What We’ve Learned: It’s a Hard Knock Life

      Our blog was created with the intentions of informing ourselves as well as anyone else similarly interested in learning about life as a lawyer or economist. After researching and blogging about various aspects of both professions, we have collectively come to the conclusion that everyone considering these career paths should be aware of how challenging and competitive these occupations are. It is important for people to become knowledgeable on the demanding journey it takes to become a lawyer or an economist, as early as possible, so they can prepare for an extensive educational experience and make themselves stand out in order to be successful in these fields.

In fact, the minimum requirements for job placement in this field specifies that you complete:

     

                       LAWYER                                                                  ECONOMIST

Undergraduate Degree (Political Science, Criminal Justice etc.)	Undergraduate Degree (Economics, Business etc.)
Law School Admissions Test	Graduate Records Examination Test
Juris Doctorate Degree	Graduate Degree
Bar Exam	Masters Degree (varies)
Apply for a job	Apply for a job

*  Internships must be completed at various times through the education process as well.

After the education process for the future lawyers:
      Once you have the necessary education background fulfilled, passed your bar exam, and received your law license, the time comes to start the daunting task of finding a job with your law degree. Currently, the amount of lawyers in the U.S. outnumbers the amount of job positions, so there is a lot of competition in the job market. With so many people fighting over the same job, it is important that an applicant stands out to the job recruiter. If you want to read about the difficulty of obtaining a job as a lawyer in depth you can check out this blog post here: http://lawyerandeconomists.blogspot.com/2015/10/unemployment.html When researching what law firms are looking for in potential employees, a law recruiter said that these characteristics are important to have:

• Motivation 
• Law experience 
• Strong communication skills 
• Ability to work in a team 
• Humor 
• Perseverance 

      If you want to read more about what it takes to get a job at a law firm, you can read our blog post here: http://lawyerandeconomists.blogspot.com/2015/09/what-are-law-firms-looking-for.html

      It is important for future lawyers to know what background experience and characteristics they should have in order to succeed in finding a job, and it better prepare applicants for the competitive job market. The resource used to research what law firms are looking for was a recruiter for a law firm, so a primary source that decides who to hire at a firm can speak from personal knowledge about the topic. In order to find a job at a law firm, it is essential that someone is a well-rounded lawyer and person.

After the education process for the future economists:
      As you further your education in economics, whether you obtain a Masters or PHD, the probability of you obtaining a job increases. Nonetheless, before graduation you should be conscious of the criteria companies are looking for when they hire economists. For example, prior to completing your all-encompassing education, you should consider getting an internship since firms will likely hire workers that have experience working as an economist. Businesses say they would be interested in economists that have the various skills listed below:

• Communication Skills 
• Analytic Skills 
• Comprehensive Mathematic Skills 
• Detail oriented 
• Knowledgeable on Politics and history 
• Critical thinking Skills 

      To learn more about the necessary skills economists should have check out our other blog post: http://lawyerandeconomists.blogspot.com/2015/09/how-to-become-economist.html

      Being an economist requires you to excel in a wide range of skills. On top of that, many people compete for the same jobs within this field, so even if you complete all of the required education and obtain all of the necessary talents, it is still hard to get a job since firms are choosing from the best of the best all over the world.

      On the bright side, if you don’t succeed in getting your desired job, as a lawyer or an economist, you can find placement from a wide spectrum of options such as:

1. Nonprofit organizations 
2. Banking and finance 
3. Government officials 
4. Political consultants 
5. Educators 

      Whether you are looking to become a lawyer or an economist, it is important to be aware of the challenges you are likely to face in both of these fields. Even after all of the education, some of the most eager people in these professions struggle with finding a job and making themselves stand out. Despite all of this, if you are passionate about becoming a lawyer or economist then there are other avenues for success within these fields, so do not let any statistic stop you from starting a career.

By: Jasmine Shafquat, Katie Nagy, and Syarah Ahamad

How to Write a Proper Personal Statement (Economics)

     

       A personal statement is a personal essay written by an applicant for getting scholarship, grant or admission to a schools. Getting good grades will not guarantee that you will be getting a place in your chosen program. Usually a personal statement is a way for you tell a University why you are suitable candidate for admission. So, for this post, I will discuss about how to make a good personal statement for becoming an Economics major.

       First, you should avoid from making grammatical and spelling errors. Applicants should consider asking someone proofread their essay so that they can eliminate the errors and make them self sound educated. Other than that, your paragraphs should be kept short and straight to the point. Don’t forget to make the key points stand out.

