Summer Idea #2: Keep an Open Mind

"Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.” ~Henry James

I’ve been away a few days on a road trip to Boston, and experienced for the first time the joy of traveling with a GPS. Except for the occasional odd route that “Emmy” (doesn’t everyone name their GPS?) sent us, it really changed the way I think of travelling now. One amazing feature of this little technological miracle is her ability to correct my mistakes. If I miss a turn, she will announce that she is “recalculating” and then send me a new way.

I also found, however, after toying with Emmy a bit, that I could “disobey” her directions quite often and still make it to my destination. We even had a little game going on one day to see how many times we could turn the exact opposite way and still get home. I think we did it 5 times, and I swear I could detect just a hint of rebuke in each of those “recalculatings.” It even made me a bit apologetic for straying from her set course for me.

So I was thinking. We are all more comfortable with a set course. It is a relief to know that you don’t have to calculate every single turn. However, the pre-mapped path seldom fits perfectly. Maybe there is a construction detour. Maybe you wanted to swing by a certain store on the way. Maybe you just can’t handle the Throughway today. Don't worry, you’ll still get there!

As your career progresses, step off the path every once in a while. Even if you knew you wanted to be a prosecutor since you were 3, sit next to the tax attorney at the bar association dinner and ask her about her practice. Try volunteering a few hours a week or taking on a pro bono project. Go to a CLE in an area that you don’t know about. You may find a new route to your destination, or diverge completely into a path that leads to great happiness! Or as my travels with Emmy have taught me, it will at least make the journey more interesting.

Meet Our New Dean!

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” ~John C. Maxwell

Our own Dean Makau Mutua was profiled in the New York Law Journal today. This extensive and inspiring article gives a wonderful insight into his accomplishments and background. Thanks to Dean Ilene Fleischmann for sending it around!

Dr. Strangelaw or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Law School

“Pride is a personal commitment. It is an attitude that separates excellence from mediocrity.” ~Unknown

This spring, amid all the rankings-rancor, a Facebook group popped up called Proud to be a UB Law Student! Today it has 146 members. In the midst of a situation that many used as an excuse to gripe in public forum (they bit off their noses to spite their faces, you know), these 146 stood up and spoke for all that is great and wonderful about our school. Bravo to them!

I don't understand those people who decided to use the WSJ blog to air all their pent up law school frustration! If you find good things to say to the world about UB Law, you make yourself look better, too. I’m not trying to be Big Brother, saying that people can’t voice opinions and give criticism. Our Ideas Day was a fantastic outlet for all kinds of feedback, positive, negative and innovative. Everyone complains about stuff in school, especially in a discipline that trains you to think critically. I wish everyone would also just think critically about their audience, and the impression they’re giving...that they would find sensible outlets for all their comments. Don’t you think that being at a school with really amazing Vault-survey student comments is going to be better than being at a school with snarky ones?

Since this is a career blog, let me tie this all in with interviewing and networking. In the real world, it boils down to this. Browse the Law School website—look at all the great stuff that goes on here. Make that part of your interview and networking material. Want an example of how to do that? Our own Vice Dean Alan Carrel recently addressed a reunion luncheon. I’m not a fan of rankings, but Dean Carrel would rank #1 if we measured pride among UB Law Alumni. Here is a link to his speech. I hope you will take the time to read it, not only for its content, but also because it is an ideal example of how a proud alumnus talks about UB Law.

So here’s my takeaway. Join the UB Believers. Be proud. Be proud as heck. Not just of your law school, but of your college, your high school, or any other group that you may represent. They had a part in getting you to where you are today. But remember that the relationship is symbiotic. A school only looks as good as the person representing it at that moment. The reputation of any school lives and dies by the actions and character of its students and graduates. You are our ambassador forever. You have the power to move the school forward, or hold it back, just by how you perform, behave, speak. If you excel in your summer job, your employer will come back to hire students again. If you burn bridges, you have potentially burned them for years of students to follow you. You, yes YOU. One person can make a difference.

