What We’ve Learned and Where We’re Heading

Episode Notes

Transcript

Todd Berger:

Summer is upon us. It’s time for changes and new challenges. For some law students, it means graduation, the beginning of Bar Prep, and the start of new jobs For others, it’s a time for internships, networking, and further defining your path forward. For us at the A Law Student podcast, it also means change. With this episode, we’re wrapping up our current season. We’re going to take a couple months off to prepare for our next season of the show. And as she’s now officially a graduate of Columbia Law School, this is also Leah’s last episode as host of the show. So let’s take a moment to explore what change means as law students look back on some of the lessons from this past season, and take a look at what we have in store for the future. This is the ABA Law Student Podcast. Hey Leah. Hey Chay.

Leah Haberman:

Hey Todd.

Todd Berger:

Hey Todd.

How are you doing? Excited for the last episode.

Leah Haberman:

Super excited.

Todd Berger:

Yeah, excited bittersweet.

Absolutely. So Leah, this is your last episode and you’re done your last year of law school, you took your last exam, it’s officially over. You’re officially a jd, and so do you have a lot of change coming to your life professionally, personally? Why don’t you discuss with our listeners your plans, lessons for the summer, things coming up and lessons you might’ve learned as a law student and the anxieties you have going forward. Tell us what your thoughts are.

Leah Haberman:

Yeah, just those light thoughts that you have when you graduate. I feel like law school graduation compared to undergrad or master’s or whatever it can be, you just wake up and Themis or Barbie or whatever says today’s the start date for your bar setting program. And so you really just get right to it, which is, it’ll feel really exciting when I pass and then you get sworn in. So I feel like it’s almost like a part two graduation where you get to feel really excited after that point. But in the fall I will be starting a Equal Justice Works fellowship with the Legal Aid Society. I’ll be suing the city of New York on behalf of foster children, which will be very cool. And I feel really lucky that I have one of these fellowships. You applied equal justice work and you get sponsored, pretty much have to find an unmet legal needs.

So instead of doing a job that other folks are doing, you have to be like, what’s a job that no one’s doing? But people need it to be done and you get to do a DIY job and it’s really amazing and I feel very lucky that I was sponsored by Morrison Enforcer and that the Legal Aid Society is going to be supporting me. So I’m really stoked for that. Obviously it’s nerve wracking of, I worked before law school so I know how to have a job. None of my jobs have been this high stakes of I’m representing kids with real consequences in court every day. And that feels like bongers, that we just, I’ve done clinics, I’ve done court work before, but it’s just like, okay, now you are the one making the calls. You have to be the one who objects. You have to be the one who asks those strategic direct but not leading questions. So I’m excited. And yeah, I will also be getting married in September, so it’s just a lot’s going on. September was going to be a big month.

Todd Berger:

I felt the exact same way. It was like I graduated and then it was right into Bar prep I think when I graduated, which was this point a long time ago. But it was like, I think theBar Prep had maybe started actually before graduation. And I always felt like that was a pretty good analogy for what the practice of law was like. It’s serious, it’s intense. It’s like grownup work. It’s like you have to find ways to celebrate and to take moments off and to get some breathing space relentless and the world doesn’t stop, the legal world doesn’t stop. And I think that that it’s over, but yet it’s definitely not over is a pretty good metaphor for what the practice of law sort of like. So definitely one thought I had. Well, two other things briefly. So job sounds terrific, sounds like a really rewarding, fulfilling job.

Everyone graduated from law school, but a lot of people are in a very different situation. Some people are older, some people have families, some people are younger. But when I found I was young, I was to use the phrase that I going to steal from you, you had used it earlier in the season K through jd. I was K through JD and I came out and I had a similar public interest area and a job. And really what I found is that those years when you graduate from law school and you’re getting married, but before you start with all of the really big things in life to take a ton of your time, those are the great years to sort of delve into that kind of work and take the most out of it. And those first five years out of law school, the learning curve is so steep and it’s also a time when you just have the fewest distractions in your life.

