EP 1003- Lifting While You Climb: Part Two with Imani Maatuka

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, where the trial lawyers of the Simon Law Firm break down what it takes to win in the courtroom and in life.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Hello and welcome back to Heals in the Courtroom. I’m Liz Lenivy and I’m joined by Elizabeth McNulty and Imani Maatouka for part two of our discussion with her. If you have not yet listened to part one, go back and listen to that before you jump into this one. But Imani, thank you so much for coming back and joining us.

Imani Maatuka:

Thanks for having me, Liz.

Elizabeth McNulty:

Can you tell us a little bit more about Bridging the Gap and what inspired its creation?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. So Bridging the Gap Scholarship was created in spring 2019. And the idea behind the scholarship is that we’re trying to increase minority representation. And its inception came from this idea that there’s like this illusion of choice. And I’m specifically talking about pre-law students of color. When most pre-law minority students are looking at legal careers, thinking about the practice of law and what that looks like, most of them have a really myopic view of the practice of law. And I charge that to media. If you turn on any TV, you’re probably going to see lawyers acting as public defenders. You’re going to see a lot of lawyers practicing criminal law. It’s just recently where we’re seeing the advent of new shows like suits, and I think Netflix had another show that kind of really depict corporate law or big law as a true avenue that you could take when you’re joining this profession.

But generally speaking, a lot of people’s first experience with the law is from a more public interest minded focus. And so what happens then is that a lot of these students are applying to law schools with this understanding and they have a very limited view of what prospects are out there for me? What type of careers could I take? And I think there’s an added layer as well where I think people, again, assume that, oh, the black law student wants to quote, give back to her community and be a public defender and fight the good fight. And obviously those professions are not only vital, but they are so valued, but they’ve historically been underpaid. You’re doing law students a disservice when you’re acting as if there’s only one real career path that they could take without providing them the expansive variety of options. And that’s what Bridging the Gap aims to combat.

It’s to, at the very least, inform these law students, “Hey, here are all of the practice areas that you could go into. This is how big the practice of law really is. ” And for most of these first generation law students, they have no idea the financial incentives that also come with certain career paths. I remember when I was first founding Bridging the Gap, having conversations with my peers at WashU who had no idea that by being at a school like WashU, that you would have firms literally come onto your campus for no other reason but to recruit you. And they would be offering upwards of 40 to $50,000 over a 10 week summer associate program. I spoke to so many people where their parents were making less than what you would make in a 10 week summer program. And they had no idea that these opportunities even presented themselves for the sake of the fact that they were now at a school like Wash U.

And so that’s what I’m getting at with this illusion of choice where it’s like people don’t even realize what doors are now open by certain decisions you make along the way. And we just want to inform the masses. We want all law students, especially before you take on an insurmountable amount of debt, before you enter a career that is historically oversaturated. Lawyers are Diamond dozen. Before you make this huge life decision, you are informed and you are making an informed decision and you understand all of the career prospects, you understand how to get there, you understand the arguably rigid recruiting efforts that a lot of these big law firms practice and how to get there. And that’s all Bridging the Gap does. So we’re really trying to democratize the law school admissions process. So any of our scholars, we partner with Blueprint. So you get Blueprints 170 Guaranteed LSAT course.

We’ve partnered with SBI Consulting, which is a law school admissions consulting boutique. And so you get help with all of your essays in addition to like the supplemental essays that they have as well. We’ve also partnered with Barbary Law Previews. So you get to take the BarBrie Law Preview course prior to you actually starting at the law school, which is basically a run through of all the things you need to succeed in law school, how to brief a case, how to prepare for finals, all that. And then you also get a thousand dollars cash because it is astronomically expensive to apply to law school. Sometimes it’s upward of like $200 per application. And you get all of that as a Bridging to Gap scholarship because we’ve understood that this is kind of the formula, if you will, that students need to actually have a fighting chance when applying to these law schools.

