Part 2 of the Nontraditional Students series
Welcome to the Legal Learning Podcast. I’m your host Jolene and with the Legal Learning Center I hep pre-law students and law students with their legal journey. Today’s guest is Tina. Tina was a mom during law school and shares her experience with us.
Financially Free Aspiring Attorneys is a course with over $300,000 in money saving tips starting in high school and going through law school graduation. For more information on how you can avoid law loans.
00:08 S2: My name is Tina Kestan, I am currently a partner at a law firm in Newport Beach, we specialized in workers comp defense.
00:16 S1: Alright, how old was your daughter when you applied to law school?
00:27 S2: She was a toddler when I began law school, so… I’m trying to think. Yeah, she was probably two or under…
S1: When you were applying, were you in college or working or… What were you doing?
S2: Well, I had taken a gap a couple of years after I graduated, I got married and I became a mom, and then I applied to law school.
00:56 S1: Did you have any trouble with taking the LSAT and the application as a mom and having to juggle those things.
01:05 S2: Not with the LSAT… I was able to study for that at home and applying was easy back in the day, so that process was fairly straightforward.
01:18 S1: And how was starting law school with a toddler?
01:23 S2: It was challenging. My law school offered a part-time day program, specifically geared towards working parents, so it offered classes during the day when your children were in school, for instance, so that you could just attend when they’re attending classes. I did have to take summer school for a couple of summers, but because of that program, it was very manageable for me, so
01:53 S1: What was, if you can remember, the schedule like more or less between… School, studying and taking care of the family.
02:03 S2: Sure, generally, I was in school from, let’s say, 8 in the morning until the afternoon, maybe one or two in the afternoon, a couple of days a week. I think that as I got further along in my law school career, I could, with electives, pack my day so that I was only there maybe two days a week, and I do believe I took some night classes as well, so that I minimized the time that I was actually at school. And when I was not in school studying, I studied when I could, I studied at dinner, I studied when my daughter was sleeping, I studied on the weekends…
02:45 S1: Yeah, I know for me, I was definitely in blocks: school study, sleep, and that was kind of it. So it sounds like you were just a little bit more scattered. Just doing what you could. When you could… Is that accurate?
S2: That’s true. And also additionally, I did wanna be part of the law school experience, so I joined clubs, I met people, I had study groups, I met at the library. I really did want a comprehensive law school experience.
03:16 S2: I did spend time with my child, so it’s not as if I abandoned her, but I did find that I had to juggle several things at once, but it was very manageable for me but difficult at times…
03:30 S1: You mentioned the networking and so forth, the hanging out with other students, so did the other part-time students engage in networking or was that what you did with maybe full-time students?
03:41 S2: No, I had several friends, we were all in the same program, and we also engaged in networking together and separately, we interacted with a full-time day students as well, of course. And nighttime students. So my law school offered several different programs, a variety of different ways you could accomplish your goal of getting the JD, but specifically, I did make friends in my own program.
04:08 S1: Did you find that it was limiting in any way to be in the part-time program?
04:12 S2: Not really, the only difference was I was there for four years and some summers versus being there full-time three years, but it was okay. I actually thought it was maybe even less stressful, and being there as a full-time day student.
04:29 S1: And you took summer school?
04:31 S2: I did and those were at night, so it was really… It was really okay. I hung out with my kid during the day, study if I needed to, and then went to school at night, so it was actually… Okay,
S1: okay, so did you do any internships over summer…
S2: A good question. I’m not sure if it was my first summer or my second, but I did do two internships, the first internship was at the City of Los Angeles. And then my second externship, actually, I was with the DA in Ventura County.
05:08 S1: So it sounds like you still got the full experience as far as being exposed to really good entities to intern and externship with…
05:16 S2: Absolutely, I didn’t feel limited at all, I wanted to do an internship and an externship, and that was made available to me
05:26 S1: As you went along, any different tricks or tips that you noticed were helpful with managing home life and school life?
05:34 S2: Absolutely, having a child, much less a toddler, does require support from outside sources, so whether that’s your partner, your parents, your siblings, day care, you do need support because someone needs to watch your child while you’re away. Having said that though, because my child was a toddler when I was in law school, I put her in day care because my spouse worked, so that was our choice and that was fine, she was young enough to interact with children her age so that I could go to school, I also took a lot of advantage of breaks during the school day, so at lunch time I would try and either socialize or network or study with people. So I think for me the most effective thing was to have a plan of your day, map out your week, if you can, and just say, This is what I’m gonna accomplish each day.
06:31 S1: Were there other parents in the part-time day program…
06:34 S2: I think we were all parents.
06:36 S1: Okay, and did you notice any differences as far as maybe some people just drowning, and if you can tell what those differences were.
06:47 S2: Other than the usual law school stress, I don’t think that there was any difference in my program with that, and frankly, that we were all moms, okay. I’m sure it’s open up two dads as well, but when I was there, we were all moms, we all had at least one child, some of us had two children, I don’t think we felt any more stress than any other student did, to be quite honest,
S1; and did you feel as you approach graduation and starting to study for the bar exam, that there was a difference there.
S2: It was challenging again, so for the summer, we continued to have our child in daycare so that I could use the time to study for the bar. So I had to take advantage of child care alternatives for study time.