So I would just say you take advantage of that. I think a lot of the successes you have and learning experience you have in those first five years pay off for years to come. And the last thing I’ll say too, talking about anticlimactic is if your schooling might not be over. So I thought about that. I graduated from law school, I was like, this is my last class, obviously your school your whole life, go to college, go through law school. I’m like, it’s over. I can’t believe what is this. It’s the last exam I’m ever going to take. And then I went back and got an LLM some years later. So I don’t know if that’s the store for you, but maybe you’ll get another degree or something like that. So just never say never.

Chay Rodriguez:

I think honestly, I want to ask you I guess both of you about that bar prep step because my school, they have a partnership with a company that offers that two month option or eight week option, the three month option, which would of course merge in with your last month similar to what Todd was saying. And they also have a semester option. So that whole last semester you get started at a slower pace. What do you all think about those different options for those of us kind of looking forward, not quite have graduated yet, but kind of looking at those options and wondering what we should do next semester. Leah, how are you balancing it with that being that eight weeks after you graduate?

Leah Haberman:

Yeah, I think for me, because I started early because I knew myself and I started the first week of May, so I have all of May, all of June and pretty much all of July.

And so that’s the three month option that you mentioned. And so I just made that choice, the type that once I eat a meal, I get so sleepy. And so I was like, I wake up at five 30 and I grind pretty much until when my fiance wakes up and then around nine 30 and then I’m done for the day and then I do my life admin and whatever. And so that’s working for me and I’m sure that will have to be iterative as we continue through bar setting, but I just know that I’m a low and slow type. But I also didn’t want to start too early that it impacted my school and it’s a lot of material. I didn’t want to forget anything. So I think this has been a nice middle ground, but obviously I don’t know how it’s working out yet until I know I passed so green of salt.

But I have friends who even in law school, they were good at busting out eight hours straight up studying. That’s just so not me. And I think the only piece of advice that I’ve, everyone studies differently, the advice I’m taking and that I would give to other people is you’re not going to be a different person when you study for theBar than you were all of law school. So I wasn’t someone who could grind for eight hours and I wasn’t all of a sudden going to become that person. So I think it’s like you kind of know who you are by the time you finish law school as a student and you’re probably still that kind of student. That’s really good advice. How are you feeling for your summer? What are you up to? Internship, externships?

Chay Rodriguez:

I am feeling great. I feel like I started end of last semester feeling really good when we went to choose classes for the fall semester just because it’s like I’m finally at the top of the food chain with picking classes.

So the ones I used to always be full when I would my turn, they’re not full anymore guys. I finally got into my transactional drafting class that I’ve been trying to get into for the past two years. So I’m very excited about that watch. I hate the class, love the professor, but probably hate the class I’ve been waiting to get in. But yeah, I have summer classes, so when you’re a part-time student, that’s pretty much your norm. So I’m grinding that out now and hopefully I get a little bit of a break somewhat to step back before school starts again. But as far as outside of school and working to figure out where I’m going to land once I graduate, I have kind of started working with the privacy department at my organization and kind of doing a pseudo internship with them to just see where I can fit in or if I can fit in when I graduate. So definitely trying to use where I currently am to see if it can help me get to a firm position of where I want to be. Totally. That sounds awesome. Yes, so you all will know if I can tolerate that class or not. I will be letting you all know fall semester if it was a good pick. Todd, what about you? What’s the summer look like for you?

Todd Berger:

So my summer’s actually always really, really busy. I think it’s a time where you get the space to be able to do the things that you didn’t get a chance to do during the year when you’re a professor. I teach over the summer, so I teach a class at night, so that takes some time. And then I try and work on different writing projects. It’s really, really hard, especially if you’re teaching a lot of credits to get the time during the year, I am finishing up a casebook, so a criminal procedure, casebook. I am don’t know, maybe about half a section away from band done give or take versions of this case book I’ve been writing since the Obama administration. So it’s about time to have it wrapped up. There’s sort of two case books, there’s a criminal procedure, there’s an investigative case book, which is out, and I finished that, but now I’m doing the adjudicative version of it that’s like half a section away. So hopefully within the next few weeks get that done. I’m teaching a class in London comparative trial advocacy, which should be a lot of fun doing that in July, then coming back and then it’s onto the next project. So the next project will either be an article I wanted to write for a while or I am slated to begin writing an evidence book called Discovering Evidence, an Applied Approach. So we’ll just see what it looks like, but one way or the other, it’s going to be really busy trying to get those things done.

