OPIA Blog

With the end of the summer at OPIA comes an exciting moment: publication time! In preparation for the students’ arrival in September, OPIA staff have spent the summer planning the year’s events and getting our job search guides ready, in addition to running workshops to help keep advising sessions as useful as possible. In the next few weeks, we have several new specialty guides that will become available both at our office and on our website, as well as a new supplement to our main job search guide, Serving the Public.

To offer a taste of these new offerings, here is a sample narrative from the new LGBT Rights Law Career Guide, which is now available (.pdf):

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A recent Boston Globe article explores the high frequency of depression among lawyers–higher than in any other profession, and 3.6 times the norm, according to a 1990 Johns Hopkins University study. The story focuses on Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, a group that provides confidential counseling and referrals for law students, lawyers, and judges in Massachusetts.

As we prepare for the arrival of students in a few weeks, we have also been looking back on the past year. In perusing the archives of the Record, we found a number of stories that highlight a year of public service at HLS. A selection of the Record’s public interest stories are linked below.

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The National Law Journal reports that from 2001 to 2005, the percentage of jobs taken in private firms has dropped 2%, with students showing an increasing preference for smaller firms. Meanwhile, the percentage of students entering the public sector rose from 2.9% 4.8%. Full story here.

The Manila Mail highlights El Cid Butuyan, who will serve as a Wasserstein Fellow in OPIA this fall. See the full article here.

This year the Wasserstein Fellows Program for Public Service will bring 15 outstanding public interest attorneys to the Harvard Law School campus for one or two days to advise law students about public service careers. Wasserstein Fellows are selected based on the depth and diversity of their public interest experiences, the areas of expertise which interest students, and the personal qualities that will make them excellent advisers.

During their campus visits, the fellows advise individual students on career options, speak in classes and on panels, meet with student groups, and speak informally with students at brown bag lunches. The program was created in 1990 in honor of Morris Wasserstein through a generous gift from his family.

In its Public Interest Issue, the Michigan Law Journal includes two excellent articles about public service.

The article (.pdf) by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm ‘87 focuses on justice in public interest lawyering. Writing that “justice was the concept that for me turned legalese into poetry,” Granholm argues that all lawyers must serve the public interest, reminding us of our oath to uphold truth, justice, and honor.

Michael Steinberg’s article (.pdf) focuses on the challenges of entering the public service field, concluding that the rewards greatly outweigh the sacrifices: “I cannot stand idly by and watch our freedoms slip away.”