076 Law School to Lawyer

VERONICA: Hey, welcome to the House. Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB. How is everybody doing? I’m your girl, Veronica Waters here welcoming you in to make yourself comfortable and join us for another fun episode.

NIKKI: Yeah, well, I never had a doubt in my mind that I wanted to be an attorney.

VERONICA: Was there ever a doubt in your mind that you would move into personal injury law?

NIKKI: No, I always knew I wanted to go into personal injury. I think there’s a lot of different fields of law that are really rewarding, but I think actually being able to help people in what’s often the most difficult times of their lives was something that I found really powerful and really grabbed me.

VERONICA: And Nikki, having been in the hallways of Montlick for so long, even before you were a teenager, back then you were advocating for some of the firm’s public service programs. Now you’re an actual attorney. Does it feel different?

VERONICA: I love it. That’s beautiful. And sitting to Nikki’s left is someone new to Lawyers in the House. Her name is Elizabeth Marra, and you probably recognize her last name because her dad, Orlando, has been in the house with us several times before. Welcome to Lawyers in the House, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH: Thanks for having me. I’m so happy to have you.

VERONICA: Now, I didn’t ask. Nikki, where did you go to law school?

VERONICA: And what about you, Elizabeth, Law School?

ELIZABETH: I went to Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School.

VERONICA: John Marshall Law School, not far from our studios here in Midtown Atlanta. So, talk to me a little bit about your journey into law. I’m so curious whether did your dad have anything to do with your love of the law?

ELIZABETH:  I think he did, but in a way that was very indirect. Like Nikki, I grew up kind of in the halls of Montlick because my dad started there when I was three months old.

VERONICA: And it turns out that you were right. So, it feels like you’re in the right place. It feels like you’re in the right field, finally?

ELIZABETH: Absolutely. Yeah. I definitely don’t want to do anything else. This is what I like to do.

VERONICA: I love that.

ELIZABETH: It keeps moving it. It’s a good, it’s a good place to be. I like it. This is beautiful.

NIKKI: So, I’ll tell you, there’s one scene in Legally Blonde that was so closely aligned with my law school experience. It’s almost funny. But there’s a scene where and it’s a very famous scene where Elle, she goes to class, and she hasn’t done the reading, and the professor throws her out of the class. And typically, when you show up on the first day of law school, you have 50 to 100, sometimes more.

NIKKI: Yeah. Keep it light. And some professors really make it their their mission, I think, to come after you a little a little bit and they’ll ask you questions. Even if you don’t know the answer, they’ll keep asking you. And it puts you under a lot of stress.

VERONICA: But would you say yes? Yes, I do.

NIKKI: Well, that depends on typical lawyer answer.

VERONICA: I can’t imagine how much work there actually is, how many books, how much research, how much writing you have to do, how much stuff you have to read, 100 pages at a time, six cases at a time?

ELIZABETH: Oh, it’s pretty intense. You have a lot of work and it’s a lot on you at all times. But at the end, it ends up being just one or two grades a semester per class. And so, you do all of this work to not get cold called in class. But then at the end of the semester, you only have one grade that it comes down to. So the pressure is coming at you from all different angles.

VERONICA: Wow. Coming up on Lawyers in the House with Montlick, we’re going to talk a little bit more about how you prepared to be a really good student in law school and then taking that final step of the bar exam before becoming an attorney.

ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8:00 a.m. every Sunday if you want to listen live on 95.5 WSB.

VERONICA: Welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB. I’m Veronica Waters here with Montlick Injury Attorneys Elizabeth Marra and Nikki Montlick. And we’re talking about the transition from law school to law practice.

ELIZABETH: So 1L is your first year of law school, 2L is your second year of law school, 3L is your third year of law school. Instead of freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, we have 1L, 2L, 3L.

VERONICA: Three years. And I can only imagine how competitive it is.

ELIZABETH: Oh, absolutely not. There’s people that decide it’s too hard for them. There’s people that things come up in their life and they just can’t keep up with the law school pressures. There’s people that are, you know what? Thank you for giving me a taste. I now know I don’t want to do law. And there’s people that just want to stick it out and they just they try super hard and they just can’t cut it.

VERONICA: Yeah, I think it’s all about resilience, right? It’s about what’s good for you, where your heart is. If your brain tells you, I really like this, I want to stay in it. There’s so much to learn, so much to know. And then you two stuck it out and obviously then had to take the bar exam.

NIKKI: Yes.

VERONICA: Tell me about that.