And it’s a formula that most wealthy students, including myself, already had because their parents could afford it.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

That’s phenomenal. I’m a first generation college student in my family and it’s overwhelming. And I still came from incredible privilege, like middle class, my parents worked really hard, but it’s overwhelming and you don’t know what options are out there. And I was one of those kids that when I went to law school, I was like, “Well, I’m going to be a prosecutor because that’s what I see on TV.” And that’s the only kind of lawyer I know. And otherwise, I’m a very argumentative girl and we’re all told to go to law school if we like to argue. So I think that’s really great. And then the process itself for bridging the gap, do people apply for the scholarship? And if that’s the case, then what specifically are you looking for in candidates or what are the things that they should highlight about themselves and their application?

Imani Maatuka:

Our applications open every single year on January 1st. Our applications are open now. You can go to bridgingagapscholarship.com and hit the apply now button and it’ll prompt you to fill in this questionnaire and upload your resume and additional essays. But basically what we’re looking for, we’re really looking for those students who have worked their butts off. You have established a pristine academic career. I can tell that you are just killing it in school, but you have identified that there are socioeconomic factors or other factors completely outside of your control that are making it difficult for you to take the next step, which would be going to law school. So I’m really looking for those students who with just a little bit of resources and just a little bit of help, we can get them to the next level and who have been doing everything right and like working their butts off, but there are just so many things out of their control that are making it very difficult for them to succeed.That’s my A1 BTG scholar.

Elizabeth McNulty:

And what advice would you give applicants who doubt whether they’re competitive enough? I feel like I heard that a lot with maybe my peers in undergrad like, “I don’t know. I just don’t know that I can hack it or I don’t know, that seems too far out there for me. I’m just going to go find a job right out of undergrad.” What kind of advice would you give those folks?

Imani Maatuka:

I kind of like speaking from the standpoint of a K through JD, meaning K through JD is what we call those lawyers who went from kindergarten to JD. You never took a break. You’re just like a super student and you never wanted to have a life but for school. Being a K through JD, I really see the value

In taking a year or two off. I have a baby brother who is working on a master’s before he goes to law school and applies to law schools. And I find that valuable for two reasons. One, what you were saying, Elizabeth, for those people who don’t really have the most impressive scores, who maybe don’t have the highest GPA, that gives them an opportunity to potentially build up their resume, build up their experience, potentially get another degree to raise that GPA so that they have more of a fighting chance. It’s like, “Hey, I wish I would’ve known that law school was so competitive, I maybe would’ve done things differently in undergrad.” Well, taking some time off potentially gives you that opportunity to do so. The other thing that I find valuable is if you take that time off and you’re doing something really interesting in more of a white collar professional world, or really any profession, you’re now getting professional experience and you’re now expanding your worldview in a way that just regular academia cannot provide you.

When I was at WashU, I remember I was a baby in my class because I K through JD, I did undergrad in three years. I’m like in a rush to get to law school. Why? Who knows? But I was literally a baby. I couldn’t even legally drink when I started at WashU, 20 years old. And I remember the oldest person in our class was like 60 something. He had taken time off and he had like owned several companies and now he was like more public interest minded. He was like, “I just want to give back. That’s why I’m being a lawyer. I want to help people who have been underserved,” which was amazing. But just think about the discrepancy in experiences with a 20 year old and a 60 something year old. Imagine being in property class, right? This is a doctrinal course that everyone has to take.

Imagine being in property, having never bought real estate, having never bought a property, right? Imagine how many concepts just automatically are going to go over your head, right? Imagine being in any doctrinal class like criminal law and you’ve never even seen a case litigated. That wasn’t me, but you know what I mean? Sometimes these real world experiences can actually better prepare you for law school and the law school experience. I tell people all the time, I wish every single American citizen could go to law school because you learn so much about just like how this country works, the rights that you are entitled to, just the history. I feel like law school was an expose on the history of our country more than anything that I’ve ever experienced throughout my entire academic career. And so to answer your question in short, if you aren’t feeling great about your profile and how you stack up against other applicants, I would definitely advise you, maybe take a year or two off, maybe go get a master’s, get some really good professional experience, and think of ways that you can better your application and make yourself stand out a bit.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I love that advice too. Just Elizabeth kind of gave me a little bit of a smirk when you mentioned you were the baby of your class. Similarly, undergrad in three years, and I knew why I was rolling right through because I was like, “I got student loans. I got debt. I need to make money as quickly as possible.” But I look back on the fact that I’m 20, 21 years old and I’m interviewing. My grades were good enough to get me these interviews with larger law firms, but then I was tanking the interviews. And I think part of it is just I was so young and I hadn’t had any real world experience. And I’ve been working since I was 15, but lifeguarding, that doesn’t require me to do a ton of public speaking other than like stop running.

