Friday Five 4/6/19

Well, it's been a while since I have done this. Life has finally slowed down a touch... just in time for final exams. I have 2 weeks of class left in my entire academic career which is CRAZY. This week has been full of classes, catching up and starting my exam prep. I have also been trying to enjoy the nicer weather and spend time with my husband and pups. Here are some snaps from my week:

Spring colors

Puppy day at the law school is the best

Pasta is always a good idea

My pup Garth turned 5 this week!

And Gracie turned 3!

Now here are my Friday Five:

Life Lately

Happy April Fools Day!

Long time no blog! After a busy few weeks, I am finally getting back to it. This post is just a little about my life lately and all the things that have been keeping me so busy that I haven't had any time to blog.

The second to last weekend in March, I had my Moot Court competition in NYC. More coming on the details of my Moot Court experience later but overall it was a super fun weekend exploring the big apple and the competition was a wonderful learning experience.

What to Wear in Law School: A Week's Worth of Outfits

Good Morning!! 

I get so many questions through the blog and as a student tour guide at my law school about what people wear in law school. This was something I was super curious about before starting law school also. Did I need to wear a suit every day? Are leggings ever acceptable? As silly as it sounds, what to wear was one of my biggest sources of anxiety as I prepped for my first year of law school. 

Now that I am in my third year, I have the law school wardrobe pretty well figured out. I have discussed what to have in your closet as a law student before (see this post) and today I am sharing a snapshot into my outfits throughout a whole week of law school. 

As you will see, I do not dress up much for law school. There are days where I will dress business casual for an event or networking function but my general law school wardrobe is full of skinny jeans, soft sweaters, flannels, and simple dresses. I generally avoid sweatpants and leggings but don't get me wrong- I have plenty of days where that is the best I can do and there is NOTHING wrong with wearing leggings to law school. It is a personal choice for me to rarely wear sweats or athleisure and has to do more with my working almost every day than it does with being a law student. 

Book Review + Giveaway!

Happy Friday!

Instead of my traditional Friday Five, I am doing a book review and giveaway today! Over Spring Break, I had the pleasure to read Trials and Trails by Jim Halverson.

How to Approach and Connect with Professors

I have had several requests for a post on approaching and connecting with your law school professors. I totally understand why people wonder about this- it is so easy to be intimidated by law school professors when you first start law school. These people are so smart and accomplished and it is hard to feel like you can approach them when you feel like you know absolutely nothing. However, if you never overcome this, you will miss out on a really beneficial process of learning from the professor and connecting with them outside of class as potential references.

The connections I have made with professors during law school has been one of my favorite parts of the process. Beyond the fact that I learn so much from them, my professors have helped me with issues in my personal and professional life. Getting over being intimidated allowed me to get to know my professors and form connections that lead to much better references. Here are my tips for approaching and connecting with your law school professors.

Friday Five 3/7/19

Happy Friday!

I was on spring break all week and it was glorious. Though I wasn't quite as productive as I had hoped to be, it was so nice to sleep in, watch some TV and get caught up on some projects around the house. Unfortunately, Monday is back to the grind.

Over the weekend, I traveled to Chicago to go bridesmaids dress shopping for one of my best friends wedding this October.

On Wednesday, I got my hair colored so it is back to fresh blonde to finish out the semester.

I hung out with my horses and played with our adorable new baby Farrah!

I decorated my house for St. Patricks Day! My Irish heritage is so happy right now.

Now for the Friday Five!

Why I do a Monthly Meal Plan

I am on Spring Break this week and it has been a very welcome reprieve in a very busy semester. I finally have time to do a few projects around the house, catch up on my reading list, watch some TV, catch up on my outlines and get some much needed extra sleep.

Another thing I have done over Spring Break is make a meal plan for the month of March. I have talked about meal planning on the blog before (See this post)- that post has a lot more info about the exact process and tips for starting out with meal prepping as a beginner. I credit meal planning with saving my sanity and my waistline regularly. Basically, meal planning means that you make a list of meals for either the week or the month and then you just get home and have dinner planned. Meal planning helps me save money when shopping because I buy ingredients I can use multiple times throughout the week and it saves us money because we go out to eat less/order in less.

