Gaining Experience as a Pre-Law Student

Ren Holt Author

06/19/2024 Added

1 Plays

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There are many ways to gain experience as a pre-law student, with opportunities on-campus, in the local community, and beyond. With so many options, it can be hard to know where to begin getting involved. This workshop will help you reflect on which skill sets you would like to develop as a pre-law student and plan for your involvement as you prepare to apply to law school.

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[00:00:13.330]Ren Holt: But visual science. On this
[00:00:17.880]Ren Holt: I don't.
[00:00:24.180]Ren Holt: All right.
[00:00:27.200]Ren Holt: Well, welcome.
[00:00:28.980]Ren Holt: This is Gaining Experience as a Pre-Law Student. I am Ren Holt, I am a career advisor at the Explore Center, and so I work with pre-law students
[00:00:39.590]Ren Holt: on preparing for law school, both with
[00:00:43.020]Ren Holt: academic preparation, with resumes, essays, things getting ready to apply to law school.
[00:00:49.970]Ren Holt: I helped someone figure out how they wanted to negotiate their law school scholarships last week.
[00:00:56.240]Ren Holt: And also I help students figure out, "what can I do while I am still in school in order to prepare for law school?"
[00:01:04.890]Ren Holt: So, as you came in, you were asked to work on that reflection sheet. What excites you about law school? And what are you worrying about as you think about approaching law school?
[00:01:17.890]Ren Holt: Does anybody want to share? Well, I guess like what excites me about, I guess, being a pre-law student, or I guess I'm just considering that path, is just
[00:01:29.810]Ren Holt: just the sort of complex problems they get to solve and and sort of getting a sort of thing to dip my toes in that area.
[00:01:38.330]Ren Holt: yeah, do you want me to just go down list, too? Or
[00:01:40.650]Ren Holt: Sure, if you like. So, so far, we've got exciting problems to solve.
[00:01:47.520]Ren Holt: Or yeah, so, do you want me to go down the list I have?
[00:01:52.450]Ren Holt: Just the first two. First two, yeah. For wonderings or I guess I guess worries is the more accurate one. But, gaining experience is like
[00:02:01.370]Ren Holt: "what sort of experience is most relevant?"
[00:02:04.780]Ren Holt: and then like, "is one type of experience better than another?" And then, "what exactly are law schools prioritizing the most
[00:02:17.140]Ren Holt: outside of just like the GPA and LSAT, obviously. Okay, yeah. So very common worries there. So the worries that were shared were about,
[00:02:28.580]Ren Holt: What kind of experience is good experience, what might be prioritized by law schools.
[00:02:35.870]Ren Holt: And how can you get that experience. So we are actually going to address those questions today. So hopefully, we'll get you some good answers for that.
[00:02:47.830]Ren Holt: The agenda today we will initially talk about the American Bar Association pre-law competencies. We'll talk about ways to gain experience, and we will talk about documenting experience.
[00:02:59.460]Ren Holt: So first up,
[00:03:03.140]Ren Holt: we have the American Bar Association Pre-Law competencies. Has anybody heard of these before?
[00:03:12.980]Ren Holt: Okay, so these are
[00:03:15.990]Ren Holt: skill and knowledge areas that are recommended by the American Bar Association
[00:03:22.090]Ren Holt: for getting some exposure to some experience with before attending law school, because law school just tends to go a little bit better
[00:03:31.930]Ren Holt: if you had these experiences instead of having them for the first time when you are actually getting to law school. So we will look today at the different competencies and what they mean, what they're getting at, what kinds of skills are going to be most useful.
[00:03:54.240]Ren Holt: So I will hand out these
[00:03:58.180]Ren Holt: competencies and we will
[00:04:02.560]Ren Holt: talk about them.
[00:04:08.990]Ren Holt: So I'll give you a few moments to read over the competencies
[00:04:13.480]Ren Holt: and think about what skills or attitudes each one is highlighting and why that might be important in law school, and then we will come back and talk about it.
[00:04:41.170]Ren Holt: And just let me know when you're ready.
[00:04:46.080]Ren Holt: Hey? Good to go. Yeah. You did me to ask questions. Oh.
[00:04:53.180]Ren Holt: sure. Okay.
[00:04:54.800]Ren Holt: Alright. So looking at problem solving,
[00:04:58.270]Ren Holt: When you look at problem solving, and you think about law school, why might skills in problem solving be helpful to you?
[00:05:05.930]Ren Holt: For me, personally.
[00:05:09.260]Ren Holt: like, I guess it's kind of goes back to the reason I'm interested in it is that problem solving, I guess, being a lawyer.
[00:05:15.400]Ren Holt: It's all about problem solving, whether it's through contracts or are going to court, or whatever it's solving of or mediating between multiple different parties. And so at the end of the day, that's the whole point of having a lawyer or being a lawyer, solve other people's problems.
[00:05:31.970]Ren Holt: Okay. So yes, complex problem solving is going to be part of being a lawyer, solving other people's problems, mediating between people. How about critical reading? Why would that be important in law school or in a law career? It's being able to control the dense legal readings you have to go through and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of reading in law school. I know sometimes some students come in and they don't know that. So if you don't like reading, don't apply to law school because they will test you on how much you like reading.