      Your content must show that you are really interested in Economics. Don’t forget to emphasize the reasons why you want to study Economics and what influenced you to be an Economists in the future. Basically, this is as the platform for you to carefully think about your future (what you want to be?). Besides, you should support your theories and sentences with explanation or citation and try not to repeat the same content over and over again. Most importantly, you must be honest with yourself when writing personal statement and make it interesting to read. For the structure, you should give a general explanation about why you want to study Economics in paragraph one. Other than that, include some subjects or topics that make you interested in Economics and how a degree in Economics fits in with your future career.

       Next, in paragraph two, you should ask yourself why you are suitable for taking degree in Economics. To make it more interesting, you need to give evidence of what you says in paragraph one and two. Don’t feel embarrassed to express your love in Economics by give some example of books or articles that you always read in paragraph three. Lastly, you should include your work experience or voluntary work that related to Economics. Other than that, don’t forget to list your qualifications, awards or participation that related to Economics as well so that the readers know about your performance so far. Hence, I hope this post can help you compose a good and interesting personal statement. All the best!

Thank you.

By: Syarah Alya

Work cited:

http://whystudyeconomics.ac.uk/Your-ambitions/economics-personal-statement/

Perks of Being an Attorney

   

      After researching the legal profession for about ten weeks, I have noticed that most articles and blogs focus primarily on the downsides of being a lawyer. Sick of all the pessimism, I decided to research some more optimistic perspectives as well as interesting aspects of being an attorney.

Here are some direct quotes from practicing attorneys on why they are happy they became a lawyer…

      “As an attorney, I have also helped individual clients on thousands of real estate, estate planning, probate, and business matters… I am glad that my background as an attorney enables me to assist in shaping legislation for a better Hawaii.” Marvin S. C. Dang Law Offices of Marvin S. C. Dang, LLLC Honolulu, Hawaii

      “Why am I glad that I became a lawyer? The clients! As a lawyer, particularly a solo or small firm general practitioner, I have come into contact with (to quote Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man) the “real human beings,” the clients: the good, the bad, and the ugly, all interesting and unique in their own way. They have challenged me with problems that are always different, interesting, and intellectually stimulating—sometimes entertaining, but never boring” Cameron C. Gamble Law Firm of Cameron C. Gamble. New Orleans, Louisiana

Some reasons why you SHOULD become a lawyer…

1.  It’s Emotionally Rewarding: As an attorney you get the chance to fight injustices and make a difference by working to solve people’s problems. Personally, I do not think there is a better feeling in this world than knowing you have helped someone and made a positive impact on their life which is something I can see myself doing as an attorney.
2. The Money: Though every lawyer is not ‘rolling in dough’ per say, lawyers tend to make significantly more than the average American. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2012 the median annual wage for lawyers was about 113,000 compared to the almost 48,000 median annual wage for all other occupations.
3. Intellectually Invigorating: Attorneys are some of the most innovative and critical thinkers out there. Lawyers often have to analyze past cases and use deductive reasoning to come up with trial strategies and or mediate between two parties.
4. Influential: Lawyers have a substantial amount of influence on society. When great attorneys advocate for causes they are passionate about they can sometimes change the entire structure of society by the way they use and develop the law. 

      There are many people that are happy with their choices of becoming attorneys and I do not think that their perspectives are shown enough. I think that part of the reason why the negatives are emphasized so much has to to with the fact that it takes a certain type of personal to be able to deal with a lot of the stress involved with being an attorney, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a positive side to this profession.

By: Jasmine Shafquat

Gamble, Cameron. "Why I'm Glad I Became a Lawyer." Why I'm Glad I Became a Lawyer. American Bar Association, n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Happiness Is. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Sometimes I Love Being a Lawyer. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Prompt #5- Observing a Community

By: Katie Nagy

             A lot of people with law degrees end up going into a profession that may not include practicing law, but are still related. A common job after getting a law degree is the field of negotiations. People with law degrees have the skills to work as mediators, negotiators, and even jobs in international relations. I Interviewed a college freshman named Natalie about the Model United Nations (MUN) club she is a member of at her campus, and found out a lot of interesting information about the MUN club:

           

            “One of the interesting thing about being in MUN and going to the meetings is you realize the different ways that debate is used, so the actual debate topics are things like IP legislation vs. government transparency, so you have these complex topics that are not easy to discuss in any way, especially in a small amount of time. During the actual meetings of the club, the way we use the debates is in a comedic sense. The benefit of these comedic debates is if you are allowed to answer a funny prompt or question in front of people, then it is easier to talk in front of a crowd when you are answering a serious question. During debates, you are allowed to pass notes to each other and assist your other members, but a lot of the debates are impromptu and you may discuss a topic before a debate, but most of the talking done has been come up with on the spot. Additionally, something I like about going to the conferences for the MUN club is you are allowed to see many different sides of people, and in particular you can spend 4 days discussing IP legislation and other difficult topics that are debated by very intelligent people."

