She graduated with honors, with a wonderful husband, and with a job. Cf. poor Warner. As promised!!! More pics than words because that’s what everyone really wants, right?! ? PRE-GRAD ACTIVITIES BOAT CRUISE A great night with my best law school friends! Ben made it back from training just in time to attend. TREEHOUSE BREWERY I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again…Treehouse is the best brewery on the east coast. Possibly in America. Grabbed a few brewskis with my parents and our Air Force friend John! 2022 CLASS DAY Showed the bros around the Harvard campus & did a bit of famil ..read more

The final frontier, if you will! The bar exam is the last step to becoming a licensed attorney in the US. The exam is meant to test a person’s ability to think and write like a lawyer; basically, it assures new JDs can meet minimum competency standards to actually practice law. Bar passage is required by every US state and jurisdiction. This post is an overview about the exam itself (specifically the Uniform Bar Exam, for all you lawyer-types out there) and answers a few bar-related questions that I frequently encounter! FORMAT In most states, the bar is a 2-day test on the last Tuesday and W ..read more

I turned in my LAST PAPER EVER on Friday, May 6 at 5pm. Law school is officially ✨over✨. So you’re probably wondering - uh…what comes next? TLDR: I start studying for the bar now; graduate on May 26 with my Juris Doctor (not a lawyer yet, just a Doctor of Laws, but JDs don’t go by “Dr.”); stay in Boston to study for the bar; take the bar on July 26 + 27 in Minneapolis (don’t get results til October); then move to my first duty assignment as an Air Force JAG at…drum roll pleeease… Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma! NOW – BAR PREP + PRE-GRAD CELEBRATIONS What’s that saying? “No r ..read more

In case you weren’t sure if this was a happy vibe or sad vibe We have ARRIVED at May 1, 2022 and I graduate in 26 days. Holy. cow. By this Friday, I’ll be done with Law School Stuff forever (assuming I pass my classes - but at this point, I don’t think they want me sticking around much longer). Here’s a quick look at how everything is wrapping up! LAST CLASS Was Friday, April 12 - Military Law until 12:30. It was very odd to walk off campus and know I’ll never sit in another class or get another cold call. Odd, but not bad. I took a selfie to capture the magic. LAST FINAL I submitted my last ..read more

Two weeks ago, I published a ‘Military Jury Pt I’ post with complete confidence in the final essay for my military law class. I had some good research in the bank, a boom-boom-boom outline, and a concept that made total sense in my head. Things were going swimmingly. Until they weren’t. Twenty eight years and an English degree should’ve taught me that a paper rarely ends the way it starts… Instead of a Pt II post on the OG paper, this is now a Pt I post about the new and IMPROVED version. It’s still about the military jury, it’s just not about the 6th Amendment right (or lack of a right) to ha ..read more

“The majority of your grade,” my military law syllabus reads, “is based on your research paper, which must be at least 7,000 and no more than 10,000 words (approximately 20 to 30 pages in length).” Long papers generally replace exams for HLS seminar courses, but this is definitely on the ‘longer’ side. Since I’m spending sooooo much time writing this bad boy, in true LBAF fashion, you now have to hear about it ??? I chose a topic that has always intrigued me, in both the civilian and military worlds: jury in a criminal trial. This post runs through the ‘big points’ of my paper, distilling lots ..read more

Approximately 10 years ago, right as COVID was kicking off, I wrote a post detailing my average day as a 1L. Things have obviously changed since then. I transitioned to Zoom to finish 1L spring, stayed online for 2L, and returned to campus with masks and COVID tests as a 3L. My class officially made it full circle as a “mask optional” policy went into effect for the entire campus last Monday, March 21. In light of said circle, I thought it might be fun to compare my 1L day to that same day as a 3L - and boyyyy this exercise had me giggling. 1L me lived quite a frantic (if no less busy) lifesty ..read more

I know, I know - I cried alllll last week about how much I have going on, and now I’m hitting you with a spring break post. HEAR ME OUT - it’s my last one. ‘Twas in pursuit of a goal. And I got a LOT of work done during my flights and down time ? THE 50 STATES Sometime in college, I set a personal goal of visiting all fifty states.* I’m from Illinois and grew up trekking all over the Midwest, plus up and down the IN-OH-KY-TN-GA route to see family in the south (and Disney!). I also have an uncle who lived in Hawaii/Florida and a few relatives around Virginia, so I hit those pretty early. By 18 ..read more

The final week of my Self-Care Series addresses one of my favorite parts/perks of law school - the outfits. Yes, I’m serious. No, I didn’t come here for the clothes! (Elle Woods inspo notwithstanding). But this is a limited chance to wear what I want for the foreseeable future, so of course I’m loving every second. And I do think this falls into the “self-care” realm: when you look good, you feel good, and when you feel good, you do good! But re: law school attire, let me start by saying this: you can wear whatever you want to law school. Louder for the people in the back: YOU CAN WEAR WHATEVE ..read more

The third week of my Self-Care Series addresses a super important, very necessary part of law school: relaxation ?‍♀️ I read a study recently which found “96% of law students experience significant stress,” compared to “70% of med students and 43% of grad students.” It also said most law students “start law school with high life satisfaction and strong mental health measures,” but “experience a significant increase in anxiety and depression” within the first year of law school. Overall, law students are “among the most dissatisfied, demoralized, and depressed of any graduate student population ..read more