[00:06:05.210]Ren Holt: Critical reading is very important.
[00:06:07.540]Ren Holt: Writing and editing. Why would that be important for law school?
[00:06:13.110]Ren Holt: Drafting contracts and having a keen eye for mistakes and miscommunications.
[00:06:18.590]Ren Holt: So we had drafting contracts, having a keen eye for mistakes, trying to avoid miscommunication, all excellent reasons for writing and editing to be important there. There's also the aspect of some lawyers go on into to work in legislation.
[00:06:33.890]Ren Holt: And the wording of legislation is going to be very important, because the exact words you use are going to define the law. And so how people then interpret that law is going to depend on their shared context for what those words mean.
[00:06:48.260]Ren Holt: So clarity in your writing and editing very important. And that's one of the reasons that law schools want you to submit a personal statement, is because they want to know, Can you write clearly? Can you convey a clear idea?
[00:07:02.740]Ren Holt: And do you know at least how to use some software or seek help for the editing and grammar.
[00:07:09.130]Ren Holt: so that you have a clean result.
[00:07:12.880]Ren Holt: Oral communication and listening, we touched a little bit on some of the reasons why you might need these already. But what would you say? I mean, you got to work with people. That's the whole point of the business being able to. And then, of course why you got to be able to communicate and advocate for your clients. And so it's probably
[00:07:30.710]Ren Holt: an important point.
[00:07:33.680]Ren Holt: Yeah, you're gonna work with a lot of people as a lawyer. So you're gonna work with clients. You're going to work with other lawyers. You're going to work with members of the government,
[00:07:43.430]Ren Holt: work with businesses. So all sorts of people to talk to, to potentially negotiate between. And also that listening part. Don't ignore that listening part. You want to be able to
[00:07:56.520]Ren Holt: intake information when you're listening to someone talk and empathize with them. Right?
[00:08:02.640]Ren Holt: You want to be able to understand, not just the words they're saying, but what they mean so that you can help them present themselves as best as possible for their goals.
[00:08:13.800]Ren Holt: Research. How do research skills connect with law school?
[00:08:20.110]Ren Holt: I guess, just being able to understand not only the background of certain cases and things, and being able to use
[00:08:25.880]Ren Holt: certain applications like Plexus, Nexus and other legal resources effectively. Yeah, so research, knowing where to find different resources, important. Knowing how to use different databases, but also just the ability to
[00:08:42.730]Ren Holt: figure out what are key terms that you can use to search for those things. And what are techniques that you can use to get more out of the books you read?
[00:08:54.890]Ren Holt: Or the different cases you read.
[00:08:57.990]Ren Holt: How do you follow one case to another case? To another case?
[00:09:01.890]Ren Holt: You don't necessarily have to have that specific knowledge before you enter law school, but it's good to have some research experience before you do that, and you can do that in your classes. You can do that with other opportunities around campus, which we will talk about.
[00:09:16.580]Ren Holt: How about organization and management?
[00:09:21.090]Ren Holt: So you know, time management to keep factored in there and you know all the cases and stuff, working with so many different people and changing deadlines.
[00:09:28.480]Ren Holt: Yeah. So as a lawyer, we have the perspective of you're working with a lot of people. You're gonna have a lot of deadlines. They might change. So your time management is really important. But just during law school, your time management and your organization skills are going to be very important because you're going to be learning a lot of material, and
[00:09:47.820]Ren Holt: you're not going to have all the time in the world in order to complete it. The expectations in law school are a little bit different from undergrad, and professors will cold call on you
[00:10:00.240]Ren Holt: about the reading, so you want to be able to intake a lot of information and use your time wisely. How about public service and promotion of justice?
[00:10:11.650]Ren Holt: Oh, well, I guess this one's kind of interesting, because it's about
[00:10:16.460]Ren Holt: sort of making sure that lawyers have the right mindset going into law, making sure that they can demonstrate that.
[00:10:24.840]Ren Holt: Yeah, definitely, mindset's really important in the law, and a lot of law schools do put some emphasis on that. Are you interested in service? Are you interested in promoting justice? Because they want to know that you do have a passion for it before you end up in law school.
[00:10:43.040]Ren Holt: Relationship building and collaboration, we touched on a little bit already. I think we talked about that a little bit more in communication. But is there anything that anyone would add to that skill?
[00:10:55.090]Ren Holt: Your network is your net worth. So not only being able to grow your legal practice, but
[00:11:01.500]Ren Holt: being able to make sure you have long-term clients that come back. "Your network is your net worth," what a great phrase! Yeah. So relationship building both, if you are working as a lawyer in a practice building a client base also with that aspect of making sure that your clients feel understood,
[00:11:23.800]Ren Holt: that you are representing them accurately,
[00:11:26.390]Ren Holt: and your relationships with other lawyers. And as a career advisor, I have to say, that network aspect of "Where are you going to end up for your various positions throughout your law career?"
[00:11:42.280]Ren Holt: Alright, looking at background knowledge and exposure to the law. What do you think of those?
[00:11:51.420]Ren Holt: It's pretty straightforward. You gotta have an understanding of what you're doing, what you're working towards and why. Background knowledge is just foundational for all of that.
