blawgazeen

I landed in DC at the end of May setting foot on the path to Georgetown Law with a 2.4 GPA and 0 experience under my Urban Outfitters belt, however long the path may be. I went from Marketing to Law, Miami to DC, from social media entrepreneur to aspiring law student – all within a single month. A  month ago I didn’t know you could master a law degree. Pathetic!! Maybe that’s where you are. Maybe you’re in your last year of law school. And maybe you’re a well-established lawyer that stumbled onto this site. If your hiring… shoot me an email (if you need a paralegal in about 10 weeks). Regardless of your current situation, you’ll find something of interest here (if I do my job right).

I’ve been doing some research since I moved here and determined 3 things:

1) I want to go to Georgetown Law (Harvard/Yale Education + Washington, DC = #1 Law School)

2) That’s never going to happen (2.4 gpa, zero experience).

3) I’m going to make it happen (no matter what).

Once I had all that out of the way I thought of #3 long and hard and made list of  things I need to be considered for Georgetown Law:

1) Amazing LSAT – 99th percentile (172 – 180)

Georgetown – Entering Class Stats

The JD class entering in Fall 2008 represented 218 colleges and universities and 45 states, as well as 23 foreign countries. Of the students matriculating, 49% were women and 29% were minority students.

2008 Entering Class Student Profile

Applicants	10,688		LSAT	Median – 170
Enrolled Full-time	458			75th % -172
Enrolled Part-time	127			25th % -167
Women	49%		GPA	Median -3.67
Minorities	29%			75th% -3.81
International Students	8%			25th% -3.42

2) Experience – Internships, Legal Assistant, Paralegal

Having ZERO experience as a paralegal, and little administrative experience getting some kind of experience was dire, especially in this economy. So I googled “DC Paralegal” to get the broadest search results with the highest ranked and most relevant sites and found The Paralegal Institute of Washington, D.C. ranked 2nd after Craigslist.

3) Money – Loan + Job

Georgetown Tuition

Tuition for the 2008-2009 academic year is $42,065. for full-time JD students, $1,545. per credit hour for part-time students.

4) Active in Law Community – Networking

I looked up national and local bar associations, and registered as an associate – you don’t have to be a lawyer, or law student to register. Law students get the biggest discounts usually around $20 bucks or so. I found the Hispanic National Bar Association and the Hispanic Bar Association of D.C.

5)Networking – Meet with Everyone!!!

I am fortunate enough to have a brother working on the USS Sequoia Presidential Yacht.  Aside from the obvious benefits of working as a part-time employee for the yacht, they recently had the Georgetown deans and senior staff members on board as part of a retreat. I talked with the owner of the boat to make sure I was on board and off the clock during the event. I mingled and shook hands with the administrators making sure I at least walked away with 1 business card. But I had my eye fixed on the dean, who was probably wondering what I was doing there ’cause I wasn’t with Georgetown and I wasn’t working for the Yacht with a drink in my hand. At the end of the trip I “stirred” up the liquid courage to be introduced to Alexander Aleinikoff, dean of Georgetown Law. Dean Alex was exiting the yacht when we got a hold of him. I was quickly introduced as an employee of the Sequoia and an aspiring Georgetown Law student. He looked at me and it was like the spotlight was on – so I gave him the most nerve racking 15 second pitch on how much I love Georgetown and how meeting everyone reinforced my decision. He wished me luck with that, looked down at my mimosa and commented through his smirk “So they let employees drink on the boat”? Taken by surprise, I said as quippy as possible “I’m in charge of quality control”. He laughed… and I masked my sigh of relief with a lol.

6) Law 2.0 – Social Media

Twitter, LinkedIn, blawgazeen, etc…

7) Do something AWE-inspiring – aka Divine Intervention

to be continued…