Leah Haberman:

And for all the students listening, I am sure that Todd is not the only professor doing super cool stuff with their summer. And so if you’re kind of figuring out ways besides your internship or your classes to do things, I know for myself and others hitting up professors and can we help with the restatement you’re writing? Can we help with the casebook? And a lot of schools will also give professors money to hire RAs during the summer, and so you can kind of double up on funding that way. So I think in undergrad people assume, oh, their professors are teachers, they’re taking the summer off. That’s what you imagine. And it’s like, no, professors are grinding away and that’s a really great opportunity for you to be help me. And then that’s a really good connection for letters of rec because I think everyone’s always spiraling, how do I connect with my professors? I’m so busy during the school year and it’s like the summer is a really amazing opportunity for that.

Todd Berger:

That’s a great suggestion. If you’re really interested in doing some of the stuff that you think your professor’s doing and maybe in a space you want to be in, you should reach out. Professors love that they want to help students who are engaged. But definitely over the summer there can be a need for it for sure. So hopefully it’s not free labor, but if it is, it still pays in other ways we’ll be back after the break.

Chay Rodriguez:

Speaking of being rewarded in other ways, this past year we have had the great opportunity to have some pretty rewarding conversations. Leah and Todd, what lessons have you taken away from some of those conversations that you think are worth highlighting?

Leah Haberman:

I have thought a lot about that first interview I did for the podcast of the professor who was an author of fiction and really melded a lot of the lessons of creative writing into legal writing. And I feel like that has just come up so many times when I’ve been editing my two wells notes and all these other things of write for your audience and be really clear about what that is. And that doesn’t have to mean that you’re sacrificing quality writing. I had gone into that interview thinking of I just want to be a fun, amazing writer, and that is incompatible with legal writing and that you can be a really effective writer within the bounds of the law and have your own little flare.

And so when I had a two L, I think in January, come to me with their note almost due, they really wanted it published, but they’re like, there’s these sentences that I really, really love. And I was just like, I totally hear you, but they make no sense and they have seven commas and maybe it’s not the thing. And I just was thinking back to what the professor had said in that interview and I was like, I think either Todd said it or someone said it in the interview of it’s like the kill your darlings thought process of writing. Sometimes you have to get rid of your very best sentences and sometimes that’s okay to be an effective legal writer. So I’ve just really thought about that first episode of creativity in the law quite frequently, something that I really am always rebelling against, but as I’m doing these MPTs for the Bar, like I cannot be creative.

I must follow the rules.

Chay Rodriguez:

In the pivot episode that we did with attorney Katie Day, Todd, you talked about the golden handcuffs kind of issue that really anybody but lawyers face when they realize that they maybe can’t pivot out of an area of practice that they started in because they’ve created a lifestyle for themselves and they may not have strategized in the best way possible to get themselves out of a career path or an industry that they never thought that they really wanted to be in. And they get kind of stuck. And as a nontraditional student that’s still working, that has been, I feel like it’s been plaguing my last quarter in terms of thinking about a transition. And it’s something that they do kind of say to our cohort in general, we have a hard time letting go and starting in the law because we’re giving up careers that are pretty much stable and money that’s really stable and it’s been haunting me and I hear your voice about these golden handcuffs at least twice a month. And I’m just like, oh man, that transition is coming up and I have some really hard decisions to make professionally and what I’m ready to give up. So I go back to that episode a lot and Katie was really great, just kind of giving different perspectives as far as the research that you can do even with other schools to talk to them about their career services office if you’re not going to practice in the state that you’re in. So that’s an episode that I think about a lot.