[00:11:59.650]Ren Holt: Yeah, so the background knowledge is foundational knowledge about just history, politics. Just knowing the kinds of
[00:12:08.600]Ren Holt: context that you're going to be moving through, as you learn about law. And then exposure to the law, this is probably the one that students have the most questions about and how to how to get that.
[00:12:21.830]Ren Holt: And so some of that is,
[00:12:25.540]Ren Holt: can you learn about the law? And some of that is, can you have experiential learning opportunities about the law? And both are useful,
[00:12:34.900]Ren Holt: so we will get more into that as we move through the presentation. Any questions before we move on?
[00:12:51.160]Ren Holt: Alright, so now we are going to talk about where we can develop some of these core competencies. So, we have some
[00:12:59.940]Ren Holt: options that we brainstormed, or that we have seen students succeed with before, that we will share with you. But we also want to solicit some responses on what can you think of. That might be a good
[00:13:13.390]Ren Holt: fit for some of these skill building opportunities.
[00:13:19.660]Ren Holt: Alright, communication, writing, editing, verbal communication. So we have a list here. We have Lincoln Literacy, the Daily Nebraskan, or the Prairie Schooner, Lincoln Toastmasters for public speaking.
[00:13:32.250]Ren Holt: The Big Red Readers or Booking It, or other book clubs,
[00:13:36.700]Ren Holt: Creative Writing Club, Mock Trial Club, Speech and Debate Teams, Philosophy Club. These are all a lot of extracurricular activities. Right?
[00:13:48.540]Ren Holt: What else can you think of that can help you with communication skills, either writing and editing, or verbally?
[00:13:59.510]Ren Holt: This one's, I don't know. That's a pretty comprehensive list,
[00:14:04.560]Ren Holt: I guess your classes, too, like that's just where my first thought goes to, my first thought goes to just like what classes we take. So I guess English and communications classes with a large background.
[00:14:15.580]Ren Holt: Yeah, English and communications classes can be very useful in developing these skills. But even if you
[00:14:23.100]Ren Holt: aren't interested in that, you don't have time in your schedule for that. Maybe your major is very restricted. You can approach any kind of writing in your course work as a chance to develop this skill.
[00:14:34.580]Ren Holt: And a chance to think about what kinds of writing are important in different contexts, because the way that you write a literature paper is going to be different from how you write up
[00:14:44.010]Ren Holt: your biology report, right? And so, being able to communicate clearly in multiple formats is important and helps you develop the flexibility of adapting to new situations.
[00:15:01.340]Ren Holt: Okay, research, organization and management. Up here, we have you UCARE. Has anybody heard of UCARE?
[00:15:09.780]Ren Holt: Okay, we'll go into that in a little bit more detail.
[00:15:12.580]Ren Holt: Research in academic departments, clinics or labs, thesis paper or project. If you have an opportunity to do that through your college, leadership in a club or organization.
[00:15:25.630]Ren Holt: Leadership is always great to be able to list on your resume and to be able to reference in your personal statement.
[00:15:32.970]Ren Holt: Bureau of Sociological Research that some of that is that public involvement, too.
[00:15:39.570]Ren Holt: The University of Nebraska Public Policy Center. Again, they do have undergraduate research opportunities, and it does tie in also with that interest in public policy, the public good, social
[00:15:53.440]Ren Holt: social commitment. And administrative work for a club or for work. One thing, there is a lot of the work that you can get as a student
[00:16:03.120]Ren Holt: does have an administrative aspect. And so, I just don't want anybody to be walking away from this thinking, "oh, if I have to do admin duties in my job, that's not contributing to what I can do for law school," it is. It is.
[00:16:19.490]Ren Holt: It does help.
[00:16:20.630]Ren Holt: It helps with that organization, with that time management. And it can help with the research skills as well.
[00:16:28.820]Ren Holt: So before we go into other opportunities, I do want to mention. Talk a little bit about UCARE. UCARE is an opportunity for undergraduate students at UNL to get involved in research. There is a stipend involved.
[00:16:43.550]Ren Holt: And so students who are interested in that partner with faculty members
[00:16:49.070]Ren Holt: complete research over either the summer or over a semester or year, and then present a poster of their results at the end....in the spring each year.
[00:17:02.180]Ren Holt: And so that can be a really great opportunity if you are interested in doing some research.
[00:17:08.160]Ren Holt: UCARE does not require that it be scientific research. It can be social research and be creative research. All sorts of things are possible.
[00:17:17.800]Ren Holt: And a great... So, UCARE department is a great resource for that. But then another great resource for that is any faculty member whose research you're interested in. So I always want to encourage students to look into, what are your faculty
[00:17:32.330]Ren Holt: researching? What are they passionate about? So that if there's something that aligns with your interests, or if you just want to work with that faculty member more, you can talk to them about it
[00:17:43.730]Ren Holt: and potentially figure out, yeah.
[00:17:46.930]Ren Holt: These are skills that I want to continue to pursue.
[00:17:51.110]Ren Holt: What about other opportunities for research, organization and time or information management?
[00:17:58.970]Ren Holt: Again, I think this is a pretty pretty good place right here. I guess other like, possibly internships, or anything like outside of it too.
[00:18:10.160]Ren Holt: Yeah, private internships can be a great chance to develop these skills as well, especially if you work while you're in school.