But I think about how much I grew up between 21 to 23, 24, even into 25, how different I would have presented in those interviews and would that … And obviously I’m very happy that I’m here. I’m very lucky that I’m here where I got, but I do think about the opportunities maybe I missed just because I didn’t have that experience and I hadn’t gotten done growing up. So I think that’s great advice that people oftentimes may be motivated not to do or advise not to do. I feel like college advisors often tell us like, “You got to keep going, you got to keep … It’s not going to get any easier.” So I love that advice and I love hearing your perspective on it. Something that I’m very impressed by your background, but something that has really stuck out to me is how passionate you are about helping the next generation of lawyers.

And I say next generation as if you’ve got like this like 30 year career or something, like you’re five years out, you’ve done a lot in five years, but nonetheless, you are still so focused on helping the next generation and the next every class of lawyers coming through. And you were on another podcast and this is something that we had discussed before we started recording, but in this other podcast, you had talked about the changes you’ve seen and maybe some concerning changes you’ve seen in how big law is recruiting their summers and what’s going to lead into probably associate positions. So can you tell our listeners, because I certainly wasn’t aware of it until you and I talked about it and I listened to that podcast episode, but can you tell our listeners about the trend that you’ve seen?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. So I think we have to back up a second because people who are not familiar with the big law recruiting process, this will totally go over their heads. The big law recruiting process is already a hyper accelerated process, meaning that back in 2018, for example, when I was going through the process, recruiters started talking to you December 1st, right? That is still within your first semester of law school. This is still, you’re figuring out, what do I want to practice? How do I think about the certain classes that I just took? You’re still figuring out this entire practice of law, but at that point, recruiters and firms start talking to you and you start submitting applications to these law firms and then you would interview, probably secure a job by February of your second semester of your first year. You’d have that summer associate experience starting in the May after you finished classes until July.

And then if you don’t get an offer back, or maybe you get an offer back for the next summer, but you still want to just test the waters and see what else is out there. You have like a two to three week OCI process that fall. So think early August until maybe early September to do two LOCI and then you lock down your 2L summer position then and then you finish your second year of law school, go through the summer process, now you’re a 3L, you’re about to graduate, start for the bar. That was the normal law school, big law pipeline, right? Now, they have taken that process and they’ve completely gotten rid of the December 1st rule. So now firms can start talking to you at any point. I remember my brother who also went to Watch U and now he’s in a second year of practice in Chicago.

He started talking to firms like July. He hadn’t even started at WashU yet. And he had firms reaching out to him as what I called a zero L, which was insane to me. I’d never heard of that. But now, so there’s no December 1st deadline. And now some of the bigger law firms are offering this like two for one approach when it comes to recruiting. So there are law students who are both applying to 1L summer positions and two L summer positions at the same firm in like August, September, October of their 1L semester. So this has like completely pushed up the entire timeline I was talking about into the span of probably one to three months and the most crucial one to three months because not only are you supposed to be getting the best grades ever because that’s what firms typically care about in order to differentiate between candidates, but two, you’re also supposed to be learning about the practice of law.

What really interests you? Do you really love civil procedure? Are you obsessed with contracts? What type of field? Is it litigation, transactional? What is it? But you’re really trying to learn and have a healthy understanding of what your practice could look like. And by accelerating that process, right, where first semester law students are essentially hitching their wagon to a firm for both their 1L and 2L summers, it’s basically putting you in an impossible position, right? Where you don’t really know the firm, you don’t even really know what you want to do, but you’ve basically signed yourself up for the next two or three years of your career. And because typically, once you’re a second year law student and you finish that second year summer, you’re trying to get ready for the bar next. You don’t want to do 3L OCI and still be figuring out, do I have a job or not after I graduate?