Todd Berger:

Well, to try and make amends Chay for haunting you for the past two months, but I think this probably easier said than done, but a number of years ago, I think it was his last year as vice president Joe Biden who graduated from Syracuse, came back and he gave our law school commencement address. And not that this isn’t necessarily earth shattering, but sometimes I think you can lose this and just sort of the grind of figuring out what comes next. He talked about how the job that’s the most fulfilling is the one that is at that intersection of meaningful work. And at the same time some degree of financial stability, there’s a certain point where if you have more money, you’re not going to be any happier and there’s probably a certain point where you’re going to be unhappy because life’s going to be so difficult with loans and paying bills and the stresses that come with that. And so if you can find that intersection where you’re going to make some financial sacrifices, which you’re otherwise going to find the work fulfilling, then you’re lucky and you should try and find that kind of thing that’s out there. That’s probably easier said than done, but maybe that could be the antidote to what I told you before.

Chay Rodriguez:

Let’s see if this plays in my head more than that again, this fall. Stay tuned.

Leah Haberman:

I’ll let you guys know. And for listeners who are also stressed, I know for me, my school offered through access LS free financial counseling, which for to talk through your loans to talk through how am I going to make my summer funding as a PI student stretch as far as it can. And I think a lot of schools offer that. And then also just the internet exists of you are not the first person to figure out, you are not the first person to make these decisions. And so hopefully if you’re stressed about it, maybe that’s an episode for next season of I’m sure the a a has a ton of resources. But I do think to share your point, stability is a really hard thing to give up. And legal jobs, no matter what, they are stressful.

And so that third matrix of what Todd’s talking about of emotional satisfaction, financial satisfaction and whatever sort of peace that you want in your life of emotional peace, I think one of the things I’ve taken away from law school is never judging someone’s Venn diagram of what they are indexing on. If they’re indexing on stability, that is for you. If you are indexing on, I want to do the most meaningful job possible, that’s your choice. If you’re like, I want my loans gone in a year and I’m taking that big law job, that’s the decision you’re making. I think I thought people went to law school for very similar reasons and then I got to law school and I’m like, oh, we are all here for very different reasons. I want to do very different things after. And that’s the thing about professional school. The law is a tool that we are all using very differently,

Chay Rodriguez:

very differently. And again, I just want to send this little message of encouragement. If you are about to start paying back your loan soon, forgive yourself.

Yes, you have to pay them back. But I think I said it last year when we were starting this show in our pilot, I was like, I’ve forgiven myself. They can not pick my loans. It’s fine. I’ve forgiven me. And that’s all that matters. So use that to take some of the stress off when it comes to paying things back. I am going to take a second to give Aaliyah her flowers here. And I know we talked about this episode a little bit earlier, but that Mike Quinn episode, I had just got finished watching the Netflix series on it, and of course right now I’m blanking on the name. Dope Sick. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It was a really chilling series. Sucked me right in. So it was amazing to be able to talk with someone who is playing in that arena in real life, but also your ability to take it from not just that story and the throes and pains of addiction, but to also show how a lawyer can, I guess this is also to Todd’s last point, how a lawyer can really throw themselves into another practice of law.

And it didn’t seem impossible. It seemed hard for sure. And I guess you learn this when you’re in professional responsibility that of course you can study up and really practice anything as long as you put the right amount of effort towards it. But to actually see it I think is completely different. Mike was like an art lawyer, so it was just completely out of his wheelhouse. And it kind of makes you think, oh, this textbook that I was reading that says that I could practice something else if I really put my mind to it, I guess wasn’t lying to me. This is a real thing. I can pivot in and out of things. That’s good to know because I think as lawyers we forget that and as people training to be a certain type of a lawyer, we forget that. And it was exciting to know that this degree can really have you in and out of different really cool spaces.