07:36 S1: As far as changing throughout the programs, I know you said that you tried to combine your classes so that you were only there a few days a week. Did you find that it was difficult to navigate between the daytime and nighttime programs…
07:47 S2: It also depends on what your interests were, what electives you wanted to take. Other than it being dark, being on campus later, there wasn’t a lot of a difference, although I thought the culture of night school is a little bit different, I think you had a lot more working professionals there, a lot more parents too, because of the same reason so I think there was more of a sense of maturity at night school, summer school, but I mean the classes were the same.
08:16 S1: In your summer school classes, was there a difference in those as far as how difficult they were or the vibe of them…
08:25 S2: No, the difficulty depended on the subject. I can specifically recall taking an immigration law class, which I absolutely love, and I just thought it was fun and great, the students, it seemed to be a packed classroom as I recall, so the students were great and friendly, just like the daytime students really…
08:45 S1: Do you remember your study schedule for the bar exam?
08:49 S2: vaguely. But I think what I did was about six weeks before the bar, I really focused… I studied as if I was at work, so I studied from, say, 8 to noon, took a lunch break, and then from one to five, and then I shut it down because I think over-studying can be exhausting and your mind needs to rest…
09:11 S1: Yeah, I definitely agree with that, by the way… For sure, that’s exactly what I did as well. In this audience, we definitely have single and married parents, and I see these questions all the time, How to study any other overall advice that you would have for these students to help them prepare and be successful?
09:34 S2: Well, my recommendation for the bar, especially with regard to the essays, is to take a bar review class, I took Barbara, I’m sure there are plenty of them out there. And to also just practice writing essays, practice a template for every subject, have one opening paragraph and just write and just write twice a week and time yourself and take advantage of the cards that they give you for the multi-state. You can buy… I bought a lot of material, I listen to audio tapes… I’m sure there’s podcasts. Now, they didn’t have that back in my day. Right.
10:15 S1: But
10:15 S2: I had a tape or CD that I listened to. Driving to school, I had probably a 40-minute commute. So just practice, practice practice is my best advice. And
10:28 S1: For those parents who are looking for jobs that are kid-friendly, is there anything that you can recommend that they look for, and whether it’s an interview or a feel… Well, I am in the workers compensation field, which is not something I had probably even heard of when I was in law school or had any interest in, to be honest with you, but when I passed the bar, I started throwing my resume out there to anyone who would catch it, and I happened to have gotten the first decent offer for a job from our workers compensation practice, and it worked out beautifully for me as a working mom, the hours re-flexible, the pay was good, the stress level, not as high as civil.
11:12 S2: And I did do some civil work in the same firm, so there’s a lot more stress in the civil arena, so if you’re looking for a good work-life balance, I can’t recommend enough. The field of worker’s compensation, whether it’s on the applicant side or the defense side, I’m currently on defense, but I did start as an app with an attorney, I just find that it has worked for me now, 15 some years
11:34 S1: Later as so… Great, so it sounds like your child is no longer taller… No, my child is a legal adult NAPO and I’ve had another one along the way, so… Alright, well, thank you so much for your tips and advice, I really appreciate it, if there are students who have questions for you about their legal journey as a parent, is there a way they can reach out to you…
12:02 S2: Certainly, you can reach me at testing, that’s K-E-S-T-E-N at SG-B law dot com.
12:12 S1: Great, thanks so much, Dana. Thank you.
As a mom I can’t imagine how hard it is to go to law school with a child. Tina talks about it sooo casually. Now before I get into our top take aways a quick word from our sponsor Juno.
If you need to take out student loans, check in with Juno first. Juno can often offer law students a lower interest rate than the federal government. Not only with no cost to the student but with cash back. Visit joinjuno.com/p/legallearningcenter for more information on how you can save on law loans.
All right so my top take aways and thoughts.
- It is completely doable to got to law school with a child if you have a plan. Schedule your week out every week.
- Check out alternative programs. So if you’re planning to attend and you have a child and the school only has a full-time program, what if something goes wrong, what is the back up plan? If you go to a school that has a part-time program or a nighttime program, or both you might be able to play around if you had chosen the full-time program first. So consider that and look into that so you know what your options are in advance.
- Have a support system. Notice that Tina didn’t say have a back up person, she actually talked about a system. If your child is going to day care and gets sick, you can’t send them to daycare so you need someone to watch them if you have a final or something like that. Make sure that you have at least 2 people supporting you with your child so you can focus when you really have to.
- The part time program was not detrimental to her in any way. She was still able to engage in externships, socialize, network, belong to clubs and so forth. I love that that would be one of my biggest fears of going to law school in a part time program but she made it sound like it was not a problem at all.
OK that’s it for this episode but be sure to check in next week when we check in with Sarah at Ember Academic Services. Sarah tutors students with disabilities she helps them find schools that are better at providing accommodations so you aren’t fighting the school the entire time you’re trying to learn. Even if you don’t have a disability you should tune in to learn some of the difficulties these students face from their own school administrators. And if you learned something today, please like, subscribe comment so that the show is more visible to others and can help them. Thanks.
For more on Nontraditional Students, be sure to check out part 1 at http://legallearningcenter.com/alex and stay tuned next week for part 3 of our nontraditional student series where I will chat with Sarah Semyetzky of Ember Academic Services.