       Along with the intelligent debates at MUN, Natalie also loves the experiences in her club. Natalie states about the club, "One thing I love about MUN is the energy associated with it, you sit in a car to a conference for 10 hours and then you bond with everyone you are working with and you are put in committees together and you become so close with so many people after four days. You can see the solidarity and relationships that exist. In a committee, there are blocks or groups of countries that align together and make resolutions and in the clubs there are blocks depending on gender, e-board, etc. and it is very interesting to see the way that works and how everyone works together. Everyone in the club pulls their own weight, and everybody is seen as equals."

           

           After the interview with Natalie, perhaps the most surprising information I learned from her was the solidarity in the Model United Nations club. Lawyers are seen as sharks that debate and fight for the win by themselves, but in Model United Nations, the whole club has to work together and has a common goal in mind. With lawyers, everyone at a firm has to rely on someone else for help and everyone has to work together for the firm to succeed. The Model United Nations club is a great stepping-stone for a future lawyer.

International Relations Club. Digital image. Web.wm. The College of

       William and Mary, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.

Prompt #3 : Exploring Communication

       For this post, I get the opportunity to interview my professor that teach Intermediate Macroeconomics. I get to know more about communication style used by him and other economists. The first question that I asked him is about the common misconceptions in field of economics. He said that some researchers use a lot of mathematical definitions and proofs to explain the economic relationships that they are describing. Other researchers don't like to use as much formality, and prefer less rigorous descriptions of economic relationships.

        A common mistake is to use one approach without the other. Often we can understand an economic relationship from a story or a graph, but using more rigorous mathematical or logical reasoning helps us to make sure that we don't make mistakes. Another mistake researchers make is to just look for statistical relationships in the data without trying to understand the economic theory behind the relationship.

       Besides, he explained that he try to use a variety of methods of communicating and give a clear verbal description of whatever theory or model in class, which is usually the most difficult part. In some cases, there is a "real world" story or example of the theory, like when he talked to his students about Ford or Costco paying an efficiency wage. Real world examples are good because they help people to understand the theory or model, and because they show people that the theory or model is actually relevant, because they show that the theory or model accurately describes the real world.

       Finally, if there is a good graph or simple mathematical example that demonstrates the model, he like to either project that on the screen or work through it on the blackboard. Working through on the blackboard or document camera is preferable, because then students can see the process or the steps that he take in working through the logic of the model.

       Other than that, he stated that in daily life he usually talking to one person or a small group of people. Basically he know those people, know what they know, and can tell from their facial expressions and from their responses to what he say whether they understand him or not. In a classroom, it is much more difficult to see whether the audience understands what he says. He also don't know what background knowledge students have.

       In economics, theories that they learn in one course build on theories that they have learned in previous courses. If he assumed that students already understand some background material when he described current material and students don't have the background that he assumed, then they will get lost. So, he need to be more explicit about what he assumed when explaining a concept and need to be more careful in ensuring that students understand to what he said.

       In economics, they work with a lot of formal mathematical models. Either they try to prove that some result follows from the assumptions of these models, or they try to use data to estimate the relationships between the variables in these models. In his research, he generally using data from a specific setting, like data on taxes and borrowing by cities and other local governments. So he try to also give a good description of the laws and institutions in that setting before he begin.

       Then, he will describe the relationships between variables that economic theory predicts will hold, the model that he used to measure those relationships. Finally, he describe the statistical results that he find. In writing he need to be careful to describe exactly what statistical or mathematical results that have discovered, and show the audience that the results are interesting and important, without exaggerating those results.

        In writing academic papers, he usually try to be clear and concise in what to say, rather than use a lot of clever or entertaining phrases. There are a lot of very skilled researchers who do not have great writing or speaking skills. Thus, it can be a big advantage to have good communication skills. Also, it is useful, even in formal academic papers and presentations, to use stories or simple examples to demonstrate the basic idea of a theory or model. Hence, I hope that this explanation can give you more information about how the communications style used by economists.

Thank you.

By: Syarah Alya