Leah Haberman:

I love thinking about the flexibility of our law degrees when I have friends being like, should I go to law school? I feel like a JD is one of the most versatile degrees you can have like the floor and it’s never the ceiling. And so I really appreciated that same thing and for one of your episodes that I really love Chay is when you interviewed one of your classmates about being a student with formerly incarcerated and just as impacted. And I think it’s important to remind ourselves that there’s so much to learn from our peers and the people around us and that it’s easy to put people who’ve gone through it and are on the other side of the law school experience on a pedestal of professors, lawyers, who they’re doing the thing that we are trying to do. And it’s like people show up to law school with so many amazing experiences, like people who took years off and had completely different careers and then all of a sudden in class they’re raising their hand.

They’re like, well, when I was in Congress working on that bill and it’s like they were a staffer who helped write that bill. And I was like, oh, that’s such a flex that you are in my government class right now talking about these things. And so I really appreciated that you took the time to elevate our peers and our ability to learn from our peers. And I think that is something that if I were to do law school again, it’s thinking about you’re not just networking in terms of having a good reputation, but the people around you are such amazing people with a wealth of backgrounds, not just seeing it as a friendship and then seeing being really strategic and smart about, okay, who am I going to school with and who are we able to not just become, but what are the experiences we’re bringing in?

So I really appreciated when you did that.

Chay Rodriguez:

Thank you. And this is a little, I guess shout out to Ricky. He actually was our SBA president. Some things kind of happened. Our president had to step down. Ricky was VP and was promoted to president, and it took me a second. I actually wrote him like a congratulations card. I was just so happy for him to go from one extreme in your life and be able to work and study and put the FaceTime in with our student body to then at another extreme of your life be at one of the highest student positions. I think that that was amazing. And yeah, it is something that’s inspirational for sure.

Todd Berger:

We’ll be right back. Obviously I had an opportunity to cover a lot of really cool topics throughout the season. Any topics that we didn’t get to, any subject matters you would’ve liked to discuss that we didn’t get a chance to cover?

Leah Haberman:

Well, I think it was really interesting starting this process of, I think you become a co-host of the a podcast and you’re like, oh, we can talk about whatever niche areas of laws I’m so passionate about. And then we kind of realized like, oh, the people listening to this podcast all have really different interests. And so wanting to make these episodes as generally applicable as possible, we can take something niche like Mike Quinn’s case against the Sackler family and then taking it as a bigger picture thing of taking opportunities and being reckless within the confines of professional roles of responsibility. I have my little niche things that I was like, oh, I would love to talk about Roper Bright and administrative lawnmower. I love admin law, but I feel like I just saw the podcast differently throughout as we did it and it’s like, yeah, we were trying to make things generally applicable of things that people go through.

So I think as things came up as we did with our last episode is as law students were dealing with protests on campus, we addressed them. And so I feel grateful that we had that fluidity, but I’ll find my own little niche world to discuss my passion for admin law somewhere.

Chay Rodriguez:

Yeah, no, I completely understand that. So I guess how I’ll phrase my answer is if I didn’t care what everyone was interested in, I would say that I’m really, I won’t say disappointed. What I’ll say is I’m looking forward to next year Todd and I finally getting our real sports episode, like NIL stuff. Leon Rose, if you’re listening or if someone knows Leon Rose from the next, we’ve reached out. So feel free, never. I don’t feel rejected. So you can reach out at any time,

Todd Berger:

Especially now the season’s over. So yeah, you should reach out, Leon,

Chay Rodriguez:

Yes, you have nothing but time.

So I really want to get a really solid sports episode. I would love to talk about name, image and likeness some more, especially in the NCAA space and how that plays into that transition to the pros. I think that would be really cool. And of course, we did have a really good women’s soccer league episode, so I don’t want to completely say we didn’t have anything about sports, but that went into more like that. It really got a little human and I didn’t expect that. So that was really cool that we were able to do that. But then also there’s just a lot going on with Georgia and Ricos and Brian Steele and Todd, I would love to talk to you about whether or not you would make some of the same moves as a former defense attorney that Brian Steele has made.

Todd Berger:

Who’s Brian Steele?

