I'm taking the spring season off.
I'm not sure whether this is a break, the way I did last spring, and then I came back to play summer 7s and in the fall. Or whether it's a break-up. I struggled all fall that I just didn't feel 100% into playing. It's different than any other sport. You can casually play soccer, lacrosse, even take a light jog on the days you don't feel like running. Rugby doesn't have a light setting. The other players are hitting hard, even if I'm not. So it hurts more for me, and I don't want to let my teammates down. I'm not sure what it will take for rugby to feel the same for me again.
In the meantime, I'm available to ref.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Spring Quarter
Here's the Spring line-up of classes:
Domestic Violence Clinic - I'm be working 1.5 days a week at Dorchester District Court to help people who want to get a restraining order. The relevant statute is 209A, if anyone is looking for some light reading. DV Clinic is worth 6 credits, so it's the equivalent of 2 classes, and I'll get access to the clinic space and some work-study credit too!
Advanced Crim - this is a "jail to bail" course and we are talking about what happens when someone is arrested. The professor has been at NUSL forever and regales us with stories of New England Innocence Project cases from the 70s, so he really knows his stuff. 3 credits.
Trusts & Estates - your basic will-writing, this will be on the bar exam course. Worth 4 credits because each class lasts two hours instead of ninety minutes... It's in the worst classroom at NUSL, which it makes it feel even longer.
Criminal Trial Practice - this is a simulation class where each week students are assigned to be prosecution or defense counsel, and someone plays a witness giving testimony. We're in the courtroom which is great, and any students not arguing sit in the jury box. (Courtroom pic - click the second photo on this photo album.) CTP is 2 hours once a week for 2 credits and is taught by a sitting Superior Court judge!
So if you're doing the math, I'm signed up for 15 credits which is a little heavy, and my Tuesdays are killer since I'm in court 8:30-1 and then drive to school for class 1:40-3:10, 3:20-5:20, and 5:30-7:30. Which is terrible, but I'm three weeks in, eight to go, so hopefully I will make it.
Domestic Violence Clinic - I'm be working 1.5 days a week at Dorchester District Court to help people who want to get a restraining order. The relevant statute is 209A, if anyone is looking for some light reading. DV Clinic is worth 6 credits, so it's the equivalent of 2 classes, and I'll get access to the clinic space and some work-study credit too!
Advanced Crim - this is a "jail to bail" course and we are talking about what happens when someone is arrested. The professor has been at NUSL forever and regales us with stories of New England Innocence Project cases from the 70s, so he really knows his stuff. 3 credits.
Trusts & Estates - your basic will-writing, this will be on the bar exam course. Worth 4 credits because each class lasts two hours instead of ninety minutes... It's in the worst classroom at NUSL, which it makes it feel even longer.
Criminal Trial Practice - this is a simulation class where each week students are assigned to be prosecution or defense counsel, and someone plays a witness giving testimony. We're in the courtroom which is great, and any students not arguing sit in the jury box. (Courtroom pic - click the second photo on this photo album.) CTP is 2 hours once a week for 2 credits and is taught by a sitting Superior Court judge!
So if you're doing the math, I'm signed up for 15 credits which is a little heavy, and my Tuesdays are killer since I'm in court 8:30-1 and then drive to school for class 1:40-3:10, 3:20-5:20, and 5:30-7:30. Which is terrible, but I'm three weeks in, eight to go, so hopefully I will make it.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Top Secret Admissions Advice
Thinking of applying to Northeastern? Or any law school?
Here are my tips, based on: being an Admisssions Committee application reader this spring, giving guided tour for the past year, doing Phoneathon last spring, working the Open House last year and this year, and being active on the accepted students' networking site.
Disclaimer: This is not from anything official from the Admissions office, just things I have picked up by working with/for the office.
Personal Statement
Don't exceed the 2 page personal statement limit. Really. It's a rule, and most people follow it. If it's 2.5, I get a little annoyed. If you mess with the margins to make a 3 page essay onto 2 pages, I can tell. And if you submitted a 7 page paper, you're telling everyone that you can't or won't follow simple directions.
For the love of god, edit. 1 or 2 typos we let go. When I find 5, your odds of getting in just plummeted. Don't you care enough to edit? This is a major paper that you have months to draft. Most colleges have a career service department that will help with editing.
International students, stop saying "indeed" every sentence. What is up with that?
Resume
Take things that you did from 4th-10th grade off the resume. Admittedly, I still had lifeguarding on my resume until this year. High school jobs are okay. Honor roll in 8th grade is not.
Objectives are out.
Keep it to one page unless you have significant (5+ years) of work history after college.
Questions
You can't ask too many questions. On tours, at the Open House, emails, phone calls, etc. Prospective students often say, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I have a question." Don't be sorry! I'm here exactly because I want to help answer your questions and I hope you'll like NUSL as much as I do.
Here are my tips, based on: being an Admisssions Committee application reader this spring, giving guided tour for the past year, doing Phoneathon last spring, working the Open House last year and this year, and being active on the accepted students' networking site.
Disclaimer: This is not from anything official from the Admissions office, just things I have picked up by working with/for the office.
