Jae Wakeling is a first-year student at Loyola Law School — she works full-time as a paralegal while attending Loyola’s hybrid evening program.
One thing I was worried about when coming into an evening/hybrid program was access to my professors. During typical working hours (and often during non-typical hours, if we have a big court deadline like an MSJ or pretrial motions at work), I am not able to meet with my professors or do any schoolwork because of my full-time job as a paralegal. I also commute in from Orange County, which means that I try to avoid having to brave the LA traffic and commute to campus unless I really absolutely have to. I was worried that would mean my ability to meet with my law school professors would be limited.
From day one, however, this worry was quickly dissipated. All three of my fall semester professors offered office hours outside of typical 9am-5pm working hours, and if their set hours did not work, my professors were more than willing to work around my schedule to make an individual appointment as needed. They also offered office hours both in-person and over Zoom, so I could easily hop off from work and onto their office hour Zoom link.
My professors were also thoughtful and intentional with scheduling. When the Academic Success Program events (which were workshops on how to outline, how to take law school exams, etc.) conflicted with their set office hours, the 1E law professors bent over backwards to move their office hours so that we could be able to attend both.
My professors were also open to talking about whatever we felt we needed to talk about, which made office hours feel like not just a tool for academics but also for mentorship and career advice. I learned that my legal writing professor had worked as a judicial clerk and was able to talk with him at length about his experience and learn more about clerkships and the resources at Loyola to eventually get me there. With my torts professor, I was able to talk through some of the cases I work on at my day job as a civil litigation paralegal, which helped me connect what I’m learning at school and reinforce it with what is happening at my work.
Most importantly, all of my professors were fully committed to giving me all of the time and tools I needed to feel confident in the course material. Last fall, my most intense class was contracts, because it was the only five-unit, one semester course on my docket. For Loyola evening students, torts and legal writing are year-long courses. My contracts professor knew we were probably barely treading water, if not outright drowning, due to it being our first semester, so she made herself extremely available for us. She gave each of us the option of having a one-on-one appointment to review our midterm feedback with her, which was extremely helpful and identified what I needed to specifically improve prior to the final. She had regular office hours, and in the lead-up to the midterm and final she held separate exam study sessions where we would work through a practice problem. My Saturdays were always reserved for her exam study sessions, but if we couldn’t make it, she also always posted the recording so we could watch it back on our own time. I also had a one-on-one appointment with my legal writing professor to review his writing feedback and an appointment with my torts professor to talk through my confusion about the tort of false imprisonment.
In summary, faculty at Loyola are extremely accessible and willing to help you to succeed. I love that I genuinely feel like my professors want me to learn, want me to succeed, want me to achieve my goals, and I feel like all of them have made time and space for me to interact with them.
TOPICS: 1E, Faculty, Hybrid JD