Chay Rodriguez:

Brian Steele is representing YSL, well Young Thug. And he recently, he’s now, we’ve been talking about this in class as you guys can tell, I’m getting really excited now. He’s like the most respected and revered defense attorney in Georgia because he was ready to go to jail for his client after being held in contempt by Judge Glenville. So I would love to talk about with that with you, Todd. I know that’s your kind of old stomping ground as far as defense work, so I think that would be really cool to go through that.

Todd Berger:

Yeah, so Leon Rose, Brian Steele, maybe next season. I will tell you this, after I have a class that’s an online class over the summer and after each class the students are like, what about this? What about that? And many times I’m like, I don’t know who these people are, so I don’t know who Young Thug is. We talked, but apparently there’s this, all of these kinds of things in this Young Thug trial. And I did actually somehow come across the clip of the defense lawyer basically saying, no, I’m not going to give you that information, judge. And then the students said to me literally last night, they were like, how great is that guy? That guy is just a legend. He is the most badass crile defense attorney ever. So I think some it would be great. That’s just to talk about the trial itself and the substantive pieces of it. But I will say there’s a broader point there because I’ve known lawyers who’ve been in that situation who’ve said, all right, I’ll make the sacrifice next year. Young Thug, whoever that is, the guy’s lawyer and Leon Rose,

Chay Rodriguez:

Also anyone from Clutch Sports, just throwing out people that I’ve been reaching out to that we would love to have on the show and for all students that were slightly worried about Todd’s current takes in pop culture. I will make sure to send him tiktoks all summer so that he is well abreast as to what is going on in these Georgia courtrooms so that we have a really full conversation and he knows how to say everyone’s names and all the players.

Leah Haberman:

I hope the new co-hosts who will be joining. Guys love sports as much as you guys do or will be like me, a nice countervailing force for the listeners who liked the human rights part of the sports episode. So there will always be bounds on the a podcast.

Chay Rodriguez:

Yes, and Leah, you are irreplaceable, but I am so excited to meet our new co-host.

We’ve had a bunch of submissions, so I can’t wait to meet everyone that we can and talk to them and just create a different fit for next year. It’s going to be fun. So stay tuned folks. Lots of fun episodes to come and exciting stuff. Well, Leah, I wish you nothing but luck, even though I don’t even think you’re going to need my luck. I think you’re going to crush the Bar exam, but I cannot wait to hear from you after to hear really how everything is going for you professionally as well. Maybe Todd, we could have Leah sneak back on for an episode next semester and she can tell us how everything’s going so far.

Todd Berger:

Leah, it’s been great to have you and I love throughout the season getting to hear your perspective on all of the different episodes and next couple months are going to be where a lot of the hardware comes in. But I will say this then the payoff is that you have to work even harder. So I don’t know if that is, but I remember I started practice. I was like, wait a minute. It feels like every week is finals week. What’s going on here? But the practice of law is really tremendously rewarding and it seems like you’ve really pursued your passion and you’re going to be doing work that’s really, really meaningful to you. And so I know you’re going to have an amazing career if you’re half as good in practice as you were on the ABA, Law, Student Podcast, we’ll definitely have you back on, but not as a host. We’ll have you back on to interview you about some of your triumphs in the practice for sure.

Leah Haberman:

Thank you both. It’s been so fun working with y’all and doing our little touch points throughout episodes and hearing everyone’s takes and how we would have such different perspectives on the same sentence. And I just love that. And that’s what I love listening as a listener to podcast of the banter between the co-host. So I felt really lucky to have such amazing co-hosts throughout this year, and I’ve just been so grateful for the ABA of setting out that email that I randomly apply to be this host. So for all the listeners, take opportunities that are in the ABAs Listserv because you never know.

Todd Berger:

Thank you all for listening over the course of this season to make sure you’re right back with us at the start of next season. Make sure you’re subscribed in your favorite podcast app, so you get the episode as soon as it goes live. And if you have any subjects you’d like us to cover next year, share your thoughts and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’d like to give our thanks to the ABAs Law Student Division and our production partners at the Legal Talk Network. Enjoy your summer and we’ll see you in a few months.

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