From Africa to Lawrence and back: One student’s journey

Law school was always part of “the plan” for me. I did not know what I wanted from it or what it could give me, though I gave my best guess in my personal statement. When classes began, my thoughts were elsewhere. I had just finished an internship at the U.S. Embassy in Malawi and had fallen in love with the sights and sounds, the work and people. Little did I know I would end up in Windhoek, Namibia, for my last semester of law school. I just needed time to fit the plan and the passion together.
The seed was planted when I walked into Professor Raj Bhala’s International Trade Law class in August 2012. From that first day, I have drawn inspiration from Professor Bhala’s combination of legal study, politics, economics, history and travel. This triggered a search for something similar: where my work within the law could intersect with that passion for economic development born in Malawi.
I found a spark in my paper topic for Professor Bhala’s Advanced Trade course: I wrote about Sub-Saharan Africa’s failure to use the WTO dispute settlement mechanism and need to build legal capacity to change the status quo of international trade law. In subsequent semesters, I studied economic development and international business and saw an opportunity to get experience on the ground – an internship in Africa. 
After a month or two of sending applications, the Legal Assistance Centre’s Gender Research and Advocacy Project in Namibia offered me an internship in September.  My round trip flight was booked in November, and I left in January.
Here my primary work is contributing to Namibia’s first publicly available annotated statutes. I also help Dianne Hubbard, the American ex-pat and Harvard Law grad in charge of the Gender program, do advocacy research. I search for comparable jurisdictions that have enacted policies we want the Namibian government to model. Such searches include corporal punishment, voter registration for local elections and bail restrictions for those accused of gender-based violence.
Finding statutes and court cases is the most unorthodox part, especially when the Internet connection is down for a day or two, or a ministry office is empty because people come late, leave early and respect the 1 to 2 p.m. lunch hour over all else (though I am doing my best to assimilate, trust me).  For all its unusual challenges, this work is rewarding, I know my skills are continuing to improve and I am showing employers my intents and passions.
I may not yet know what is next for me, but I now have faith in the process.  After all, I started and will end law school in the same place – just back from Africa.   

Student: Law school strikes ‘balance between competition and congeniality’

Julia Leth-Perez

When deciding to go to law school, many of the people I consulted told me of the cutthroat practices among law students: classmates ripping pages out of casebooks, destroying each other’s class notes and giving false answers in study sessions. It was with apprehension I began establishing my relationships with the other incoming students.

The truth is law school by its nature creates a competitive environment. Long gone are the days of an “A” for effort. Pressures from class rankings and the forced curve are obstacles that can be hard to overcome. Learning among brilliant, talented and diverse students creates an intellectual culture that most will never encounter in undergraduate studies. It can be both rewarding and frustrating at the same time.

During my first semester at KU Law, I was exposed to the balance between competition and congeniality. When I missed class, classmates from my small section emailed me class notes before I asked for help. The weeks before finals, we spent our time together, studying and encouraging each other. We are there for each other in both our academic and personal lives. In my short time at KU Law, my classmates have become my family who I lean on during difficult times and support during theirs.

Law school is competitive, legal jobs are competitive, and we all want to succeed. Despite the common thread of far-reaching goals, we are all searching in the dark together trying to decode the text and transform it into knowledge. We are not only peers, but also friends and future colleagues. At KU Law, success is not defined by a number on paper, but by the ability to compete while creating lasting relationships.

— Julia Leth-Perez is a first-year law student and KU Law Student Ambassador from Wichita, Kansas.

‘Everywhere you’ve lived and all the jobs you’ve ever had’: Tips from a 3L to prepare for the final year of law school

Michele Kraak

As my time at Green Hall winds down, I wanted to reflect on what I’ve learned. I’m not talking about which classes to take or how to study. Instead, as I scramble to finish my bar application by the deadline, I want to share five practical life tips so hopefully 1Ls and 2Ls will be more prepared than I am.

First, when you take the MPRE, it will ask you to select your reporting state. Maybe I’m the only one who made this mistake, but I understood that to mean where you go to school. For some reason, I thought the score would be reported to the school, and then I would get it from there. Wrong. Your reporting state is wherever you plan to take the bar. If you change your mind later, or if you’ve already taken it and made the same mistake I did, it will just cost you $25 to transfer the score, so it’s not the end of the world. But it’s still one more thing I had to do for my bar application.