[00:18:20.490]Ren Holt: Like, you have to learn a lot of time management skills. School alone is enough, right? But if you add work hours on top of that, you are adding to
[00:18:29.750]Ren Holt: the kind of time management and information management you need
[00:18:34.650]Ren Holt: to be able to pass your classes and do well, right? So if you feel stable in your coursework,
[00:18:42.140]Ren Holt: I do encourage people to
[00:18:45.080]Ren Holt: get some kind part-time job, just to see a little bit of what that's like. Obviously, don't do anything that is going to significantly impact your studies.
[00:18:56.660]Ren Holt: School still does come first.
[00:19:03.450]Ren Holt: Alright, Public Service and Promotion of Justice. So, we are in a really nice position at UNL, as we are in the capital city
[00:19:12.900]Ren Holt: of a State.
[00:19:15.120]Ren Holt: And so we have the chance to integrate with a number of State based organizations. So we have
[00:19:27.470]Ren Holt: the ones that are up there are the Complaint Mediation for the Nebraska Attorney General's office, Consumer Protection Division. We have an ACLU chapter. We have citizenship classes,
[00:19:40.550]Ren Holt: local community organizations.
[00:19:43.390]Ren Holt: Student government can also be a great way to get involved here. Organizations that advocate for specific causes that you're passionate about, going to be a great way to get involved. That's going to be probably some volunteering. But you're going to get lots of different skill groups with that kind of work.
[00:19:59.370]Ren Holt: Nebraska Appleseed is really popular with a lot of our students. They come to a lot of the career fairs as well. They have internships and part-time work, availability and college advisory boards, you know.
[00:20:14.030]Ren Holt: You might not have thought of this very often. I certainly didn't when I was a student, but those are opportunities to communicate with a lot of people. Right? You are interacting with community. You're influencing how your community is going to be shaped. And you're interacting with other students, with faculty, with deans, etc. So you're getting a lot of different kinds of experience with that kind of work.
[00:20:39.710]Ren Holt: Anything else that might
[00:20:42.360]Ren Holt: fit into Public Service and Promotion of Justice?
[00:20:50.760]Ren Holt: Is any work with the government possible? Question is, is any work with the government possible? Yes,
[00:21:00.710]Ren Holt: it is. I'll go into a little bit more depth about it in a minute. But yes, there are positions for internships and part-time student work with the government, both with the state government and with the city government. They are pretty competitive, so you want to keep an eye out for them and have solid materials ready to apply.
[00:21:23.480]Ren Holt: Other things here, pretty much any volunteering that you do consistently over time looks better than
[00:21:30.710]Ren Holt: something that you do once,
[00:21:33.560]Ren Holt: right?
[00:21:34.460]Ren Holt: Because schools want to see what you're passionate about.
[00:21:37.660]Ren Holt: So I've talked to law school students who, you know, their volunteer work is connected to their major. You know, if you're in accounting, maybe you volunteer with accounting services to help underserved community members figure out their taxes. If your major is something more like
[00:21:58.200]Ren Holt: English. Maybe you volunteer with Lincoln Literacy, and you help teach English to refugees who have come to Lincoln and need to learn how to read everything around them so that they can function in our society.
[00:22:12.150]Ren Holt: So those are some other areas where you can
[00:22:14.890]Ren Holt: pursue this particular competency.
[00:22:21.120]Ren Holt: Alright, Relationship Building and Collaboration.
[00:22:23.900]Ren Holt: We have several options here, lots of mentoring and coaching options.
[00:22:29.880]Ren Holt: teaching, tutoring. assisting with residence halls.
[00:22:36.690]Ren Holt: Teammates. Does anybody know what Teammates is?
[00:22:40.460]Ren Holt: Okay, Teammates is a program for you as a volunteer you meet with
[00:22:46.770]Ren Holt: generally a high school student. I think it is now but sometimes you can go to other age levels.
[00:22:54.020]Ren Holt: And
[00:22:55.280]Ren Holt: basically, you just sort of are a listening ear, a community connection to talk to them,
[00:23:01.770]Ren Holt: help figure out what's going on in their lives and just have good conversations on a
[00:23:08.000]Ren Holt: weekly or bi-weekly basis.
[00:23:11.540]Ren Holt: What are some other ways that you could
[00:23:15.140]Ren Holt: work on collaboration skills, especially on campus? Because I know some of these things go off campus, and that can be a challenge for a lot of students.
[00:23:24.480]Ren Holt: I would say, probably just clubs. I mean just interacting with people. That's the best way to meet people and work towards that.
[00:23:32.320]Ren Holt: Yeah, clubs can be a great way just interacting with people. You can do this in your classes too, right? A lot of classes have a discussion component, or if they don't,
[00:23:42.500]Ren Holt: you might need study help. You might enjoy working with other people on your homework,
[00:23:48.120]Ren Holt: Make sure it gets done.
[00:23:49.710]Ren Holt: That kind of collaboration can also be really helpful in building those skills.
[00:23:56.740]Ren Holt: What are ways that you have succeeded in relationship building already in your time at UNL?
[00:24:04.300]Ren Holt: Right now, I guess it's just joining clubs and putting myself out there, been involved in a few of them so far. And it's just a good way to meet people, whether it's for friends or for networking.
