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Was there anything you wanted you would have done differently in law school that you did not understand until you started to practice?

I wish I had dealt with my distress over speaking to people around, and asking them for, cash. When I first opened my clinic to speak to customers about money and ask them write me a check, it was quite uncomfortable. I'd read Jay Foonberg's book, How to begin and Build a Law Practice, which had suggestions on dealing with this part of practice. However, I wish I had worked with a money trainer (or even done job playing with friends) for over my distress of saying, "The retainer in this matter is X, and now I can't start work without it." Practice saying this until it feels like second nature if you do nothing else.

Do you must drive yourself to the ground the first few years of practice to make it?

During a recent visit to the University of Chicago (where he once taught), Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stressed the significance of work-life equilibrium in the legal profession, advocating students to find a clinic that "empowers a human presence" and allows for "period to attend to your other responsibilities, to your loved ones, to your own church or synagogue, to a area. All of those are actual duties," he said. Indeed, Justice Scalia recognized his own experience as a young lawyer at Jones Day in Cleveland, "where he never felt pressure to operate each weekend."

Do you see a bias against people who attend law school later in life?

Being a attorney is not only about studying the legislation and problem solving. It is about understanding clients' objectives, both personally and in a business. From that point, lawyers can develop strategies for addressing those objectives but always keeping in mind the clients' prices and total company and/or individual strategies. In a nutshell, understanding and applying the legislation, while important to any attorney's success, is only one element of what an attorney does. And, frankly, attorneys who have prior experience in the work force, prior experience, or adulthood in terms of life courses are more equipped to immediately grasp the larger picture of what it's to be a lawyer.

what's the most effective way to get work?

At the point, my husband (a non-lawyer) and I decided that our collective lack of sleep and lack of time for anything other than work was not something we were eager to sustain indefinitely. Since my income was secondary and it was financially viable, we determined I would resign from the firm (after shifting into a part-time program for approximately eight weeks).

Did any courses prove particularly useful as you began practicing?

To tell the truth, not one of my substantive law classes were very beneficial in practice beyond supplying an overall understanding of how to read and analyze a case and an overall understanding of legal principles. Perhaps the most useful abilities classes are people taught by adjunct professors on cutting-edge topics like e-discovery, social media and the law, employment law trends, and the like, in which you learn about timely topics and, presumably, would keep the knowledge for use when you graduate.

What do you like most about your job? Least?

As with most immigration companies, we charge almost every situation on a flat-fee foundation rather than on an hourly one. And that's freed up us from the shackles of the billable hour. We are judged by efficiency and customers and results tend not to argue about their bills since they are informed from day one what to expect to cover.