winter break has come and gone. I spent the time drafting a set of Bylaws for the Wine & Spirits Law Society with one of our 1L Officers, Orlando Loza, I edited law review articles, learned some Portuguese on Duolingo, made progress on my post-graduation job hunt, and dipped my toe into Bar Prep. I also took some time to just be with my wife, Claudia. We know my next real break won’t be until after I take the Bar Exam.

Now, I’ve started my last semester at Loyola and it’s a bittersweet time. I know it’s a cliché but five semesters have really flown by! Even in a year like 2020 that, let’s face it, was pretty terrible for everyone, I’m grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had so far and I’m really looking forward to getting the most out of the limited time I have left before graduation.

I’m taking five classes this semester as well as Law Review. I’m finishing my final requirements for the Corporate Concentration, I have one Bar Class (Criminal Procedure), and I’m taking one class for “fun” (Law of Sales). It’s sad and a bit funny that I won’t be able to take anymore classes at Loyola when there are still so many I wish I could take! At the same time, I know this semester is going to be a handful. There’s plenty of uncertainty about classes, the Bar, and our future job prospects but I still think there is plenty of healthy optimism.

In actuality, my biggest worry right now is when I’ll be able to get a haircut. I missed my chance to get one in December before we went back into lockdown and now my hair is out of control! I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it’ll be safe to get one soon.

You can’t really know what law school is like until you’re actually in it. I have classmates who grew up knowing they were bound for law school, whose parents went to Loyola, who didn’t know how to outline or write a case brief. It’s okay. The learning curve is steep but most people get the hang of it within the first couple of months. There are however a few things that you can prepare for – things I wish I knew before I started and things that I am still working on. They essentially break down into two categories – study habits and life habits.

The three study habits that I wish I knew before I started were when to outline, when to start using supplement books, and where the good study locations are. First and foremost, an outline is basically your own summary of all the material in the course that you will need to know for the final. My outline was never more than 38 pages long and should probably have been shorter than that. You can find student-made outlines from past year on the St. Thomas More website but you’ll want to write your own.

Most professors will give you advise on when to outline but, generally, you should start your outline after completing the first major section of the course, usually three or four weeks into the semester – for example for Prof. Selmi’s (fantastic) torts class you should start outlining after you complete intentional torts.

Once you start outlining you should also spend an hour every Saturday and Sunday practicing that section from Example and Explanations books (E&Es) and other supplement books. Not all supplements are created equal. Some supplements cover material that is NOT covered in your class so ask your professor if they have any preferences or recommendations. You can burrow a lot of these supplements from the library, scan the entire book with the book scanner in the computer lab, and then upload the scans directly to your personal Google Docs account. Be a good person and share your scans with friends.

Finally, the good study spots are the small study rooms in the library (I like the basement). You usually need to reserve these in advance so beware if someone ever tries to kick you out of a study room. On sunny days, there are a couple great patios on the fourth floor on Burns building where all the faculty offices are located. The views of DTLA are not bad as you can see.

Two life habits that will help you are to manage your time around sleep and make sure to give yourself time for things that make you happy. I’m still struggling with the second of these habits. Try your best to get enough sleep every night so that you are pleasant to be around. At least in 1L year this shouldn’t be too terrible but make sure that you’re not pushing all your reading or studying for Sunday night.

You also need to get outside the library and do something productive that makes you happy. I like to swim, other’s like to go to the gym or walk around Santa Monica. My study group also did game nights and Korean barbeque nights. Keep your spirits up and you’ll do great!