You’re kind of sold. So the fact that these firms are expecting 1Ls who have been in classes for a month, two tops, to basically decide what the entire trajectory of their junior associate experience and the budding years of their career will look like is inherently unfair. And my concern was, which you kind of hinted at, is that who’s going to get left behind in this process? It’s not going to be the law students who come from a family of attorneys and whose big sister already put them on game and told them, “Hey, watch out. There’s this shift. You need to be ready day one with your resume cover letter. Here’s what you need to be thinking about. ” Of course, it’s not going to be those students. It’s going to be the first generation law students who just got by and are just now figuring out, “Okay, these are the different practice areas.

Oh, these are the firms that pay well. Oh, this is, maybe I want to be in this location.” You know what I mean? Who are just figuring it out as they go by, which is totally understandable. I mean, most people, their first semester of law school, you’re learning in a completely different language, right? The language of the law. And that in and of itself is just so much to handle. And now on top of that, you’re saying, “Oh, plan out the next three years of your career in two months.” That’s a bit ridiculous.

Elizabeth McNulty:

It gives me anxiety just thinking about it. No, 10 years. I guess my 1L year was 10 years ago.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Did you guys have any crossover?

Elizabeth McNulty:

Yeah, I graduated from YSU in 19, so I guess we would have had a little bit.

Imani Maatuka:

What year?

Elizabeth McNulty:

But I was very over law school at that point. I remember all of that very well. And I worked here throughout law school, but I still kind of tested the waters in big law. It wasn’t for me, but the process is so insane. And that was back

Announcer:

Under

Elizabeth McNulty:

The old rules as I understand it now. I cannot imagine the accelerated process of that. I mean, I felt young in law school. I’ve just learned K through JD, great term. And I wasn’t really ready to make those kinds of decisions. So I can’t imagine having to do it even sooner and like on such an expedited timeline while also just trying to figure out how law school works. So do you have any advice for people who are facing that now? I mean, I remember there were law students asking me about this last semester and I was just like, “I don’t know. That sounds horrible. Just like focus on finals maybe. I don’t know. ” So what advice are you giving students that are freaking out about that, rightly so?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. So my advice is kind of twofold because I do not want to undermine the importance of 1L semester grades. I think if you take nothing else away from this podcast, unfortunately, the law schools, as they stand today, have created a system where your 1L semester grades, first semester grades are the most important grades you will receive over the entirety of your law school career. So the fact that this is all happening at the same time while you really need to be hunkering down and doing all your reading, prepping for finals, that’s very unfortunate, but you need to stay hyper focused on that goal, period, because everything else we’re about to talk about doesn’t even matter if your grades aren’t there. Most of these bigger firms have great cutoffs where it’s like if you don’t have minimum 3.5, whatever the cutoff might be, they’re not even going to look at your application.

That is something that you have to keep in mind. Now, what I’m telling my mentees, and I would encourage anyone who’s listening to this, feel free to reach out to me because I just think this system is so unfair. I am happy to chat over Zoom and give some candid advice. But what I’m telling my mentees is that while you are still being hyper focused on grades, you’ve got to make some time at least once or twice a week to be reaching out to attorneys and having candid conversations with them and getting to know them because my golden rule for anyone is that you do not submit an application to a law firm if there is not someone on the ground who is your cheerleader. What does that look like? That means that you had a coffee or a Zoom or a lunch with Imani Matooka.

You sent me a code email. You said, “Hi, Imani, I saw that you focus on commercial litigation disputes. I’m really interested in that area of law. Would love to pick your brain over a coffee if you have a moment.” Some iteration of that. You send that, of course, we’re going to say yes because we’ve all been in your shoes. We’ve all been that first year law student who doesn’t know anything. So we all have a moral debt that we need to pay and we’re going to do that by meeting with you. We have that meeting. You are just super personable. You’re so cool. You tell me about yourself. You get me super excited for you. You have me talking about myself for 30 minutes because all lawyers love to adult and talk about themselves for forever, but we have that meeting. And then at the end of it, you ask me, “Oh, is there anyone else at the firm that I should be talking to?

