Blog 14: Third Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

I plan to interview Javier Castillo. He is an attorney, not only that my mentor  is the one that gave me the idea to interview him.

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview?

I don’t really have his number so I can’t say that I’ve called him but I hope to see him on Saturday to get more details.

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.

Do you know where I can find some good resources?

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).

What can do you think I can do to learn more?

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ.

1. What do you think of my EQ?
2. How can it be improved upon?

Blog 13: 10 Hour Mentorship Check-In

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

At first it was at Mr. Benitez’s office then towards the end of the year it was him coming to see me and we would discuss things. He gives me good advice and some sources to read from.

2.   Who is your contact?  What makes this person an expert?

My contact is Mr. Benitez. He is a lawyer that used to work for the Pool Law group where he worked for a bankruptcy lawyer. Bankruptcy was also an elective for him in law school.

3.   How many  hours have you done during the school year? (Summer Mentorship Hours and Mentorship Hours should be reflected separately in your Senior Project Hours log located on the right hand side of your blog).

About 11 hours over the school year.

4.   Succinctly summarize what you did, how well you and your mentor worked together, and how you plan to complete the remaining hours.

Well in short I visited him where he works, shadowed him a little bit, and talked to him about things I need help with. I know that in order to finish the rest of the hours I’ll have to focus on mentorship so I talked with Mr. Benitez about seeing him more.

Blog 12: Holiday Project Update

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?

Over break I met up with Mr. Benitez. I wanted to talk to him about what I could do for an  Independent Component next semester. I also tried to plan out when I could see him in 2016. I didn't do much research on my topic besides that.

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?

The most important thing I learned were the ideas Mr. Benitez gave me for an Independent component. He told me to go to a courthouse and try to see other lawyers in action. I think this is a cool idea and a good opportunity. The source is just from Mr. Benitez.

3.  Your third interview will be a 10 question interview related to possible answers for your EQ. Who do you plan to talk to and why?

I was planning on asking Mr. Benitez in he could give me the contact info of a former coworker of his.I want to interview the coworker because he or she would also be able to help me in my certain area of law.

Blog 11: Lesson 1 Reflection

1. What are you most proud of in your lesson, and why?

I am proud that I managed to share some of the interesting things that I’ve learned. There have been some cool things over the past 3 months that I learned that I would have liked to tell other and Lesson 1 gave me that chance.

2. What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson? Explain why you earned that grade using evidence from the component contract.

I would give myself an AP or lower. First I’m just assuming I made the 8 minute mark I never checked my time but I’ve been told is was about 8 minutes. I think I deserve an AP at best because I don’t think I engaged the audience very well. I should have come up with a better hook and near the end I had a long pause which just didn’t look good to me. There were also some things I planned to say and just ended up blanking out on it altogether.

3. If you could go back, what would you change about your lesson?  How can you use that knowledge to give a better Lesson 2?

I would try to make a better hook and conclusion and come up with better notes so I can remember to say all of what I wanted to say. I would also make sure that rehearse more so that I don’t have to keep referring to notes as often. One thing that I think I should do for Lesson 2 is come up with better props and visuals. For Lesson 2 I will try to rehearse my presentation more than I did with Lesson 1.

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

I guess I would say that I’m really just shadowing him. I’ve been observing what my mentor does at work. He also lets me read the paperwork from some of his old cases. I feel like I could be doing more meaningful things. There are some other experts at the law firm my mentor used to work at.

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?  

He is a lawyer that attends the same church as I do. It wasn’t really hard to convince him. Even before I asked him to be my mentor he was already giving me advice.

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship with this person

I would rate our relationship a 7 or 8 out of 10. I didn’t know really well before I asked him to be my mentor. With the time I spent with him I would definitely I have gotten to know him a lot better.

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

He answered all the questions very nicely and it was good that I was able to schedule the interview with him when he had the chance. He knew what he needed to say. I would say I still need to work on doing more meaningful work. I haven’t done any challenging tasks so far. I think I’m just going to ask my mentor what I could practice to sharpen my skills.

Link to Audio:

https://soundcloud.com/masterej23/interview-2

Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc).

I have a mentor. He is the same mentor that I’ve had from the beginning. regarding the interview i have not scheduled it with him yet but I hope to interview him next week.

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons.   

Right now I’m looking into the chapters of the bankruptcy code that are used when a debtor is filing for bankruptcy. The Chapters I hear about most often is chapter 7 bankruptcy and chapter 13 bankruptcy. These are the types of bankruptcy most individual file for.

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

One type of resource that I think will be very helpful is a book that my mentor recommended to me. He has already shown me where I can find the book. He showed me a website that is used to find a lot of helpful resources on law so I plan to order it online.

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

What is the best way a bankruptcy lawyer can help his client?

Blog 8: Independent Component 1 Proposal

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

For my independent component I have decided to use the experience from the mock trial the mock trial. This gave me some good experience on how lawyers work in court. I got a good idea on what lawyers have to do in court. As a defense lawyer I hope I did my best to guide my client through the court process. It was my job to put any reasonable doubt into the minds of jurors.

I could also do more research on how bankruptcy lawyers have to do and know to help their client. I can study some techniques that they for when they negotiate. I want to try and make some flow chart or step-by-step guide on what bankruptcy lawyers have to do.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

The mock trial only completed part of the hours. I had a week of preparation and I spent it looking over the witness information and client information. With all that information I was able to strategize on how I can advocate for my client. I have a criminal law book that I will study. I found some articles on what a lawyer should do in court.

As for the guide I’m thinking about doing, I’ll research what a bankruptcy lawyer has to know, then I’ll start creating the steps on what a bankruptcy lawyer should do and how to handle certain situations.

3.  Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

It really helped me sharpen my critical thinking skills. I had to plan ahead and know what to say. I would also say that I sharpened up my research skills. In a collaboration with the prosecution we got the witnesses to answer some question. Most of this was done outside of class. I got an idea of what the witnesses were going to say. This helped me prepare for a cross-examination.

The guide will help me get a better understanding of bankruptcy lawyers. I’ll have more knowledge on how to advise people in debt. I’ll know what I’d have to do in certain cases.

4.  Update your Senior Project Hours log.

I'll update the link on the blog.