[00:24:15.740]Ren Holt: Alright. So yeah, we have a vote for clubs, for friends and networking.
[00:24:24.460]Ren Holt: Background Knowledge and Exposure to Law. This is where some of those state and city government opportunities come in.
[00:24:32.510]Ren Holt: There are opportunities to be legal runners with local...
[00:24:39.230]Ren Holt: I'm sorry. Local law firms or in the courts
[00:24:44.870]Ren Holt: The legislative page, there are a few positions available to work with the legislature,
[00:24:51.980]Ren Holt: both at the State level and the Federal level.
[00:24:55.400]Ren Holt: There is the Pre-Law Club, the Mock Trial Club. The Pre-Law club, I know, especially this semester has been working to bring in speakers about who are in different areas of law. We're doing a panel of current law students. So you can learn about what law school is like.
[00:25:13.770]Ren Holt: And sometimes I think they do even do visits to different local options for law schools as well.
[00:25:21.280]Ren Holt: Mock trial club again, another area where you're hitting a couple of competencies at once. You're hitting communication, you're probably hitting some relationship building. But then you are also getting some exposure to
[00:25:33.730]Ren Holt: the law and some background knowledge of how it works.
[00:25:37.320]Ren Holt: There are summer programs you can get involved in that help with law prep, or just have course work that's focused around different areas of law. And sometimes there's online programs as well.
[00:25:52.250]Ren Holt: One thing that's just kind of hinted at here, The Future Black Lawyers, College Republicans, Young Democrats. You can also get involved with the local campaigns for political parties if you are interested in the political side of law. Because that will give you some
[00:26:11.770]Ren Holt: just more exposure to, how does public policy work? How do people talk about public policy? What is the political cycle like? And how does it interact with law? Because a lot of law work does end up brushing up against politics here and there.
[00:26:28.350]Ren Holt: Questions about this area?
[00:26:32.390]Ren Holt: Okay.
[00:26:38.020]Ren Holt: Shadowing and Informational Interviewing.
[00:26:41.990]Ren Holt: Who has heard of shadowing or informational interviewing before?
[00:26:47.760]Ren Holt: Okay.
[00:26:50.580]Ren Holt: Can you give me a definition of shadowing?
[00:26:52.680]Ren Holt: Basically just following them around in their shadow, so to speak. Being someone's shadow, following them around in their workday workplace to sort of get a sense of what do they do all day.
[00:27:04.180]Ren Holt: How about informational interviewing?
[00:27:07.560]Ren Holt: Don't know. Okay, so informational interviewing can be particularly useful for students who are interested in law, because so many areas of law involve confidentiality issues and so... or weird hours that you can't commit to.
[00:27:24.210]Ren Holt: So
[00:27:25.830]Ren Holt: sometimes it is easier to talk to a lawyer outside of their official work duties.
[00:27:35.480]Ren Holt: So informational interviewing is basically contacting someone and saying, Hey, can we get together and have a 20 to 30 min conversation it could be on zoom. It could be at a coffee shop. I just really
[00:27:48.140]Ren Holt: want to know more about your career path, how you got there, what you like about it, maybe what challenges are, and I really would really appreciate your help, and I respect your opinion
[00:27:59.390]Ren Holt: in these matters, and then you prepare some questions about what do you most want to know
[00:28:05.490]Ren Holt: about getting into the law profession? What's most important to you?
[00:28:10.910]Ren Holt: You can ask for resources, ask for advice.
[00:28:14.870]Ren Holt: So it can be a great way to get at maybe the more specific information you want, rather than "what's the atmosphere like," which is an important thing to know, but it's going to vary by situation enough that sometimes shadowing is a less efficient option
[00:28:32.520]Ren Holt: than informational interviewing.
[00:28:34.500]Ren Holt: But it is still valuable. So if you have a chance to do it definitely, do it.
[00:28:39.000]Ren Holt: Questions about those?
[00:28:45.670]Ren Holt: Part Time Jobs and Internships. So we had a question about this as well. We talked a little bit about job opportunities in state and local government that are related to law.
[00:28:57.000]Ren Holt: The annoying truth
[00:28:59.600]Ren Holt: is that it's very difficult to get specifically law related work
[00:29:05.310]Ren Holt: in undergrad. Most of the law-related work is aimed at students who are already in law school.
[00:29:12.810]Ren Holt: but
[00:29:13.860]Ren Holt: I don't want that to be a barrier for anyone.
[00:29:19.950]Ren Holt: One thing to know about law schools and how law school admissions works is that any experience that you have working or in an internship
[00:29:30.850]Ren Holt: is going to be valuable.
[00:29:32.940]Ren Holt: It does not have to be connected to law in order to look better,
[00:29:37.250]Ren Holt: right?
[00:29:39.300]Ren Holt: Your ability to talk about your skills, and your experience is more important than the specific experience that you had. Does that make sense? Cool.
[00:29:49.920]Ren Holt: Questions about this?
[00:29:52.790]Ren Holt: Okay, there are opportunities to have these roles specifically in a law related field.
[00:30:02.130]Ren Holt: They're just rarer. They're harder to get and harder to find,
[00:30:08.730]Ren Holt: so I don't want you to feel like you just can't get
[00:30:11.870]Ren Holt: the experience you want. If you can't find that.
