This blog is for everyone. If you are a first-year student, there will be something here for you. Your first set of finals are coming up. We want to talk about outlines, study habits, active and passive studying, legal analysis and how to write exams. If you are a second-year student, I will bring information that interests you to this blog. We want to discuss bringing up the grade point average to "that number" (yep, that one) that suits you before that number seems too difficult to obtain. As 2Ls, we are seeking that summer job that we hope will pan into a full-time offer of employment. You want to know where to go to find that job, and if you are trying to decide whether you plan to stay in the area or if you want to be a transplant to another city or state. If you are a third or fourth year student trying to stretch-out and move beyond law school, I have something to offer you as well. I know. I know. I will talk about the bar examination. I know that it is on your mind. And you want to vie for clerkships, too. And "the" firm that interests you is holding a meet and greet session on the evening that you have a paper due. And you are trying to determine do I attend one or both, and if so, how do I do it and maximize my chances of making a good impression with the firm, but also handing in a quality paper. Trust me on one Mr. or Ms. 3L, "I know why the caged bird sings." I am going to handle that for you, too.
Administrators - professors - academic support specialists - bar exam prep people. You are invited to work through the year with us also. If you are an administrator, a professor, or an academic support specialist, I will throw in some support for you, too. Believe it or not, I am aware that "the Dean" of a law school desires a little love, too. Please keep your eyes open for the Dean's corner & learn from our students tidbits to take back to share with your "committees." I hope that even graduates of CLEO can come on board, read a little and perhaps, learn a lot.
At the end of the day, all future and prospective attorneys have their eyes open for that one thing (other than a win in court)that makes us really show our teeth & smile ... gainful employment. With all due respect to employers, I hope that I can share some information with you about students in general. Just maybe we can get the various hiring committees to look at a new idea for the workplace. Maybe the employer can look at things from "the applicant's interests." Just, once in a while. Maybe?
So why don't you follow me down this dark, dank, dusty, due process looking hallway, as we edge our way into the last day of October and let us get started.
I will blog at least once a week. I will blog at least twice a week. I will blog at least three times a week. Or, I will blog four times a week. These are not trick statements. I will blog based on the posts that I must deliver to each "1L, 2L, 3L, or 4L" class. Then any additional blogging will come from you. Yes, you. Stop looking at me. You. What you say. What you need. What you want. From me.
The One-L. I will write the 1L class first. These students are new to the game. Everyone else is an "old hat." Newbies (no, not babies) should receive just a little more tender loving care than those who are upperclassmen. You will know that I am addressing the first year class because I will tell you so. You won't be confused, there won't be any misunderstanding and you won't have to scratch your head. You will know that I am addressing your class. After I address the 1L class, I will move to the 2L class.
The Two-L. The 2L class is as special as the first and the third year students, but I am aware that they don't always think that they are as special as the class below them or the class above them. Don't get faked out. As it stands, the 2L may actually be the bread and butter, the glue, the "icing" on the proverbial law school cake. They just don't know it yet. They sometimes forget that they have to change gears and take huge leadership roles as they course through to the third year. AND, they are expected to act as a bridge into law school for the first year class. The 2L softens the blow to law school for first year students. The 2L takes a blow as it moves into a leadership role for the third year. Dual roles - maybe that is what they are named, "2Ls."
The Three-L. Finally, I will write to the mighty, mighty 3L's. These are the students, who like sprinters in a race, have their law school's reputation in their hands and are dashing out to the world of lawyering, saying, "look what my law school produced." These are those students who plan to get out of law school in May 2011, and take the July 2011 bar exam. These are the folk who plan to shake up things in the world beginning in the Fall 2011.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Welcome Everyone To The CLEO Academic Support Blog.
Hello to everyone in the Council on Legal Education Opportunity family. My name is Professor Barbara Smith. I have been honored with the opportunity to provide CLEO's Fellows and Associates with Academic Support information for the 2010 - 2011 academic year. "Academic Support" means different things to different people, but there is one thing that we generally all agree on -- that is that the word support, in any field, usually means "help." And, that is what I am here to do.
