today, i drove through the suburbs.
🎶 drivers license (slowed + reverb) - Olivia Rodrigo
I spent a week in the California suburbs where I grew up, and oh boy. I wish I could say that I had an awesome time, but I honestly didn't. Did I enjoy seeing my dad and my high school friends? Of course. But did I enjoy being in San Ramon, California? Absolutely not. Something strange happens to me whenever I visit the site of my most embarrassing and formative foibles.
the infinite regress of the suburbs.
I've always been one of those people who was particularly sensitive to environment. I studied for the LSAT at the Yale Law Library because I thought it would help me absorb the high LSAT scores of those around me. There's something awe-inducing about being somewhere that I know that others, who may have had similar confusions and ambitions, were.
But when I'm in my childhood home, I have no awe. I only have shame. The shame of getting my period in 5th grade and not knowing what it was. The shame of not knowing how to dress in 6th grade because I had clothed myself primarily in free t-shirts up until then. The shame of fumbling my response when a popular girl asked me "how are you" as a rhetorical greeting. (I thought it was a real question. Why isn't it a real question?)
In middle school, I met the girl who used to live in my childhood house, in my room, and I remember thinking that she was so pretty and well-adjusted. She had very straight brown hair and sang in the chorus. And every night, I lied in bed in the room where she used to sleep, and I could not feel connected to anyone or anything at all.
It wasn't until later in life, thousands of miles away, that I would ever feel like I truly "belonged" in a place.
✍️ ask cece
how do you support yourself financially during law school?
Q: Did you work full-time while in law school? If not, how were you able to afford going to school? What type of paid jobs did you have while attending?
- ally
A: I didn't work full-time while I was in law school. The American Bar Association (ABA) actually prohibited 1Ls from working more than 20 hours per week when I was in law school. (The ABA has since dropped that prohibition.) I, like many of my peers, took out student loans to cover living expenses during the school year. Student loans are incredibly easy to get (probably too easy, tbh), and most students I knew didn't take on paid jobs during the school year, spending their time instead on journals, clinics, and other student organizations.
In all honesty, I think Harvard Law students treated loans way too cavalierly, which was only possible due to the privilege of knowing that we really had to screw up majorly to not get a biglaw job and the existence of the Low Income Protection Plan for aspiring public interest lawyers. This privilege meant that not a lot of students worked during the school year. (One guy I know even bought an engagement ring with his student loans.) For HLS students and those similarly situated, summer fellowship funding and biglaw summer internships (which pay first-year associate salary, just prorated for the summer) supplemented our student loans to cover living costs. I wouldn't recommend this route unless you (A) want to work in biglaw and attend a school that reasonably guarantees that you will find employment in biglaw or (B) your law school's loan repayment assistance or forgiveness program (or the federal loan forgiveness program) covers your intended public interest career.
While it's not advisable to work during 1L, you can definitely work during the school year of 2L and 3L (in addition to any paid summer work you may do). Chloe Diaz, one of my favorite lawtokers, has videos about working during law school. See her videos about how she figured out when she could balance work with school and how much she got paid during law school. You'll still probably have to take out an eye-popping amount in student loans (unless you have scholarships--which you should really try to get during your admissions cycle!), but paid legal work during the school year and summer can decrease the amount of loans you'll have to take out.