[00:30:22.070]Ren Holt: Alright, we are going to have a short activity of Identifying Areas for Growth. So this will be looking at the competency areas
[00:30:30.810]Ren Holt: and thinking about or talking about
[00:30:35.210]Ren Holt: which ones do you want to improve on. And how you want to go about that.
[00:31:00.500]Ren Holt: And I will switch the slides so that you can see what the competency areas are.
[00:33:33.030]Ren Holt: Alright. So I am not going to ask anybody to share on that, because I know the reflection is pretty personal.
[00:33:41.310]Ren Holt: But I hope you had a chance to look at those areas and think about
[00:33:48.660]Ren Holt: what kinds of experiences in academic, personal or professional
[00:33:54.310]Ren Holt: settings you could pursue and how you want to grow.
[00:33:58.140]Ren Holt: A question that I meant to ask earlier, "what do you most want to know about law?"
[00:34:10.760]Ren Holt: I mean law in general. I guess I just want to understand more how....
[00:34:16.590]Ren Holt: Just how the whole thing functions right, including you know how to contracts bind people together, and how is it enforced? And how do we go through a lot of the more commercial and other sort of private transactions, etc., etc.
[00:34:31.870]Ren Holt: So how does the law
[00:34:35.090]Ren Holt: bind people or function?
[00:34:37.710]Ren Holt: So we've got some talk about contracts. Talk about maybe business regulations.
[00:34:44.710]Ren Holt: sort of things. Yeah. Another one that I've heard a few times is
[00:34:51.780]Ren Holt: wondering how like, how does the law work for individuals? Like, if you have to go through a legal process, a legal trial, how does that work? What is that like?
[00:35:05.570]Ren Holt: Other things... think for a moment...
[00:35:12.440]Ren Holt: history of law, sometimes of interest to a lot of students.
[00:35:16.800]Ren Holt: And then just what are areas of law? What kinds of law can you practice? And so for that, I definitely just encourage you to do keyword searches for what are different types of law, because for things like contract law, there are sub categories, right? And so the more you learn about
[00:35:35.440]Ren Holt: the different kinds of law that exist
[00:35:38.610]Ren Holt: now, the more you'll be able to think about, "Okay, is that what I want to do?
[00:35:44.680]Ren Holt: Is that something that lines up well with my major?" You know, if you've choose, if you've chosen a major
[00:35:51.300]Ren Holt: and you're pretty committed to it. What are the skills you're developing? And how can they help you in that area of law? Or, if you're still exploring majors,
[00:36:01.240]Ren Holt: what kinds of majors would be most useful to you
[00:36:04.680]Ren Holt: and the areas of law that you're most interested in.
[00:36:09.130]Ren Holt: Just things to keep in mind.
[00:36:11.290]Ren Holt: Any other questions, thoughts?
[00:36:22.380]Ren Holt: Alright, Documenting Experiences. How and why do we document our experiences?
[00:36:29.710]Ren Holt: Anybody? How?
[00:36:32.740]Ren Holt: Resume?
[00:36:33.980]Ren Holt: Resume. You can definitely document your experiences on your resume.
[00:36:39.370]Ren Holt: How about why? Future employers and grad schools would see it.
[00:36:44.670]Ren Holt: Document it so that future employers and grad schools can see it. Those are definitely
[00:36:50.140]Ren Holt: great options for both those questions. We're gonna expand a little bit as well.
[00:36:56.750]Ren Holt: So under "Why,"
[00:36:59.360]Ren Holt: future employers and law school applications is that first one.
[00:37:04.320]Ren Holt: That's "why."
[00:37:05.480]Ren Holt: Also reference requests. It's much easier for someone to write a reference for you if they have some idea of what you've been doing with your life.
[00:37:14.110]Ren Holt: Hopefully, there'll be someone that you know pretty well who has a pretty positive opinion of you, so they'll already know some of that, but having the details at their fingertips really makes the process easier.
[00:37:26.700]Ren Holt: Documenting your experiences and reflecting on them, thinking about, "What was a good experience? What was a bad experience? What kinds of skills do you want to develop? What do you want to do next?" Can really help with picking your major or your minor, or what are your elective classes going to be.
[00:37:44.980]Ren Holt: It can help a lot with law school personal statements
[00:37:48.370]Ren Holt: so that you actually have something to talk about, because some law schools will have a prompt and some law schools will just say, submit a personal statement.
[00:37:57.500]Ren Holt: And then a lot of students are left going, "But what do I say?" So
[00:38:03.150]Ren Holt: Personal statements, we have a whole workshop about that. I really like working on personal statements. So I'm happy to work with anybody who is at that stage.
[00:38:11.220]Ren Holt: but it becomes much, much easier if you have recorded your experiences along the way
[00:38:17.840]Ren Holt: and thought about them, and how they have shaped your goals in law school.
[00:38:23.290]Ren Holt: So that reflection piece, important.
[00:38:26.380]Ren Holt: "How"
[00:38:27.570]Ren Holt: So, yes, putting things on your resume great. I love
[00:38:32.530]Ren Holt: telling students "make a master resume," right. Your master resume is going to be everything you've done
[00:38:40.060]Ren Holt: because you're going to customize your resume
[00:38:43.050]Ren Holt: to schools or to jobs based on what you want them to see.
