This week has felt a little calmer than last week, as with the end of the 1st 6 weeks, there wasn't as much due. I did go on another interview yesterday, with a solo private practice Business Immigration lawyer, Rebecca Whitehouse. I think I really underestimated the full range of experience and knowledge I'd gain through ISM, because now 1/6th of the way through the year, I've already visited two different kinds of lawyers and know more about the professional world than I have learned in all of my previous years combined. It was so interesting interviewing Ms. Whitehouse because as she works completely independent of any larger firm, she has so much flexibility in the cases she takes on and the work she does. In contrast to this, I have scheduled interviews with two more professional for the upcoming weeks. I will soon have one with another immigration lawyer, and next week I have one with another divorce lawyer. I am still splitting my interviews between immigration and divorce, which although they both interact with people, are vastly different. As I become more interested in family and divorce law, I really feel like I'm going to have to complete more research assessments on it, instead of focusing solely on immigration law, in order to keep my options open. I also have a few "leads" on some nonprofits that have lawyers I could interview, and I'm excited about those because nonprofit law was originally what I had in mind for ISM this year, so if I was able to schedule interviews with some, I could pivot back to my original plan. All in all, it was a really informative week, and I'm anticipating all the fascinating interviews and research still to come.
Another week has flown by and now we're in the last week of the first six weeks. I had my first interview on Thursday, which was so informative and such an incredible experience. My interview was with a family and divorce lawyer in Dallas, Ms. Rebecca Armstrong, and she seemed extremely skilled and good at her job. The journey getting there was in and of itself a learning process, being my first time driving to Downtown Dallas by myself, and having to figure out parking and where in the building the KoonsFuller office was. I ended up liking her a lot, and if anything, she made me reconsider what I thought my main focus was going to be. Previously wanting to hone in on immigration law, now I'm thinking that divorce and family law could be a really good fit. Ms. Armstrong even talked about how in the beginning she didn't think she was going to enjoy divorce law and then it ended up being great for her, and maybe it could be like that for me. I also have set up two more interviews, one this upcoming Thursday and one the week of October 9th and I'm working on getting my fourth finalized. As I schedule more interviews, I'm still very much going back and forth between two major fields, family and divorce law and immigration law, and hopefully in the next few weeks as I complete more interviews and do more research, I'll be able to solidify what I really want to focus on this year. So overall my question from this week forward is how can I continue to get the most out of my interviews and what can I do to decide what my main focus will be this year?
It's going to get redundant quickly, saying "it was another fast-paced week," but truthfully, it was another fast-paced week. I have officially scheduled one interview for this upcoming Thursday, and I've reached out to many additional professionals to hopefully plan more in the near future. This weekend I went shopping and got a professional outfit, which is really exciting, and as of today I will have already completed my third major Research Assessment. Last week felt more like a week of revelations, deciding to veer away from nonprofit, into human rights law, but I still got a lot out of this week with the simpler things like improving my communication with lawyers and building my resume. Generally speaking, I think that I've become a lot more comfortable with talking through LinkedIn and emails, but I'm still wary with talking over the phone, so I hope that some phone calls that I need to make will help me acclimate to verbal communication this week. Speaking of, my resume rough draft was turned in this Friday. Overall, I wasn't shocked about how much or how little was on it, but it is inspiration to try to participate in things that will build my resume more in the upcoming future. From here, I still would like to understand what professionals are looking for when they read resumes? Are there any specific things lawyers want to see when hiring? And what is the best way to keep professional shoes looking polished and nice?
This was another fast-paced week in ISM. Our first Research Assessment was due last Monday and I learned a lot more than I thought I would from reading and annotating one article about the basics of a career in law. Since learning the most common forms of law, I've decided that nonprofit law specifically will be hard to mentor. Instead I would like to shift my focus to private civil law. I still want to mentor a lawyer whose primary focus is on helping people directly, however I now understand that it may not be in the capacity of nonprofit. Additionally, I reached out to many professionals earlier this week through either LinkedIn or by contacting them through their website. Overall I'm not sure how many will end up connecting back with me, but at the same time I've very excited about the possibility of interviewing the ones that do. For this next week, I would like to expand my knowledge of private law and explore my new professional connections by reaching out to them with the more pointed goal of scheduling interviews. I still want to know how different it is to be a lawyer working for a larger non-law organization and how it compares to working solely for a law firm? I also still want to understand what the environment is like because although I know more about the day-to-day functions of a law firm from my first Research Assessment, there is still in-person experience I won't be able to acquire until I'm physically sitting in a office, surrounded by professional lawyers.
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