Friday Five 3/1/19

Happy Friday! Can you believe it is MARCH already?!?!?! This year is flying by!

My week was pretty uneventful. It was the last week of classes before spring break so mostly I was just getting by and waiting for it to be over. Today I am driving out to Chicago to go bridesmaid dress shopping for one of my best friends weddings and to just have a fun weekend with friends. After that, I will be on spring break and I am looking forward to a break and getting a headstart on my to-do list.

Heres some snapshots from my week:

Can you ever go wrong with a classic blazer? The answer is no. 

My pups love each other so much!

Ran into this cutie at the law school... totally made my Wednesday!

Now for my Friday Five:

Book Review of The Dinner List by Rebecca Searle

Happy Monday!!

Today is book club discussion day!!!! February FLEW by! It's month two in the online book club I started with Danielle and so far it has been super fun!

This month we read The Dinner List by Rebecca Searle. We will be discussing the book on our Good Reads Group Discussion Board today but I am sharing more of my personal thoughts on the book here.

Transitioning from 2L to 3L year

Hello friends.

My apologies for being basically MIA for the last few weeks. I turned my Moot Court brief in on Friday and finished the Advanced Leadership Academy I was attending on weekends yesterday so I finally have some free time back to spend on the blog.

Today's post has been requested by several people so I figured I would give it a shot. Transitioning from 2L to 3L year was much easier than the transition from undergrad to 1L or from 1L to 2L. At this point, I have law school classes pretty well figured out as well as balancing classes with extracurriculars (such as Moot Court) and work. The first bit of 3L year seemed like it was going to be pretty chill and not very different from 2L year.

Friday Five 2/15/19

Happy Friday and Happy 50% off chocolate day!

My week was pretty much full of paper writing... my moot court competition brief is due next Friday so I have been working on it like crazy. Otherwise, it has been a pretty unexciting week.

I went to brunch with my lady friends on Galentines Day. We are puppy sitting for a friend and she arrived on Wednesday so now we have a 4 dog house. My husband cooked dinner and brought me the sweetest gifts for our 9th Valentines Day together. I baked a pink cake because why not??

I am spending the weekend at home with my family and horses and I can't wait!!

Here are some snaps from the week:

Galentines Day Brunch 

Stormi will be staying with us for a while 

   

Now on to the Friday 5 (or 6)!

Friday Five 2/8/19

Happy Friday!!

What a week. Overall, my week was really good. We received some very good news about my dad's health, my husband and I booked a vacation, I got caught up on school work and cleaned my house. This weekend I get to hang out with my best friend in the whole world and ride horses so it's going to be a great time! Here are a few snaps from my week:

Fetch with the little princess

Loving my new J. Crew Factory jacket!

Tips for Legal Research and Writing

Happy Hump day!

Today I am coming at you with a highly requested post about research and writing in law school. I will preface this with saying I am not the best researcher or writer at my law school and I am okay with that. I have learned a process for research and writing which gives me a solid end product that is correct and respectable.

It has not been easy; I really struggled during my 1L year with research and writing like a lawyer and moving away from the style of writing that had worked well for me in all previous schooling. For anyone else out there who is not naturally good at legal research and writing, I hope this is helpful to you and you can learn from my mistakes and hard-earned lessons.

GIVEAWAY of a Clever Fox Planner

Happy Monday!!

I am kicking the week off with something very exciting for my followers. I recently began using a Clever Fox Planner to organize my life and I am LOVING it. Over on my Instagram account, I am running a GIVEAWAY of a Clever Fox Planner. Thank you to Clever Fox for partnering with me on this awesome giveaway.

Check out the giveaway HERE:

View this post on Instagram

🎉🎉 GIVEAWAY TIME 🎉🎉 @cleverfoxplanner and I have teamed up to giveaway one Clever Fox Planner to a lucky follower! . . Please follow the directions below to enter. . . ⚫️ You must be following @thelegalduchess and @cleverfoxplanner on Instagram. . . ⚫️ You must comment on this photo in Instagram tagging at least two friends who might be interested in a new planner to get organized. . . ⚫️BONUS ENTRY if you share this giveaway on your personal Instagram or Instagram stories. . . ✖️Giveaway will close Monday 2/11/19. Winner will be announced via @thelegalduchess on 2/12/19.