Turkey Vultures

"The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.” ~Ashley Montagu

In the spirit of this being a true blog, with its accompanying anecdotal qualities, I couldn't help but make a post about this. Tuesday night at about 7 pm, I saw a turkey vulture on top of Park Hall through the window in the O'Brian stairwell on the 7th floor! Here it is:




Turkey vultures, robins. What is it with birds and Park Hall?
By the way, the robin's eggs are hatched, and there are babies! The picture is fuzzy because the mama bird was very upset at me taking their picture, and I was trying to get it done quickly.


I suppose if there is an inspirational message to be taken from these feathered friends, it might be:


Keep your eyes open, because you never know what strange and wonderful things you might see in unexpected places...

Can a News Article Change Your Life?

"A man's life in these parts often depends on a mere scrap of information." ~Clint Eastwood, as the Man with No Name in A Fistful of Dollars, 1963

It's amazing how a little snippet read in a newspaper or blog or heard on a radio news program (here's where I make a plug for NPR!) can impact one's future if combined with a little initiative. Recently, while participating in an online chat session with some admitted students to UB Law School, one of them asked what they should be reading to prepare for law school. The most common answer they received was, "Read the newspaper." Sounds simple and obvious, right?

From a career development standpoint, one of the most important critical skills you can develop is the ability to ferret out opportunity from information. If you’re not sure what you might like to do for a summer internship, or for a next job move, start paying close attention to the news, whether in the paper, journals, radio, web pages or television. You will find that certain stories catch your attention more than others. Chances are, there are legal participants somewhere in those stories. Sometimes, they are even quoted or highlighted. Why not take that scrap of information and turn it into your next step?

A couple of years ago, one of our UB Law students wanted to find a summer job dealing with technology and China. She started to keep up with current news, and quickly learned that IBM was working on a deal with the Chinese Lenovo corporation to take over their laptop production. In the course of her reading, she found that two law firms were quoted in a few articles about the deal, as well as the in-house attorney for IBM handling it. She contacted each of the three attorneys by name, and told them that she had been following the deal in the news and was interested in helping them out. This was long past the fall-recruiting season; it was at least March. She wound up with three offers, and ended up splitting her summer between the Baker & McKenzie (a MEGA large firm) Hong Kong Office and IBM's North Carolina Office. She had to turn down the offer from the London firm of Herbert Smith because she just didn't have enough weeks in the summer! I guarantee she was the only law student in the country who read that news item and thought to use it to ask for a job. Talk about great odds!

Bottom line, pay attention to what you pay attention to! If you are already drawn to it, chances are, it is something that you will enjoy exploring more deeply, and you will most likely discover an interesting career path with a bit of intuitive, strategic thinking. It could even turn into a fistful of dollars!

Spring Has Sprung, Summer is Coming!

"April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go."
~Christopher Morley, John Mistletoe

Walking to the Jacobs parking lot on Saturday, I saw a robin
nesting in the flowering tree outside Park Hall. After a teasing us for a few months, Old Man Winter has finally released his grip on us, and Spring is really here. Little shoots and buds, birds and insects are waking and emerging.

And so are legal employers! Even though some of the more visible jobs hire a year or more in advance, remember what it was like looking for a job before the wacky paradigm of the “law school job search” warped our expectations. Before law school, you didn’t go to the Gap to apply for a job, only to tell them that you want to start in 10 months! Employers hired you closer to when you were ready to start.

Small firms, public interest agencies, solo practitioners, and all kinds of great summer and graduate employers fall into this “real world” category! Especially if they don’t have a designated HR or recruiting person/department, if they post jobs at all, the vast majority of them don’t think about summer until the snow is all melted and they see their first robin!
What does that mean for you if you’re looking for a job right now? Here are some things to do:

1. Don’t give up on the CSO’s postings on Symplicity. Jobs continue to roll in all through the month of May and into June.

2. Now is the time to recontact those employers that may have told you that they “weren’t looking right now, but they’ll keep your resume on file.”