[00:38:49.610]Ren Holt: But you still want to know everything that you've done, so that it's easier to do that each time, because you may apply for all sorts of different kinds of positions.
[00:38:59.860]Ren Holt: Also want to make sure
[00:39:01.850]Ren Holt: that you record the contacts. Who you talk to, who you worked with, how do you get in touch with them? And when did you do that? Because, as a working professional, I can tell you that those things get harder and harder to track down the longer you go without
[00:39:18.370]Ren Holt: writing it down somewhere.
[00:39:20.420]Ren Holt: And it may be that you're like, "Oh, yeah.
[00:39:23.160]Ren Holt: I did used to work there 3 years ago are the people that I worked with still, there? Is it worth putting that organization down
[00:39:36.270]Ren Holt: if it's impossible to talk to anybody who I worked with?"
[00:39:39.940]Ren Holt: So depending on your situation, that may be a choice to make, but also those contacts can be resources, right? So this includes things like informational interviewing and shadowing.
[00:39:51.330]Ren Holt: When did you shadow them? What did you learn from it? What kinds of questions do you ask? What kinds of resources did they give you in your informational interview?
[00:39:59.610]Ren Holt: And so then, if you have a record of that information, it's much easier to go back and send them an email later saying, "Hey, thanks again for talking to me about your experience in law, your experience in this career. I really appreciated those resources you shared. I used them to do these things.
[00:40:18.260]Ren Holt: I hope you're doing well. I have some new questions. If you have time, I'd love to meet again,"
[00:40:23.850]Ren Holt: right? So that you can keep up with that connection.
[00:40:28.450]Ren Holt: Tools. People use Word, Excel, OneNote, Google Drive, OneDrive, pretty normal. That Master Resume, Linked Obsidian notes, I don't know how many students are using Obsidian. But it's basically a way that you can organize a lot of information with keywords and searchable documents and things that are all connected rather than
[00:40:53.200]Ren Holt: separate Word documents or Excel documents.
[00:40:57.770]Ren Holt: Some people find it useful.
[00:41:00.250]Ren Holt: Any questions about documenting experiences?
[00:41:10.210]Ren Holt: Alright, Tips and Tricks. So yeah, updating your resume regularly
[00:41:14.610]Ren Holt: so that you're not trying to do it all at once. That just makes the whole process more difficult.
[00:41:20.340]Ren Holt: You want it to be easy when you get there. Because, as someone told me today, Senior Year is unexpectedly busy.
[00:41:28.680]Ren Holt: So, that time when you're applying to law school if you're going straight to law school, or if you're working on your LSAT studying because you're taking a gap year,
[00:41:40.160]Ren Holt: just try to make it easy on yourself.
[00:41:43.440]Ren Holt: Reflection,
[00:41:45.160]Ren Holt: important. Talk about what you saw, what you learned, how you've been growing, how you're making an impact.
[00:41:52.110]Ren Holt: It's really hard to do that in our day to day lives, right? It's really easy to get caught up in, "Well, I have these deadlines, and I need to pay this bill. And oh, my friends invited me out here, and I just wanna make sure I'm meeting all of my commitments."
[00:42:06.920]Ren Holt: Taking just 10 minutes
[00:42:09.420]Ren Holt: to write down
[00:42:11.360]Ren Holt: every....10 minutes a week, 10 minutes a month
[00:42:15.390]Ren Holt: to write down, "What are the main things that I'm doing?
[00:42:19.760]Ren Holt: How do I feel about them? What am I learning from them?" Can be a really great check-in to make sure that you don't get too far down a path that you realize you don't want to be going.
[00:42:31.130]Ren Holt: So just
[00:42:33.230]Ren Holt: something to keep in mind. And then we talked about that contact information for supervisors, leaders of experiences, keep it separate from your resume. Those might be people you'll ask for letters of recommendation.
[00:42:45.870]Ren Holt: You might network with them for future opportunities. You might ask them to do references for jobs.
[00:42:53.030]Ren Holt: All sorts of options there,
[00:42:55.150]Ren Holt: but they can be harder to track down if you don't keep that information initially.
[00:43:02.070]Ren Holt: Questions here?
[00:43:04.530]Ren Holt: Okay.
[00:43:08.700]Ren Holt: Alright,
[00:43:10.030]Ren Holt: So that is the information that I have right now. But I am happy to answer other questions. Are there questions that I did not address in the main presentation?
[00:43:19.800]Ren Holt: I had couple. So, does UNL provide any like LSAT studying resources, or like scholarships paid for, you know, courses, or whatever to pay for just anything, you know? So the question is, does UNL provide any LSAT studying resources or ways to pay for LSAT prep.
[00:43:39.330]Ren Holt: So, university, specifically university funded programs, no.
[00:43:44.350]Ren Holt: but the Pre-Law Club is doing LSAT prep every other Tuesday this semester.
[00:43:51.770]Ren Holt: They also...
[00:43:54.670]Ren Holt: we coordinate with them, and with a couple of testing agencies to post some practice LSATs
[00:44:03.000]Ren Holt: throughout the year. So there are several of those that are set up this semester.