A post shared by Brandy (@thelegalduchess) on Feb 4, 2019 at 7:52am PST

Friday Five 2/1/19

Happy Friday and happy February!!

This was basically the best week ever because I had TWO snow days. Though the weather was frigid, it was amazing. I slept in, cuddled my pups, caught up on housework, watched lots of Netflix, baked stuff... it was amazing. Unfortunately, today means back to reality. Here are a few snapshots:

  

Here are my Friday five!

How to Choose a Bar Prep Company

THE BAR EXAM

Words that strike a small sense of terror into every law student. The test that determines whether or not you will be allowed to practice law. The test that quite literally determines your future. If you want to be a lawyer and you are not thinking about the bar exam, you should start now.

My law school starting prepping us for the bar exam right in orientation. Bar exam passage has been low universally among all law schools the last few years so they wanted us to start off strong and do everything we could to prepare over our three years in law school for the bar exam. The strategies they implemented included requiring all students to complete classes in bar tested subjects, multiple choice questions on all exams, semester check in's on where we should be in our bar prep process and a professor dedicated to helping us with bar exam questions.

One of the most important parts of the bar examination process is choosing a company for your bar exam preparation course. Basically, if you graduate in May and take the bar exam in July, you spend those 3 months studying basically nonstop for the exam. The most effective way to do this is with an intensive commercial bar preparation course. Some of the most popular companies are Themis, Barbri, and Kaplan. These intensive bar preparation courses provide you will condensed instruction on the relevant black letter law, practice multiple choice questions, practice essay questions, essay grading, support staff and test-taking strategies to excel on the exam.

Sunday Six 1/27/19

Happy Sunday all!!

Last week was a 4 day week (Hallelujah!) and though busy, it was pretty good. I was very busy with school and research and work but I managed to get plenty of quality time in with my hubby and fur children.

We held our first "Book Club Day" for the online book club I started with a friend on Friday (more on that here).

On Saturday, I attended an Advanced Leadership Conference for representative graduate students at my college from all programs (Law, Med School, Pharmacy, etc). In order to attend you had to be nominated by a professor based upon exceptional leadership skills. I was honored to have been nominated and it was a very educational day full of networking and growing leadership skills.

Today, I am relaxing a bit and prepping for another busy week. Since I didn't do my Friday Five this week, I opted for a Sunday Six instead.

Book Review: Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan

Good Morning! Happy Friday!

Now that I am co-hosting an online book club with Danielle of the Love Danielle Blog, I decided to start doing book reviews of the books we read each month. Today is book club day (we open up our discussion for comments on the book) and I am sharing my full review of Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan instead of doing my traditional Friday Five post.

This book has excellent reviews and has been a #1 Amazon bestseller. It is being adapted as a movie that will star Tom Holland as the stories hero, Pino Lella, an Italian teenager who unexpectantly becomes a part of the resistance against the Axis powers and a spy in the German military.

I was so excited to read this book because I LOVE WW2 history. It is by far my favorite period to learn about and read about. However, I know the least about the Italian theater of the war so this book was very educational for me on that front.

Overall, I loved the book. It was a little slow to start but once it hooked me I couldn't put it down. There were three distinct sections in the book- the beginning where Pino was not involved in the war, his time in the Mountains accompanying Jews over to Spain on Ski's (which I enjoyed reading about because I am an avid skier) and his time as a Nazi soldier and spy for the Allies.

All three parts of the story take place while Pino is 17-18 years old... he was still a child and yet he risked his life over and over to help the war effort and fight the Nazi's in every way he could. We also learn in the book about Pino after the war and how he lived his life during peace. He is still alive to this day and lives in Italy. There are several colorful characters in the book that either incited my adoration or my anger.

I don't want to give away too much but I will say that there is much more to this book than just war and heroism. There is currents of strong friendship, the love of family, the strength of faith in hard times and a dash of romance, humor, and tragedy. Overall, I fell in love with the idea of an Italian teenager who ended up in the middle of a war and instead of choosing to keep his head down and just get by, he jumped into the effort with both Ski's and did his part of the war effort. He is an inspiring figure and I am so glad that his heroic story was not lost to history. I wish I could thank Mark Sullivan personally for sharing the story of Pino Lella and making sure he gets the recognition he deserves for his heroism during one of the darkest times in our history.