Second, start writing down all of the addresses of everywhere you’ve lived and all of the jobs you’ve ever had. For the bar application, you will need to include your addresses for the past 10 years. Luckily, for Missouri at least, you’ll only need the full addresses for the past three years, and after that you’ll just need city and state. But it can still be a challenge to think back that far. For your employment, you’ll need to remember when and where you worked, the address and phone number, and your boss’s name. If you’re like me and you had a summer job at a retail store one year in college, you might have forgotten some of these details. Write them down while you remember, or look everything up now so that when the time comes, you can just copy and paste all of that over to the application.

Third, while we’re on the topic of the bar application, start saving now. I know that might not be possible for everyone, but if you have even just $50 or $100 extra a month, put it in a savings account or just make sure not to spend it. You’ll have to pay quite a bit for any of the bar review courses, and the actual bar exam application itself costs a lot. Right now for Missouri, it’s $910 just to apply, plus whatever I owe for the bar review course. And the worst part is you’re going to owe all of this right at the same time. So put away as much as you can right now so it’s not too overwhelming when you get to this point.

Fourth, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of graduation, but make sure you think of a plan early, especially if you have family and friends coming from out of the area. My family is coming from the West Coast, so my mom booked hotels all the way back in August and got the last three rooms at that hotel. Also, places like the Oread and Johnny’s will book their event rooms quickly, so if you’re thinking of having a party with your friends, get on it early in the semester. Remember, we aren’t the only ones graduating that weekend. Plan ahead and get everything taken care of by September or October at the latest so you don’t end up getting shut out.

Finally, enjoy your last year! Go to events you haven’t been to yet. The law school has so many great ones all year, like Casino Night, Pub Night, the Halloween party and, of course, Law Prom. Most importantly, enjoy winter and spring breaks. Even if you don’t go anywhere or do anything super fun, just relax and watch TV and sleep in. Unless you end up being a teacher some day, these are probably the last breaks of your life until you retire. Yikes! So make the most of them!

— Michele Kraak is a third-year law student and KU Law Student Ambassador from Oklahoma City.

Student reprising audition for ‘American Ninja Warrior’ relieves law school stress through training


I first heard of the television show, “American Ninja Warrior” (ANW), when one of my classmates confessed that he could not stop watching it. I stifled a laugh as I thought of “Wipeout,” a television show intended to produce comedy rather than competition—but ANW is no laughing matter. Consisting of an obstacle course that demands agility, endurance and grip strength, only three competitors in 34 seasons of the show have ever touched the final buzzer.
ANW intrigued me immediately. The course plays well to my strengths, and I am always on the lookout for a physical challenge to shake off the psychological distress that so often accompanies law school.