3. Don’t be afraid to approach a small law firm or solo practitioner and ask if they need extra help for the summer. They are much more equipped to make a decision about their needs now.

4. Public interest volunteer positions can sometimes be the best and most hands-on experiences. Even if you can only afford to volunteer one day a week with a Legal Aid Office or Public Defender or DA, it will look just as good on your resume. Check the employer section of Symplicity (employer type=Public Interest) or PSLawNet.org or Idealist.org for organizations to approach.

5. If you haven’t come to the CSO with an update on your search lately (or ever), come on in! Everyone’s search parameters are different, so we can sit down, help you devise the most efficient strategy, and help find you contacts and leads.

6. If you’re graduating, realize that employers may still not be able to make a decision about their needs until you’re ready to start work. That will be AFTER the bar exam. Graduation is an unfair and illogical deadline to give yourself to have a job offer. (You can quote me to your Mom and Dad). Don’t beat yourself up on the timing, and keep your eye on what your ultimate dream job is!

After a long winter, it feels wonderful to look forward to summer! Enjoy this time of year (exams notwithstanding), don’t panic, but get do excited about getting some great experience! Look around, explore, inquire, ask, seek. You might discover an opportunity, secret and wonderful, hidden in plain sight, just like my little robin in the tree outside Park Hall.

Welcome to Our Noble Profession!

Welcome to the new Career Services blog for the University at Buffalo Law School, (SUNY). I hope that it will be a great source of information, news, events and inspiration for you as you continue to discover your career path in and around the legal profession. Our aim on this blog and in the CSO at all times is to provide resources to all of our constituents: prospective applicants, current students, alumni, and visitors. For as you may or may not know, most law graduates continue to grow and develop their careers throughout a lifetime.

Hence, this blog is named with this path of continuous improvement and education in mind. It is a reminder that the search for meaning and fulfillment extends beyond just finding jobs. We are all on a quest for work that fills the working third (or more) of our lives with the satisfying use of our skills, talents, knowledge and passion. Let's look to our roots, shall we?

The following quote is from David T. Link, Dean Emeritus of Notre Dame Law School. I hope it illuminates or demonstrates the basics behind the philosophy that your chosen field is not merely a memorization of rules, or preparation for a standardized exam. It is an honorable and ancient profession, one that is vital to the survival of our just society.

"No one event can be identified as the “beginning” of the legal profession, but it is likely that the development of the legal profession closely paralleled the development of the other ancient professions. As formerly nomadic hunters and gatherers settled into permanent communities, new opportunities arose, but so did new problems. The establishment of communities made a division of labor possible, allowing certain community members to become “experts” in certain subjects and use their expertise to serve the entire community. But the establishment of communities also gave rise to problems that people experience when they live in close proximity for long periods of time.

One ancient profession was medicine. Someone in each village or tribe was designated to treat physical problems - plights of health and of dying. Whether that person worked with herbs or animal parts or “magical” incantations, he or she was sought out to cure problems of the body. This ancient public servant was a predecessor of today’s nurses and doctors.

A second ancient profession was ministry. Someone in each village or tribe was looked to for help in answering spiritual questions. Whether this person was called a shaman, priest, priestess, minister, or some other name, he or she ministered to the spiritual needs of the people. This ancient public servant was a predecessor of today’s priests, pastors, rabbis, and other clergy.

There was a need for a third “professional” in ancient communities. In virtually every tribe, village, or settlement, someone was needed to resolve disputes about property and personal rights - to decide what those rights were, when those rights had been violated, and how violations of those rights would be remedied. In their need, the people of ancient communities turned to a Solomon-like person to heal societal divisions, resolve disputes, and record the rules or “laws” for the future. This ancient public servant was a predecessor of today’s mediators, arbitrators, and judges. "

--David T. Link

So again, I welcome you to our noble profession. Whether you seek to practice law in the private or public sectors, or in law-related or other careers, know that your education will serve you well in your life’s journey. As you navigate your options and callings, we invite you to use the CSO‘s counselors, programs and resources to help guide you.