” And I’m going to tell you who all the decision makers are, right? I’m going to tell you, “Oh, you really need to impress this partner because they’re the hiring partner.” Or I’m going to say, “You really need to talk to this senior associate because all the partners love them and if you get a green check from them, you’re golden.” But what I’m also going to do is I’m going to send a note to recruiting and be like, “Hey, I just met with this amazing candidate, look out for their application.” And so now you literally have someone on the ground who’s a cheerleader who can take your application from the general pile that has probably thousands of applications to the pre-vetted pile that just has a handful or dozens of applications. And that is my golden rule. So I am not ever going to be the person who’s like, “Oh yeah, mass apply to a thousand firms that have no idea who you are and just hope and wish that you hear something.” I mean, it might work for some people, but if you want a sure way to where you’re at least getting interviews and you actually have an opportunity to lose the opportunity or like the job prospect, you need to make sure that these people know you, you need to be getting in their face.

And that would be my advice for first years who are dealing with this insane recruiting pipeline. I think it’s even more important and it will only behoove you if you make sure that you’re creating relationships and networking with attorneys maybe earlier than usual so that you’re getting your name out there and impressing the powers that be.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I feel like you should be doing the orientation for every single law school, the 1L orientation because that is not something that I remember hearing and maybe it’s just, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in law school. I’m the oldest one here. Oh no. And the urgency with which you are speaking. And I feel like so often when you get to law school, like you did it, you got to the top of the mountain, now you’re starting and you’re like, “Oh no, there’s actually so much left to climb and I have no idea what I’m doing and no one’s really giving me clear advice and people are really nice, but no one is maybe giving me that tough conversation that I really need to hear so I can lock in and get it done because otherwise I feel like I’m just sort of winging it.

” So I’m in a petition, I don’t know, do I talk to the ABA? Who do I talk to to get you like some sort of TED Talk for every 1L orientation so that these students know what they’re walking into? But I’m so glad we’re having this conversation. And I think you and I, when we had our first call, we talked a little bit about what the inspiration for this podcast was. And this is part of it, is just trying to help people get the advice that we wish we would’ve had when we were younger. So thank you so much for joining us for that. I want to transition a little bit because something we like to do with all of our guests is touch on some previous podcast episodes. So the format of the podcast is obviously we talk a lot about trial skills, how do you do an opening or how do you cross examine an expert?

So season one, episode six, wake up, get her done, repeat. It posits that question of our days are obviously so busy, so filled. How do you make the most out of each of your days?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. So one thing I have mastered is the art of delegation. I am not shy about being a girl who has people for everything that I might need. And I think this is, my friends call me bougie, but I think this is like a necessary evil, especially if you’re an attorney and you have a ton of things that you have to do every single day. You have client obligations, you have personal obligations, you might have family obligations. You need to really be looking at your 24 hours and commit, okay, I can commit these many hours to work. I need to carve out this personal time for myself. For me, and it might be because I’m a Gen Z attorney, self-care was always top of mind, right? I am not going to burn out for anybody. So I’ve personally invested in having a house cleaner and someone who can help me because I hate coming into like a disheveled residence or having, I have a massage therapist who will come to my house once a month and like get me my treatments.

I have friends who invested in different things, but I think the idea is that we have limited and we have a finite amount of hours every single day. And so the ways in which you can delegate certain tasks or have resources in place so that you can manage your time effectively to not only give yourself longevity and your career, but also make you the All Star Associate who can be kind of owning you on the spot and just like ready to go whenever without feeling super burnt out and like you’re making insufferable trade offs, master the art of delegation now. Figure out what you value, what’s important to you, carve out time or outsource that to someone so that you can have the things that are really going to pour back into you when your cup is empty.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

That is really important advice and something that I’m now in 11 years of practice and I still struggle with, I think partially just I’m so type A and I’m such a control freak. And I don’t like delegation because I don’t think anyone’s going to do it as good as … We hired a house cleaner one time and I immediately was like, “I can do a better job than this lady.” It’s something I’m still working on. I’m working on it, okay? But Imani, thank you so much for joining us. This was such a wonderful conversation. Again, you were so impressive. And again, for those of you listening, your scholarship, Bridging the Gap, and can you give us that website one more time?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah, bridgingthegapscholarship.com.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Perfect. Thank you so much, Amani, and thank you to our listeners for joining us for another episode of Heals in the Courtroom. Remember, new episodes drop every other Wednesday And if you want to reach out to us and join the conversation, you can reach us at heelsinthecourtroom.law. Thanks so much guys. Bye.

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