Resume Booster

Pen and ink caricature showing a lawyer arguing very strenuously while three judges are sitting at the bench, napping.While I was working into the evening on the third floor of Eckstein Hall, a friend stopped to catch up.  On the table in front of me were piles of handwritten notes, highlighted cases, outlined arguments, and cheat-sheets, organized by Petitioner or Respondent.  Color-coded flashcards were stacked in the corner. I was surrounded by seven-and-a-half weeks worth of sticky notes. I was a few days away from my moot court competition, and reviewing every single note card’s scribbled phrase, ensuring I was ready for any and all arguments from opposing counsel and questions from the judges.  She gave me a sympathetic look.  “Moot court,” I said.

She asked if I felt it was all worth it, for “just a resume booster.”

I looked at everything in front of me.  Seven-and-a-half weeks of color-coded chaos.  The disorganization reflected my anxiety.  But all of it also reflected an extraordinary amount of work and number of hours mastering an area of the law that just seven weeks ago I found foreign and intimidating.  I smiled.  Was it all worth it?

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Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Wellness in the Legal Profession: Change is Necessary

Symbol of a heart with a jagged line representing an EKG printout superimposed over it, in order to represent the concept of "wellbeing"Last week, the American Bar Association (“ABA”) designated and celebrated October 10th, 2018 as National Mental Health Day for Law Schools.[1] This date coincided with the World Mental Health Day.[2] The ABA’s National Mental Health Day for Law Schools serves as a vital reminder that the legal profession is not immune from mental health problems. In fact, the numbers themselves highlight just how important discussing and tackling mental health and wellness are to both law schools and the legal profession in general. Both law students and lawyers suffer in large numbers from mental illness and substance abuse. Therefore, it is important to address these concerns and to help both law students and attorneys live a life that focuses on their wellbeing.

Statistics on Attorneys

In comparison to other professions, lawyers themselves experience higher rates of mental health issues and substance abuse. Attorneys are the most frequently depressed occupational group in the United States, and they are 3.6 times more likely to suffer from depression in comparison to non-lawyers.[3] In a study of roughly 13,000 practicing attorneys conducted by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, 28% of the attorneys reported experiencing depression, 23% reported experiencing stress, and 19% reported experiencing anxiety.[4] Of these participants, 21% are qualified as problem drinkers, and they “experience problematic drinking that is hazardous, harmful, or otherwise generally consistent with alcohol use disorders at a rate much higher than other populations.”[5]

This same study found that younger attorneys, rather than older attorneys, are at a greater risk for experiencing these issues.

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10 Things You Didn’t Know About Study Abroad Opportunities at MU Law

The interior of a classroom as Professor Pablo Rueda-Saiz stands at the front of the class and studdents sit attentively in their seats.
Professor Pablo Rueda-Saiz teaches Comparative Constitutional Law in Giessen, Germany
  1. An Orientation Session about your study abroad opportunities during law school, with important deadlines, will take place Thursday September 6 at 12:15 pm in Room 257 of the Law School.
  2. The shortest study abroad opportunity takes place over Spring Break 2019 and is a component of Professor Schneider’s International Conflict Resolution class.  The class will travel to Israel and study the Israeli-Palestinian conflict first hand.
  3. The month long Summer Session in International and Comparative Law, scheduled to take place in Giessen, Germany Saturday July 20 through Thursday August 15, 2019, includes multi-day field trips to Berlin and Hamburg.  In Hamburg this past summer, MU students danced until dawn and then had breakfast at the Fish Market as the sun rose.  Apparently, its a thing.
  4. MU Law regularly hosts exchange students visiting for an entire semester from the University of Comillas in Madrid, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Poitiers  in France.  Oddly enough, these students find Milwaukee to be an exotic locale.
  5. At the same time, MU Law students have the opportunity to spend one or more semesters of their legal education as a visiting law student in Madrid, Copenhagen, or Poitiers.  We definitely get the better of that deal.
  6. Professor Sorcha MacLeod, who teaches in the Summer Session in Giessen, Germany, is an expert in the law of armed mercenaries.  And I thought I was cool because I teach Con Law.
  7. You can explore the Study Abroad homepage on the Law School website, however updated information for 2019 will not be available online for a few weeks.
  8. After teaching in Germany for 6 summers, I have come to the conclusion that the words “German” and “pizza” should never be used in the same sentence.
  9. Things you learn teaching Comparative Constitutional Law: the first two words of the German Constitution are “human dignity,”  while the U.S. Constitution did not originally mention human rights at all.
  10. Did I mention that an Orientation Session will take place Thursday September 6 at 12:15 pm in Room 257 of the Law School?

 

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