Law School Strategy

Imagine the following scenario:

💭 You are about to start law school and you take a deep breathe because you’re ready to play the game. You know what to focus on when reading your first cases. You know what matters and what doesn’t. You have understood the specific “outlining” that is necessary for excelling on law school exams; so you master it.

💭 You have the emotional intelligence to navigate the stressors (impostor’s syndrome, comparisonitis, perfectionism, and sooo on). You have built a strong foundation for your well-being. You feel supported and empowered.

💭 At this point, you’re simply building up your strategy to score the maximum amount of points during exams while everybody else is playing catch-up or broadcasting how ‘ahead’ they’re on their readings. But you are laser-focused on *you* and your preparation. You’re crystal-clear on how to compete for the As because ey, you made it all the way here, so you might as well access the best opportunities in the market.

💭 And of course, you’re an excellent legal writer. And it shows. Outstanding essay answers on your exams. Excellent memos. CALI awards. Baaam. OCI interviews pouring. That federal clerkship. Professors asking you to be their TAs…

💭 In fact, you just conquered one of the hardest, most competitive academic systems in the US. Not only you survived your first year of law school, you excelled at it. This is your lawyer dream and no person or system will distract you from that truth.

When I was little, I decided I wanted to become an American lawyer. It sounds cliché, but I’d literally record myself speaking in an invented version of English. Pursuing that dream meant leaving my family and home behind to navigate an educational system that wasn’t even in my native language. It also meant a huge sacrifice for my parents. But I knew in my soul that I was meant to become an U.S. attorney; so I fought my way in. With grit, that is, with the passion and perseverance toward a goal despite the obstacles and distractions.

More than 8 years ago, and after I graduated from law school (i.e., college) in Spain, I moved to the US and started as a trainee at a law firm in Detroit. Then I got into UPenn's LLM program with a partial scholarship (hoping to transfer to the JD). ⁠While I knew that only 1-3 international law students made it to the JD every year (GPA had to be ridiculously high), I pursued it anyways. At the time, I didn’t know what a Gauss curve was or how competitive law school was. ⁠With no strategy, but with a hell lot of passion, I studied as hard as I could (note that the 1st thing you realize in law school is that the playfield is even: everyone is as hard-working and smart as you are).

Fast-forward to a year later. I worked my ass off, served as class president, established strong relationships with my professors (= LORs), but* my GPA didn’t make the cut. ⁠My parents tried to convince me to come back to Spain and some colleagues even told me I was committing suicide by going from an Ivy-league to a lower-ranked school. I didn't listen and I started my JD at Arizona Law with a scholarship and later on as a part-time paid employee (sí, always asking for that moneyyy). I wasn't gonna give up just yet (my dad fought cancer throughout his whole life so giving up was not part of our vocabulary).
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When I got to Tucson, I felt out of place. I felt I had “failed” at UPenn. But I kept going. And by "failing" at UPenn, I had actually learned how the grading game; and I made it my personal goal to understand exactly how to get to the very top. ⁠I also knew the Ivy-league title was beneficial, but not at all necessary for my success as an attorney. I am a fighter and I knew THAT was my greatest skill. ⁠Plus, resilient people are resilient everywhere ⚡️ —don’t matter the law school and don’t matter the situation 😉

And no, it wasn’t flowers and rainbows at all. It was painful, many times (in fact, my book was born out of that pain & I thank Arizona for that). But the point is that I kept going. Becoming a US lawyer was my dream. Period. And here’s the thing: your journey will be different than mine, but if I made it so can you. Plus, the law school game is winnable if you (1) understand how it's designed and (2) apply the academic strategy + emotional intelligence to excel at it.⁠ That combination is what I teach to my students.

As a bilingual attorney licensed in two countries, with a resume filled with scholarships and awards, an Ivy-league LLM, a JD in Arizona with an Arizona Law Review tag on it, prestigious teaching assistant positions and transnational experiences in top law firms; I will show you how to win the law school game. And I’m going to do it with the intellect and the heart because I don’t believe you can truly succeed without the latter. It takes resilience, grace, humility, determination, and love to get to the top. And no, the journey won’t be easy; but with the right guidance and support, I can promise you one thing for sure: you’re going to realize how strong and powerful you truly are.

So, the only thing left for me to ask is this:

Are you truly committed to your lawyer dream?

If your answer is yes, then Warrior in Law Academy is for you.

As an immigrant with English as my second language, and on a temporary visa, I had no option but to stand out. Otherwise I wasn’t going to get hired by anyone. Though alone and with no family or connections in the US, I was able to serve for two federal district judges, work at top corporate law firms, and pursue social justice as a detention attorney for immigrants and trauma survivors. Why? Because I persevered.

Yet, external accomplishments and strategy alone are not enough. Not for the long term. Because life happens; and if you truly want to win—you need the emotional skills. The inner work. The unshakable resilience. That’s how you truly create an aligned, fulfilling and healthy career in the law.