Law School Semester Update

I'm back!! It has been such a busy semester- I thought 1L year was supposed to be the hardest, not 2L year. To be honest, this semester hasn't been "hard" or "difficult" but really just busy. As previously explained, I took 4 classes for 14 credits, and am on the Jessup International Moot Court team that is also a credit (but a lot more than 1 credit's worth of work). I have also spent a considerable amount of time networking and applying for summer jobs.

I know a lot of you reading this are either in law school or considering going to law school, so I will briefly discuss how my life in law school has been going :)

Negotiation Competition

When my friend Travis called me over the summer for my birthday, he challenged me to try something completely new with him: the ABA Negotiation Competition. Around the country, the American Bar Association hosts a negotiation competition where law students in teams of two "compete" against each other in two preliminary rounds to negotiate business deals for fictitious clients. We are given a prompt the day before with mutual information for the two parties and secret information, such as the personal situation of our client, what they are willing to compromise on, and what they are totally unwilling to compromise on. Travis and I represented an attorney who first looking to enter a partnership with another attorney they had known in law school, then looking to liquidate the partnership ten years later. We stuck to our information and tried to balance each other out during the negotiations, but unfortunately the judges felt that we were not one of the top teams competing and we did not get invited to the final BU round (the winner from the BU round competed in the regional competition in December). I am glad I participated in the competition not only to have another legal experience, but also because I had a lot of fun and it showed me that it's something I might be interested in pursuing in the future.

Jessup International Moot Court

By far the most time-consuming yet most rewarding activity I have participated in this semester has been Jessup Moot Court. Five of us law students (2Ls and 3Ls) were selected to represent BU Law in the International Moot Court competition. The competition is a combination between mock trial/moot court (obviously) and Model UN for law students. Last year was the first time in 10 years that I did not participate in Model UN, so I am thrilled to be back studying, writing about, and discussing international issues, even if the topic and forum is a bit different. This year's topic concerns climate change migration, an emerging international issue due to global warming and rising sea levels. Unfortunately, because it is emerging, there is not much research available, which makes doing research to write the briefs next to impossible. Of the five of us students on the team, my partner and I are representing the country that went underwater, while two other students are representing the country that took my country's money and citizens. The fifth person is our captain who assists with research and writing. I personally am researching and writing about statehood (when a state does or does not exist) and foreign sovereign debt from an international legal perspective. Before the semester began, I really did not know any of the other four people on the team with me, but throughout the semester I realized how lucky I am to be working with them because they are all down-to-earth and easy going, yet wicked intelligent. Because of this, I am looking forward more and more to our regional competition in New York City in February (and if we win there, nationals in DC in April!).

International Law Society

As President of the International Law Society (ILS) I have been substantially helping the point people for each of our events this semester. We hosted three major events: the Legal Status of Puerto Rico (the day before the election on statehood), International Issues from a Global Perspective, and Doctors of the Darkside. For the Puerto Rico event, we had two BU Law professors who had written about the island's status discuss their paper and their thoughts on the statehood vote. If you care to read the actual paper, here is the link for it: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1374874. The event itself was amazing: the room was overflowing with over 100 students who took time away from their studies to come listen to our professors, and we ordered the most delicious Puerto Rican food to serve for lunch. Our Puerto Rican Vice President, Cesar, did an amazing job promoting and organizing the event.

The International Issues event was also successful, in a much different way. Organized in part by our LLM Representative Bego from Spain, this event had a panel of 8 LLM students (including myself representing the USA- I never would have thought to include the USA, but everyone else insisted it was necessary) from Iran, Saudi Arabia/Greece, Venezuela, Brazil, China, Germany, Spain, and the USA speaking on a wide variety of issues, from oppression in Iran to oil in Saudi Arabia and China, to the Euro, and finally about socialism in South America. Many other vocal LLM students came to ask questions and share their opinions with their classmates, and the Americans who attended were fascinated at the "insider" information on different countries.We are hoping to host another similar event with a different set of panelists next semester. I think these events are great and also necessary for promoting globalism and tolerance, especially for Americans who do not have the opportunity to travel to see other cultures and meet people from other countries. For example, Venezuela is portrayed negatively by the American media because of its President Hugo Chavez, but our panelist from Venezuela is super friendly and pro-American/anti-Chavez, which shows that Venezuela and its people are not terrible, they just have a leader who the American government is not happy with.

Some panelists from the LLM Event (Credit: Ali Delforoush)

Finally, the Doctors of the Darkside event was probably my biggest headache of the semester because of issues with funding for food and rights to show the film, but it was also a great success for the club and BU Law as a whole. This event was brought to us by one of my classmates who feels strongly about the alleged torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The film describes the detainee situation at Guantanamo Bay and the former situation at Abu Ghraib as a way to foster awareness about these detention camps and ultimately to gain support for pending Massachusetts legislation against torture. We had watched a similar film in International Law just a week before the event, so I have to admit I wasn't able to handle the stories and graphic nature of the film and had to leave after only a few minutes, but the room was again packed with people, not only those affiliated with BU Law but journalists and people from the greater community of Boston.

BU Law Parties

Law school is not only academic but also provides opportunities for socializing and fun. Three of the big parties I attended this year were the boat cruise, the Halloween party, and the Inter-LALSA Salsa.

Monster, Ninja Turtle, Raggedy Anne, and Marylin Monroe

The boat cruise (top 2 pictures) and Halloween party were sponsored by our student government, and the Inter-LALSA Salsa brought together students in "Latin American Law Student Associations" from BU Law, BC Law, Suffolk Law, and NESL at a Latin club downtown for a night of Latin dancing. Although I loved my classes this semester, these experiences are what I enjoyed the most and will remember best after I have graduated.