First Impressions In My Backyard

I got a first dose of what law school would be like today; not so much the work, but rather the people. It was IMBY day, which is an optional event that stands for "Not in my backyard." Being the antithesis of the common political acronym NIMBY, IMBY day tries to promote AU Law kids to get out into the city and stress the importance of public service. The location that they sent me was a The Women's Collective, a non-profit that was founded by a woman with HIV to provide counseling, support groups, medical advice, and even fun events for women with AIDS, HIV, or women who are at high risk. It's a really great group and I'll probably write about it more later. Some of the other sites included a transitional center for homeless and a food distribution center that teaches homeless people job skills.

While there is a definite leaning towards work for nonprofits, public interest, and human rights kinds of law at AU, the most important thing that they want us to learn is that no matter what field of law we chose, we still have the ability to be the good guys and fight for what is just, even in corporate law.

While American admittedly was not my first choice in law school, I'm very very happy with my decision. Law school will be tough anywhere but I can definitely appreciate a school that focuses so much effort on restoring the nobility of the legal profession and making us see that the world is much larger than ourselves. The fact that this was the first big event of our law school careers really set the tone of what they expect out of us and I really like these expectations. While it is hard for me to compare it to other schools because I obviously don't go to them, this was the only school that sent me packets and packets of information about how they try to encourage their students to go out in the city and go out and help people. Although people can choose to take this route or not, it's good to see a school so supportive of this kind of mentality. It's perhaps what I need to match my values with my priorities since I always loved community service but did very little of it in college, especially in comparison to how much I did it in high school.

It was also incredible to see probably around 150, about half of our law school class out at this service day. That was good to see out of my class as a whole and my first impressions of individuals were also really good. Whether it was kids straight out of college like me or people who are married and have kids themselves, almost everyone I met was down to earth and really friendly. Perhaps this is a skewed sampling considering that these are the kids that actually woke up for 8am service day, but since it was half the class, I expect good things. Some 2L student did even mention that AU is kind of known as being a "kumbaya" law school since everyone gets along. There apparently isn't as much sabatoge or cold people as there are at other places.

So all in all, I've had a really good impression of my school and its people. While first impressions aren't everything, I certainly think that they're important.