I am so glad that I was already working on an externship with a legal aid organization near my home for this semester. After the events of September, I still need to be at home for a while. The externship allows me to get back on track and make progress toward my degree while being at home. I feel so lucky that Michigan State has this program! I can’t believe that the first two…

Due to the events earlier this year, I have searched for various things to make this semester productive in ways other than being in school. When a professor passed along information about a writing gig, I jumped at the chance and applied for the position. I am thrilled to say that I was selected and my first article is now live on Frontier of the Law. The article describes my thoughts and introduces…

The fall semester of my 2L year at Michigan State University College of Law started with so much promise back in August. I assisted Kevin O’Keefe at ILTAcon at National Harbor then left the next day for East Lansing. I was excited to get back to campus to meet Carla Reyes, the new director of LegalRnD.  I was even more excited to take the classes that I had chosen to advance my legal…

Early in my first year of law school, I noticed how many times the word ferret was used in cases. (I even blogged about the Property book’s description of ferrets). One day when logging in to Lexis to get my daily research points, I decided to do some more research on ferrets in the law. According to LexisAdvance, the word ferret appears in 13,645 cases. Through the years, the word “ferret” has appeared in…

As classes begin this fall, many law students have just finished their first opportunity to work in the legal field. As an ATJ Tech Fellow, my 1L (in law school, each of the three years is lovingly nicknamed 1L, 2L, or 3L) summer was spent in a non-traditional way. Since I am a non-traditional student, this fit me just fine. Although the main project I was to work on was large, I found that…

You may have noticed that I am not fresh from undergrad. Despite my life experience, I started law school with the vision that law practice would be filled with amazing technology and tools to make work more efficient. In school this year, I quickly learned that efficiency is not the pinnacle of achievement for law firms. Further, the great advances in office technology are nowhere to be found (at least not in the legal aid…

A few weeks ago, Miguel Willis challenged the ATJ Tech Fellows to create a “legal solution incorporating raced-based advocacy strategies and the design thinking process.” I’ll be honest, my first thought was “What?”, but then I remembered that back in February, I had the privilege to attend a workshop hosted by LegalRnD at Michigan State University College of Law. Margaret Hagan and Dan Linna walked us through the basics of the Legal Design Thinking Process.…