KU Law student Zen Mayhugh

Exercise as a tool to combat stress and elevate mood is well documented. The researchers of one study reported that participation in any form of daily activity was associated with reduced risk for all types of psychological distress, even when controlling for factors, such as age, gender, SES, marital status, BMI, chronic illness, and smoking.1 Research has also consistently shown that exercise alone can significantly reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.2It has even been shown to be as effective as antidepressant medication in the treatment of clinical depression,3 which may not come as a surprise, given that exercise acts on the same pathways in the brain that antidepressant medications target.4
I have always been active, but during law school I have made a concerted effort to capture the stress reducing and mood enhancing effects of exercise. One method I have used is to commit myself to demanding activities. During my first semester I trained for a winter backpacking trip to a mountain cabin that sits at 12,000 feet. During my second semester I trained for and completed a triathlon. Many law students put aside their personal life and health in their efforts to become a lawyer.5 Research shows the incidence of clinical depression among law students to be as high as 40 percent.6Incidence of other symptoms such as clinically elevated anxiety and hostility among law students have been measured at 15 times the general population.7This significantly exceeds the emotional distress of medical students, and even approaches that of psychiatric populations.8 Most troubling is that these problems seem to carry over into professional practice. In a Johns Hopkins study, practicing lawyers ranked highest in major depressive disorder among 104 occupational groups.9
At the beginning of my 2L year, I was in need of a new physical challenge. So when I discovered ANW I thought, why not audition? I organized a training regimen around the obstacles on the ANW course: rock climbing, strength training, agility drills, and mobility work. This was certainly a time commitment, but intense training took my mind completely away from law school, and soreness was something to feel good about—especially when I was stuck in a chair for most of the day.
When I got the announcement that auditions videos were being accepted, I recruited some of my cinematographer friends to capture my best ANW moves, and a little personality, on film. Along with 7,000 other ANW hopefuls, I submitted an audition tape and waited.10
I got the call during finals. I had taken three tests, had two to go, and, at that point, had forgotten what ANW was. Still, I was awarded one of 400 slots to compete on ANW. The competition would happen in Denver 10 days after I was scheduled to take my last final. All I could do at the moment was make a note to buy a flight to Denver, and I went back to my study carrel.
Check in for the competition was at Denver’s Civic Center Park. The obstacle course constructed there took 10 semi-trailers to transport and a staff of 130 to assemble.11Security staff was on hand to keep the public—and competitors—outside of the gates surrounding it. They bristled as other competitors and I loitered at the gates, peering in at the obstacles and running through them in our heads.
The competitors were divided into two groups. The start times for the obstacle course was an obstacle in itself, with the first group running the course between sunset and 1 a.m., and the second group running between 1 a.m. and sunrise. I was assigned to the first group, and we were finally allowed inside the gates surrounding the course but only for a demonstration of each obstacle. We were not permitted to attempt or otherwise touch any of the obstacles.
After the sun went down, the temperature dropped into the mid-40s. The challenge quickly became to stay warm and loose. The designated warm-up area was equipped with pull-up bars and a vault trampoline; not ideal equipment to stay warm for hours on end. Sleeping bags appeared all around, and many competitors disappeared into them.
My turn to run the course came just after 11 p.m. To see how I did, you will have to watch the show, but I can say I was awarded the “Warrior Wipeout of the Day.” Not exactly what I had in mind, but being featured on the show, especially in slow motion, bodes well for making a repeat attempt at the course, which I’m training for now. After all, I have another year of law school, and I need a little competition to get my mind outside the walls of Green Hall.
— Zen Mayhugh is a third-year law student at the University of Kansas. He hopes to practice in recreation risk management. You can watch his audition video and the ANW episode in which he was featured on his blog at www.zenmayhugh.blogspot.com. This article first appeared in the November/December issue of the Journal of the Kansas Bar Association.
Footnotes
1. Mark Hamer, Emmanuel Stamatakis, & Andrew Steptoe, Dose response relationship between physical activity and mental health: The Scottish health survey, 42 Brit. J. Sports Med. 238 (2008).
2. Stuart J.H. Biddle & Nanette Mutrie Psychology of Phsycial Activity: Determinants, Well-Being and Interventions(2007); Lynette L. Craft & Daniel M. Landers, The effect of exercise on clinical depression and depression resulting from mental illness: A meta-analysis, 20 J. Sport & Exercise Psychol. 339 (1998); Bonita C. Long & Rosemary van Stavel, Effects of exercise training on anxiety: A meta-analysis, 7 J. Applied Sport Psychol. 167 (1995).
3. James A. Blumenthal, et al., Effects of exercise training on older patients with major depression, 159 Archives of Internal Med. 2349 (1999).
4. C.P. Ransford, A role for amines in the antidepressant effect of exercise, 14 Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 1 (1982).
5. Lawrence S. Krieger, Institutional Denial About the Dark Side of Law School, and Fresh Empirical guidance for Constructively Breaking the Silence, 52 J. Legal Educ. 112 (2002).
6. Id., at 114.
7. Id.
8. Kennon M. Sheldon & Lawrence S. Krieger, Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory, 33 Personality Soc. Psychol. Bull. 883 (2007).
9. Krieger, supra note 5, at 114.
10. Alexandra Cheney, How to Beat the “American Ninja Warrior”Obstacle Course, The Wall Street Journal (June 29, 2013), http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/06/29/how-to-beat-the-american-ninja-warrior-obstacle-course/.

 

11. Id.

Law school gives 2L the ‘swimming lesson’ she desperately needs

KU Law Student Ambassador Jordan Carter No one pushed me into the deep end of the pool when I was a tot. I had a fear of drowning and resisted formal lessons because swimming in the deep end terrified me. Today I am a competent swimmer, comfortable enough in the water to know I won’t drown, but I’m never the strongest nor the fastest person in the water. Instead of taking responsibility for this underdeveloped skill, I blame the fact that no one ever forced me to face my fears by just pushing me in the deep end. The people around me were too nice.