5 out of 5 stars!

If you are interested in our online book club, here is some more info:

• There will be a book chosen at the beginning of each month
• We have no specific genre. We are just picking books we think are interesting and are always open to suggestions or ideas. 
• We will have a private discussion board for members of the Book Club to discuss, compare opinions and get to know each other. This will be hosted on GoodReads and the link to our group is here: A Novel Idea Online Book Club 
• Toward the end of each month, we will have a "book club day" to discuss the book and our thoughts on it. 
• We will also be having some guest bloggers to choose the book of the month and moderate the discussions to shake things up

If you are interested in joining the Book Club (everyone is welcome!), please follow this link to sign up for the email list: https://goo.gl/forms/159wUDKpxqXXZySD3

Have a great weekend everyone!

Latest Purchases

Happy Monday!

Today I am posting a round-up of all of my most recent purchases. I am a bit of a shopaholic... I love clothes and Amazon and Target. I try to be mindful of the budget so I do usually confine my shopping to things that are on sale. And there is NOTHING I love more than a good sale!! So here is a round up of everything I have bought over the last few weeks.

AMAZON

I bought one of these quartz rollers to put on my face serum. It is supposed to encourage circulation in the skin. So far I like it! It was less than $10.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D27145L/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07D27145L&linkCode=as2&tag=thelegduc-20&linkId=94025483f5c4ddb2b99b37c58d0e5e2e

I ordered this to use on my face at night. Hyaluronic Acid is SO good for your skin and I love that this is a gel- it goes on SO smooth. It is also less than $15- score!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NR1YQHM/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00NR1YQHM&linkCode=as2&tag=thelegduc-20&linkId=2a74ba17bbbddcd1306dc3a0e1a4318b

I needed a new pop socket for my phone but I got this instead. It is so cute in the Mickey Mouse shape and works great! I got a 2 pack for less than $7!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077CLVFFZ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B077CLVFFZ&linkCode=as2&tag=thelegduc-20&linkId=cdb00bb3193871b3ac71635d1265c487

These leggings are AMAZING and under $12!! The even have the pocket for your phone and come in a million colors. They are super comfy and wash well.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07F2GXW2Z/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B07F2GXW2Z&linkCode=as2&tag=thelegduc-20&linkId=05c1930ed4dcb2a7400e53126477d9b2

I made a new years resolution to pack my lunch every day and these are perfect to pack in!! You get so many for the low price!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079QKJ6CQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B079QKJ6CQ&linkCode=as2&tag=thelegduc-20&linkId=aaf4587d6a18d82f1eef4c31503dabaf

J. CREW & J. CREW FACTORY 

This was my latest J. Crew Factory order. I LOVE J. Crew in general and they always run such good sales on the regular and Factory site. I was able to get all of this for less than $100 thanks to the code CLEAROUT!!!!!

https://factory.jcrew.com/p/J6140?color_name=hthr-graphite&N=2

https://factory.jcrew.com/p/K2187?color_name=black&N=2

https://factory.jcrew.com/p/K4944?color_name=black&N=2

https://factory.jcrew.com/p/J0584?color_name=wild-berry-white&N=SMALL

This was my latest J. Crew order. I snagged this whole order for $110 thanks to the 70% off promo code GOFORIT.

This cute bathing suit was around $11 for both pieces.

https://www.jcrew.com/p/J2489?color_name=CERISE&srcCode=EMOP00001&utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order-confirmation

https://www.jcrew.com/p/H8449?color_name=CERISE&srcCode=EMOP00001&utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order-confirmation

This gorgeous Tweed Jacket was under $60.

https://www.jcrew.com/p/K3783?color_name=BLACK%20METALLIC%20MULTI&srcCode=EMOP00001&utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order-confirmation

This adorble gingham suit was under $20 for both pieces.

https://www.jcrew.com/p/H7650?color_name=WISTERIA%20IVORY&srcCode=EMOP00001&utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order-confirmation

https://www.jcrew.com/p/J1771?color_name=WISTERIA%20IVORY&srcCode=EMOP00001&utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order-confirmation