Personal Statement
Don't exceed the 2 page personal statement limit. Really. It's a rule, and most people follow it. If it's 2.5, I get a little annoyed. If you mess with the margins to make a 3 page essay onto 2 pages, I can tell. And if you submitted a 7 page paper, you're telling everyone that you can't or won't follow simple directions.
For the love of god, edit. 1 or 2 typos we let go. When I find 5, your odds of getting in just plummeted. Don't you care enough to edit? This is a major paper that you have months to draft. Most colleges have a career service department that will help with editing.
International students, stop saying "indeed" every sentence. What is up with that?
Resume
Take things that you did from 4th-10th grade off the resume. Admittedly, I still had lifeguarding on my resume until this year. High school jobs are okay. Honor roll in 8th grade is not.
Objectives are out.
Keep it to one page unless you have significant (5+ years) of work history after college.
Questions
You can't ask too many questions. On tours, at the Open House, emails, phone calls, etc. Prospective students often say, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I have a question." Don't be sorry! I'm here exactly because I want to help answer your questions and I hope you'll like NUSL as much as I do.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Public Defender
Public Defender. Not exactly a dirty word, but it didn't have a positive connotation for me. When I watched Law & Order, I pictured myself presenting the state's case against a guilty defendant. The scene is completed with a distraught widow/parent and a defense attorney grasping at strings to get the perpetrator off.
I can't pinpoint the exact time I decided that being a PD would be a bad thing. It seems like the majority of tv shows and movies tell the story from the prosecution's point of view. And I remember hearing from my mom that a neighbor had been assigned to defend the crossbow rapist in Bowie back in 1994. I couldn't imagine defending someone who did such horrible things.
My opinion on defense has changed a lot in the last five months, and for a variety of reasons. I worked with an attorney on co-op who specialized in appellate delinquency cases. In non-legal speak, delinquency = criminal for kids and adjudicated delinquent = found guilty, convicted. In Mass., kids 16 and under can be adjudicated delinquent, and 17 year olds are automatically sent through the adult system. Citizens for Juvenile Justice is working to overturn that, considering 17 year olds aren't treated as adults in any other categories (voting, ability to contract, military, taxes). There's also a subset called Youthful Offenders, where 14-17 year olds who commit certain felonies are tried through the adult system. Appellate means at the appeals level, so there has already been an adjudication, conviction, or guilty plea.
The Children's Law Center of Mass. attorney is sharp-witted and didn't have a moment to waste on a juvenile justice system that had mistreated "her boys." She had a regular parade of teenage and twenty-something men coming in to her office, and she warned the rest of us to mind wearing certain gang colors. I didn't always agree with her impassioned diatribes against the system, but I definitely respect her commitment to zealous defense and her conviction to keep fighting each appellate battle. Because I liked her so much, it made me question my presumptions about defense.
The next step was applying for a summer co-op. My original plan was to go abroad, and I intentionally sat out of the November collection that the NUSL co-op office organizes. By January, it became clear that South Africa wasn't going to happen, and I decided to participate in the January collection. I was interested in getting some criminal experience, but the Suffolk County D.A.'s office had accepted applications in November. However, a number of positions were available with the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), who provide public defender services in Mass. I figured I would still learn the criminal process, and if I ended up on the D.A. side after graduation, it might help to have some insider knowledge about my opponents.
Alright, this is a long post. To Be Continued!
I can't pinpoint the exact time I decided that being a PD would be a bad thing. It seems like the majority of tv shows and movies tell the story from the prosecution's point of view. And I remember hearing from my mom that a neighbor had been assigned to defend the crossbow rapist in Bowie back in 1994. I couldn't imagine defending someone who did such horrible things.
My opinion on defense has changed a lot in the last five months, and for a variety of reasons. I worked with an attorney on co-op who specialized in appellate delinquency cases. In non-legal speak, delinquency = criminal for kids and adjudicated delinquent = found guilty, convicted. In Mass., kids 16 and under can be adjudicated delinquent, and 17 year olds are automatically sent through the adult system. Citizens for Juvenile Justice is working to overturn that, considering 17 year olds aren't treated as adults in any other categories (voting, ability to contract, military, taxes). There's also a subset called Youthful Offenders, where 14-17 year olds who commit certain felonies are tried through the adult system. Appellate means at the appeals level, so there has already been an adjudication, conviction, or guilty plea.
The Children's Law Center of Mass. attorney is sharp-witted and didn't have a moment to waste on a juvenile justice system that had mistreated "her boys." She had a regular parade of teenage and twenty-something men coming in to her office, and she warned the rest of us to mind wearing certain gang colors. I didn't always agree with her impassioned diatribes against the system, but I definitely respect her commitment to zealous defense and her conviction to keep fighting each appellate battle. Because I liked her so much, it made me question my presumptions about defense.
The next step was applying for a summer co-op. My original plan was to go abroad, and I intentionally sat out of the November collection that the NUSL co-op office organizes. By January, it became clear that South Africa wasn't going to happen, and I decided to participate in the January collection. I was interested in getting some criminal experience, but the Suffolk County D.A.'s office had accepted applications in November. However, a number of positions were available with the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), who provide public defender services in Mass. I figured I would still learn the criminal process, and if I ended up on the D.A. side after graduation, it might help to have some insider knowledge about my opponents.
Alright, this is a long post. To Be Continued!
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