Law school, on the other hand, is not so nice.

Over the past year and a half, every time I begin to feel like I know what I’m doing and maybe I’m getting this lawyer thing down, I am pushed to try something new. As a result, I have had a whole host of experiences I would not have expected before starting at KU Law.

1L year was full of these moments because I just had no clue what was happening. In Lawyering, rather than just talk about what oral arguments were, we had to do our own oral argument. Sure, it was only 10 minutes for a mere 10 points in front of the most laid-back professor in the building. Even so, I panicked for days beforehand and my classy/professional look was sullied by some major sweat stains. And yet, I survived, and now I know how to do an oral argument.

Over the summer, I worked at a litigation firm. Midway through the summer, we did an all-day trial practice program. As a 1L, I had not yet taken Evidence; the only trial techniques I knew were the ones I learned from Law & Order SVU. Armed with a few questions I threw together and a vague idea of what I was trying to accomplish, I stumbled my way through a direct examination of a witness. I did not know how to get my witness to go where I wanted him to go. I did not know when or how to object. I literally said at one point, “Uh, I don’t know how to say what I’m trying to say.” IN FRONT OF THESE AMAZING TRIAL ATTORNEYS I WAS TRYING DESPERATELY TO IMPRESS. I was terrified. I sucked. And yet, I survived, and now I know how to do a direct exam.

This year I have a judicial internship for a district court judge in Kansas City. Even after a year of Lawyering and a summer of legal writing, this internship has been a totally different experience. It’s a whole new ball game when there are real people with real problems involved. The stakes are high when I know my draft order will influence whether a plaintiff can pursue his or her complaint or whether we will dismiss the complaint altogether. Whether it’s an employment discrimination claim or a civil rights action, people trust the courts to give them a fair and just result. The judge and his clerks are counting on me to provide a comprehensive, accurate draft order. Every time I turn something in, I feel nervous and question whether I got it right. And yet again, I have survived, and each week I feel more confident that I can write a good draft order.

Law school has pushed me out of my comfort zone in a big way. KU Law professors and the surrounding employers and mentors understand that the only way to prepare us for practice is to push us into the deep end. They offer us opportunities to safely try new skills with minimal potential for failure. We receive meaningful and constructive feedback so that when the time comes to do all this lawyer stuff for real, we’ll be ready. As terrifying as it can be, they are teaching us how to swim.

— Jordan Carter is a second-year law student and a KU Law Student Ambassador from Topeka, Kansas.

Casino Night raises more than $2,500 for student public interest law stipends

KU Law students at Casino Night 2013

On Oct. 18, law students and friends dressed up, ready for an evening to remember. The reason to put down their casebooks and highlighters and forget about the stress of law school? Public Interest Law Society’s 10th annual Casino Night. The events included poker, blackjack and roulette, as well as food, libations and plenty of music. Upon entering the “casino,” guests were given casino chips to play at the various games. The more chips a person had, the higher their odds of winning prizes at the end of the night. Chips were cashed in at the end of the night for raffle tickets. Guests were then encouraged to place their tickets in the basket corresponding to the prize they wished to win.

KU Law students at Casino Night 2013

For an additional $15 charity donation, guests could enter the prestigious poker tournament overseen by Professor Dennis Prater. One poor player found himself losing all his chips within the first hand dealt. The lucky remaining three players battled for prizes: a 23rd Street Brewery gift card, a $100 Cabela’s gift card and the grand prize of two Big XII Men’s Basketball Tournament tickets to all sessions at the Sprint Center come spring.

This annual event not only encourages students to explore careers and opportunities in public interest law, but also raises money to extend stipends to students who volunteer at public interest law organizations such as Kansas Legal Services, Legal Aid of Western Missouri, Disability Rights Center, and American Federation of Government Employees. Public interest lawyers rely on grants to work hard for human rights, to represent the underprivileged, and fight for the “little guy.” This year, the PILS executive team is proud to announce that Casino Night raised more than $2,500 to be donated toward the stipend.

— Jacqueline Ratkey is a second-year law student and president of the KU Public Interest Law Society.