Experience matters

In the job hunt, experience matters more than almost anything else. Your personal charm and amazing resume might get you an interview, but experience - proven experience - almost always gets the job. Yes, personal connections make a difference when two potential hires have comparable backgrounds, but experience always comes first. During law school, I worked as a volunteer on capital cases with the Oregon Justice Resource Center's Death Penalty Project. I wanted to get experience working on appeals, and enjoyed the challenge of researching and briefing issues exhaustively. Transcript summaries may get somewhat tedious, but civil liberties issues first interested me in the study of law, and there is no liberty more fundamental than life. Given numerous exonerations, and DNA testing that can help to overturn decades-old convictions, capital defense remains an important specialty that is helping to make justice a reality for capital defendants. My civil liberties interests were fully indulged during my summer externship with the ACLU of Oregon, where I had the opportunity to work on issues ranging from free speech to search and seizure. My research and writing skills were put to work in defense of the bill of rights, and it felt good to see tangible results. We worked on everything from researching the constitutionality of proposed laws to preparing FOIA letters.

The adventure begins

This blog started as a way to chronicle my life and times as a student at Lewis & Clark. Most of the posts from my law school days are cross-posted from my official blog at Lewis & Clark. Now that I have earned my J.D., I hope to turn this blog into a place to reflect on the legal profession, the law, and my take on what is good and bad in legal news. Thanks for dropping by, and feel free to reach out with suggestions, praise, or constructive criticism.

Thanks for the memories

Thanks for the memories Becoming a part of the Lewis & Clark family has been a lot of fun. The people I have met and the opportunities that I have enjoyed during my time here have validated my choice to become a Pioneer. Although I will miss the daily interactions on campus, life after graduation does not mean life without my Pioneer family. It seems like I run into a fellow Lewis & Clark Law graduate nearly every time I leave the house. Portland is a fairly large city, but the legal community here has the feel of a much smaller place. We’re all in this together, and the Oregon bar has been supportive and welcoming of new graduates. Attorneys are generous with their time, and offer helpful advice and reassuring words to this new J.D. as he seeks to find a place in the thriving legal community here. It has been a great pleasure to share my experiences as a student at Lewis & Clark, and I hope that my blog posts have provided at least a small window into what it is really like to earn a law degree at Portland’s law school. Thanks for taking the time to visit, and I wish you all the best.