[00:44:09.500]Ren Holt: So if you get our emails
[00:44:11.970]Ren Holt: for Pre-Law, that information is in there. And also, if you are like, "I can't find that," you're welcome to email me
[00:44:19.520]Ren Holt: and I can send you those dates.
[00:44:22.470]Ren Holt: I can also tell you that there are fee waivers that you can apply for through LawHub.
[00:44:33.200]Ren Holt: So, like the LSAT testing agency
[00:44:36.970]Ren Holt: provides fee waivers think mostly based on financial need.
[00:44:42.680]Ren Holt: But those fee waivers don't only apply to the LSAT itself. They can also apply to prep programs. So if you get one of those fee waivers,
[00:44:54.600]Ren Holt: you want to look at, "Oh, does this work for..." I think it's called like LSAT Demon.
[00:45:00.680]Ren Holt: It's incredibly expensive, but some people swear by it.
[00:45:05.470]Ren Holt: And it does help with them, but right some of it is... won't be a full waiver, but it will cut down the cost.
[00:45:11.670]Ren Holt: So that's true for a variety of different
[00:45:15.490]Ren Holt: prep programs.
[00:45:19.640]Ren Holt: A lot of students in the past have used Khan Academy. I do have to tell you that Khan Academy's LSAT prep is going away.
[00:45:29.070]Ren Holt: And those resources, what
[00:45:33.900]Ren Holt: the LSAT agency wants to
[00:45:37.070]Ren Holt: share, will be on LawHub
[00:45:40.600]Ren Holt: instead, and so there are a few free resources, and then there are some one time paid resources that are cheaper than some other options. But
[00:45:50.220]Ren Holt: you do still have to pay for it.
[00:45:55.630]Ren Holt: Yeah.
[00:45:57.240]Ren Holt: A big thing is also like where to find scholarships for law school, too. I mean, undergrad makes sense, but law schools where it's not as advertised?
[00:46:07.570]Ren Holt: Yeah, where to find scholarships for law school. So some scholarships are just presented through the schools themselves. So, looking at schools that you're interested in and seeing, do they have a separate scholarship application? Or is it just integrated into their general application?
[00:46:26.490]Ren Holt: Many
[00:46:27.970]Ren Holt: schools do merit-based
[00:46:32.480]Ren Holt: scholarships, and so it's not an additional application. It's just based on what's your LSAT score and your GPA.
[00:46:39.690]Ren Holt: but AccessLex does have a database of scholarship opportunities. And so
[00:46:47.300]Ren Holt: just looking that up can be really great.
[00:46:50.500]Ren Holt: there are a whole variety of different amounts and deadlines. I've been looking at it yesterday, and
[00:46:57.440]Ren Holt: there I saw, like 20 different scholarships that were all for $1,000 each, and then you can sort by due date. You can sort by amounts. You can sort by
[00:47:09.390]Ren Holt: opening date,
[00:47:12.660]Ren Holt: things like that. So that can be a really great resource for a lot of students as well.
[00:47:19.710]Ren Holt: Another question to is like, what's the difference between like a regular resume sent to a job, and then, like a law school resume? Is it longer? Is it more academic in nature like, what should you include that?
[00:47:31.360]Ren Holt: So the question is, what is the difference between the resume that you would send to a job and the resume that you send to Law School?
[00:47:38.990]Ren Holt: So the resume that you send to a job is going to be tailored to that position, right? And so you might just have a section of here's my relevant experience.
[00:47:49.920]Ren Holt: And maybe you don't list every job you've ever had, right?
[00:47:53.500]Ren Holt: For law school, you don't have to confine yourself to one page.
[00:47:58.550]Ren Holt: and so you can have a longer resume. You probably don't want to have your whole master resume as what you turn in, but you want to think about, what are the skills that you've developed?
[00:48:08.520]Ren Holt: And how do they relate to law school, right? So, do you want to talk about your experience giving presentations? Do you want to talk about the research projects that you were given in your work that you then shared with
[00:48:21.160]Ren Holt: your co-workers so that they could make decisions about different programs or projects that they were working on?
[00:48:27.790]Ren Holt: Do you want to share about the kinds of relationships you were able to build in like a mentoring position or a tutoring position?
[00:48:36.910]Ren Holt: Do you want to share with the kinds of research that you did with a faculty member, that sort of thing. Another thing that you can put on a resume for law school that is a little less applicable to a lot of jobs that you might be applying for, is a relevant coursework section.
[00:48:53.070]Ren Holt: And so they will have your transcript. But what you put in your relevant coursework section can be informative as to what do you think is relevant to law school. So, a little bit more flexibility
[00:49:06.280]Ren Holt: with the law school one.
[00:49:10.140]Ren Holt: And you do not have to put your address on a resume cover.
[00:49:17.930]Ren Holt: Any other questions?
[00:49:20.620]Ren Holt: Okay, well, thank you for coming today.
[00:49:24.870]Ren Holt: We would really appreciate if you're able to fill out the very short evaluation form at that QR code that's linked on the slide
[00:49:34.200]Ren Holt: just about your experience today. If your questions were answered, how it went.
[00:49:40.280]Ren Holt: etc. And yeah, I also, I do have some of my business cards. If anybody wants that for future contact, making an appointment, etc.
[00:49:51.110]Ren Holt: Have a great night.

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Gaining Experience as a Pre-Law Student

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