Tammy ’04: The people at William Mitchell make a difference

Tammy ’04 fits the description of a “traditional” law school student. At 25, she came directly to William Mitchell College of Law from Minnesota State University, Moorhead, where she earned bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and International Business.

Now in her third year of law school, Tammy has some perspective on her career plans and on her law school experience to date. In particular, any fears she might have had about competitive classmates have disappeared, replaced by the camaraderie of studying together and sharing a beer after class.

“What has surprised me the most about law school is how wonderful the people are. I didn’t know what to expect as far as a competitive atmosphere. I quickly learned that the people in my classes were some of the nicest people I had ever met. We helped each other through the first year, and we’ll likely help each other well into our practicing days. You spend the first year with the same group of people, so you get to know them well. I know about their significant others, parents, children, pets, former jobs, where they went to undergraduate school, and I’ve heard many a funny story.

Being that I’m pretty green, I enjoy the non-traditional students. They have more life experience and bring those experiences into the classroom. For example, some of them had been in litigation before or had bought a house and shared their abstract with the class. Little things like that make class more interesting. The faculty is full of good people who make excellent professors. Most have a fine sense of humor -- that means a lot to me.

I found the first year manageable. I was in the laptop section. The best part of using a laptop is the convenience in taking notes and taking exams. Professors can post notes and Power Point slides to BlackBoard and students can download them right onto their computers and augment the professors’ handouts with their own notes. It saves time and paper! Moreover, as a section, the laptoppers get more feedback from periodic quizzes than do other sections. One disadvantage to using the computers is how dependent we become on them. When they don’t work life can be frustrating.

I’m planning a career in corporate law. I took Business Organizations last year and am taking, among other classes, Tax and Corporate Finance this year. I interned at Northwest Airlines and that, too, has been a learning experience. This summer I clerked at Greene Espel, a law firm in Minneapolis.

I like to keep at least one day a week where I do little law school work. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. My advice for a person considering law school would be to make sure you’re ready to invest a significant amount of time into making law school work. It’s not hard. It’s not easy. It’s challenging. You get out of it what you put into it.