I will work to make your first-year, your second-year and that final third-year as smooth a transition as I possibly can. I plan to do that by sharing as much information with you as I can to help you and by answering the questions and concerns of all law students who are CLEO Fellows and Associates (okay, okay - I will give a little more attention to the 1Ls, but that is to be expected). Let me not forget the 4th year, part-time students, either.
Everyone is included in our ASB system. It will be my pleasure to offer you as much information and insight into the process of becoming a lawyer, one year at a time. I hope to get to know and prepare you for the world of the law student in a non-biased fashion, but still remind all 900 of us that we (me, too) came to law school for a reason. That reason was to become a lawyer. That is the role that we have to play right now. And, that is what we are going to do.
Now, where do we go from here? Well, let me start off with a grand welcome to all of those in CLEO land, including all employees in the Washington, D.C. office, including Ms. Cassandra Ogden, Mr. Roderick Terry, Mr. Duane Tobias, and Ms. Laura Zamfir. I thank them for asking me to prepare this blog, and discussing with me their future plans for CLEO's Fellows and Associates. I truly appreciate that they have provided me with the opportunity to continue to work as a consultant for CLEO, on behalf of the American Bar Association. I offer greetings to all of the CLEO Fellows and Associates across the United States, whom I suspect are somewhere in the library staring down a few law books right about now.
I want to send a special hello to all of the professors and teaching assistants who worked with our incoming first-year students in the summer institute programs this past summer. I am aware that Florida International University Law School, and the University of Missouri Columbia, School of Law were this summer's host schools. I thank you very much for all of your time and effort and I will do all that I can to encourage and build on what you started for their first year of law school.
It would make sense to start off this post with information about me, as it would make sense to learn a little about the person who will be the source of some pretty important information you will receive over the next nine (9) months, but I will get to that. Later.
But for right now, in this moment - - I want to know a little about you, who you are, and what interests you. I want to know your name, a single reason why you decided to enter law school, and one thing (o-n-e) that you need from me as an academic support person seeking to help you navigate through law school. Who are you and what do you want from me? That is the question that I want to see in our first comment section. As I write, there is a realization that someone in CLEO land may be going through a rather difficult time, or is facing something a little bit more daunting than he or she suspected. If that person is you, and you have a question or a comment that you need answered immediately, make sure that you include an "urgent" status message next to your name. Please.
I want to hear from the 2L and 3L class, too. Where are you going this summer *(or, where do you want to go), and what bar exam are you sitting for in July 2011. That time will be upon us, soon. While we are throwing graduation hats up in the air, we will need to catch pens and pencils to get started the following week for the bar exam. As a friend of mine would always say, "girl, that's for real."
Now, I would welcome posts from anyone, but I live and work in Washington, D.C. I am aware that there are at least five (5) CLEO students at The University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law; five (5) at Howard University Law School; one (1) at American University; one (1) at Catholic University; and four (4) at Georgetown Law Center. I want to hear from you. I also want to know is it possible to get a message, or a comment from one person in a law school in the United States, who is part of the CLEO family, that is also a native Washingtonian, but is living in another state?
Now, who am I? I am Professor Smith. I am an adjunct professor at The David A. Clarke School of Law at The University of the District of Columbia. I teach first-year legal research and writing, and moot court. I also teach in the law school's MEPAS program (for incoming first-year students). I teach a bar skills course for alumni for the July bar examination and the February exam. I also teach in the academic success program at Howard University Law School. I have been a consultant for CLEO for almost a decade. I taught the mid-winter bar preparation program for eight (8) years, and recently, I worked with CLEO to produce a bar exam blog that I prepared for the July 2010 bar exam. CLEO expects to produce and I hope to prepare a number of CLEO alumni for the February 2011 bar exam. We hope to assist CLEO get ready to tackle the bar exam in the metropolitan area's surrounding jurisdictions.
I have talked about me. Now I want to hear from you.
While I am waiting for you, I will be preparing for my introduction to the 1L, 2L and 3L classes. Next week, I will share with you how I expect the blog to function for each class.
Thank you everyone for having me. I can't wait to hear about the things that interest you.
Until next week,
Prof. Smith
I will work to make your first-year, your second-year and that final third-year as smooth a transition as I possibly can. I plan to do that by sharing as much information with you as I can to help you and by answering the questions and concerns of all law students who are CLEO Fellows and Associates (okay, okay - I will give a little more attention to the 1Ls, but that is to be expected). Let me not forget the 4th year, part-time students, either.
Everyone is included in our ASB system. It will be my pleasure to offer you as much information and insight into the process of becoming a lawyer, one year at a time. I hope to get to know and prepare you for the world of the law student in a non-biased fashion, but still remind all 900 of us that we (me, too) came to law school for a reason. That reason was to become a lawyer. That is the role that we have to play right now. And, that is what we are going to do.
Now, where do we go from here? Well, let me start off with a grand welcome to all of those in CLEO land, including all employees in the Washington, D.C. office, including Ms. Cassandra Ogden, Mr. Roderick Terry, Mr. Duane Tobias, and Ms. Laura Zamfir. I thank them for asking me to prepare this blog, and discussing with me their future plans for CLEO's Fellows and Associates. I truly appreciate that they have provided me with the opportunity to continue to work as a consultant for CLEO, on behalf of the American Bar Association. I offer greetings to all of the CLEO Fellows and Associates across the United States, whom I suspect are somewhere in the library staring down a few law books right about now.
I want to send a special hello to all of the professors and teaching assistants who worked with our incoming first-year students in the summer institute programs this past summer. I am aware that Florida International University Law School, and the University of Missouri Columbia, School of Law were this summer's host schools. I thank you very much for all of your time and effort and I will do all that I can to encourage and build on what you started for their first year of law school.
It would make sense to start off this post with information about me, as it would make sense to learn a little about the person who will be the source of some pretty important information you will receive over the next nine (9) months, but I will get to that. Later.
But for right now, in this moment - - I want to know a little about you, who you are, and what interests you. I want to know your name, a single reason why you decided to enter law school, and one thing (o-n-e) that you need from me as an academic support person seeking to help you navigate through law school. Who are you and what do you want from me? That is the question that I want to see in our first comment section. As I write, there is a realization that someone in CLEO land may be going through a rather difficult time, or is facing something a little bit more daunting than he or she suspected. If that person is you, and you have a question or a comment that you need answered immediately, make sure that you include an "urgent" status message next to your name. Please.
I want to hear from the 2L and 3L class, too. Where are you going this summer *(or, where do you want to go), and what bar exam are you sitting for in July 2011. That time will be upon us, soon. While we are throwing graduation hats up in the air, we will need to catch pens and pencils to get started the following week for the bar exam. As a friend of mine would always say, "girl, that's for real."
Now, I would welcome posts from anyone, but I live and work in Washington, D.C. I am aware that there are at least five (5) CLEO students at The University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law; five (5) at Howard University Law School; one (1) at American University; one (1) at Catholic University; and four (4) at Georgetown Law Center. I want to hear from you. I also want to know is it possible to get a message, or a comment from one person in a law school in the United States, who is part of the CLEO family, that is also a native Washingtonian, but is living in another state?
Now, who am I? I am Professor Smith. I am an adjunct professor at The David A. Clarke School of Law at The University of the District of Columbia. I teach first-year legal research and writing, and moot court. I also teach in the law school's MEPAS program (for incoming first-year students). I teach a bar skills course for alumni for the July bar examination and the February exam. I also teach in the academic success program at Howard University Law School. I have been a consultant for CLEO for almost a decade. I taught the mid-winter bar preparation program for eight (8) years, and recently, I worked with CLEO to produce a bar exam blog that I prepared for the July 2010 bar exam. CLEO expects to produce and I hope to prepare a number of CLEO alumni for the February 2011 bar exam. We hope to assist CLEO get ready to tackle the bar exam in the metropolitan area's surrounding jurisdictions.
I have talked about me. Now I want to hear from you.
While I am waiting for you, I will be preparing for my introduction to the 1L, 2L and 3L classes. Next week, I will share with you how I expect the blog to function for each class.
Thank you everyone for having me. I can't wait to hear about the things that interest you.
Until next week,
Prof. Smith
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