NIKKI: I think you hit the nail on the head. The bar exam to me is a test of mental and emotional resilience.

VERONICA: Tell me about the bar exam. My understanding of it from what I’ve read was you’re laughing. You don’t have to laugh. You don’t have to tell me actual questions. Is it traumatic? Oh my gosh, that’s a huge word to describe a test. But I guess, you know, it could be. It’s your future in a way on the line, right? But you can take it as many times as you want, just like Vinny did.

ELIZABETH: But only is offered twice a year. So, you can take it, I’m sure, as many times as you want.

VERONICA: So, they don’t have to take time away from studying to go to work.

ELIZABETH: Their full-time job is studying. And that’s that’s the way you pass the bar. VERONICA: And it’s a lot of essays, right, and multiple choice questions. Over a couple of days.

ELIZABETH: So it’s two days. The first day is going to be state-specific, and that’s going to have a task centered portion. And then the second half of day one is four essays in Georgia.

VERONICA: The uniform bar exam. That’s amazing. So, coming up, we are going to talk about what it’s like after you pass the bar and you find yourself in the hallways of a law firm. Coming up next on Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB.

ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8:00 a.m. every Sunday on 95.5 WSB.

ELIZABETH: Well, I was at home because they email you your scores now. I’ve heard horror stories from other attorneys that were prior to them emailing the scores. And they’re like, you just sit by their by your mailbox just waiting for the postman.

VERONICA: Be in the digital age.

ELIZABETH: And we got an email the morning of Friday the 13th in October. And you get an email that says if you pass or not, I think it also tells you your score in that email, but you usually don’t get that far. You just kind of worry about that first sentence that’s congrats you passed. And then the first thing you do or the first thing I did was I called my dad, of course. But then I started calling judges and was like, who can swear me in?

ELIZABETH: Like it was done finally. Like I could just practice law now and it was all behind me and I could just be the attorney I wanted to be.

VERONICA: What about you, Nikki?

NIKKI: I just remember feeling this cosmic sense of relief, like weight lifted off my shoulders. But I had it in my head. Like, I want this so bad. Like I’m already an attorney. I’m already an attorney.

VERONICA: It felt right. What did you learn about yourself from that whole process and getting through the bar?

NIKKI: It was definitely a testament to how bad do you want this and what are what work are you willing to put into it. But I definitely felt an extreme sense of accomplishment after taking the bar.

NIKKI: Yeah, yeah. We always say law school teaches you how to think like an attorney. It doesn’t teach you how to actually practice. That practice really comes with experience and with mentorship and really being in the thick of it.

ELIZABETH: Well, we both started as legal assistants before applying to law school and going and kind of getting our feet wet in that. And then throughout law school, we both were law clerks and kept kept busy with the firm stuff as as we grew in our law school career and were allowed to do more. The firm allowed us to do more and kind of get ourselves involved more.

VERONICA: Yeah, and Nikki also earlier mentioned the added sense of responsibility that you have because you’re the now one heading up those cases yourselves. It’s, you know, may I speak to my attorney, Elizabeth? May I speak to my attorney, Nikki? You’re not just handing the phone off anymore. You know, that phone call stops with you. How amazing.

VERONICA: How amazing. What did law school prepare you for?

NIKKI: I think the most meaningful thing that I did in law school was get actual experience. And I would encourage anyone who’s in law school to do the same. I think if you don’t know what you want to do, it’s an opportunity to go test the waters and try to figure that out. But if you do know what you want to do and what field you want to go into, I think getting actual practical work experience really adds new meaning to what you’re learning in the class.

VERONICA: Yeah, it’s not so abstract, right? And I’ve read that some law school classes are pretty abstract. Like people say that constitutional law is pretty tough and it’s more you know conceptual than some of the other things that you might have to do.

ELIZABETH: Absolutely. Yeah. I think in personal injury was something that you kind of got to see multiple aspects by just being at one firm or I’m sorry, multiple aspects of the law by being at one firm because we see a lot of car accidents with car accidents, a lot of citations happen. So, we got like there’s times when we do kind of peek through the window into the criminal side of things, even though we are on the civil side.

NIKKI: 100%. Yeah, I think it’s really important to be really logical and really rational, but be able to see things objectively, objectively from both sides. Because as a lawyer, you have to be able to identify not just your own strong argument for your client, but you have to identify counter arguments.

VERONICA: Yeah, you know what it makes me think of too in a sort of different, but sort of parallel way is how Montlick has lawyers at the firm who’ve actually worked for insurance companies and now are advocating for plaintiffs. They’re working for the people who were hurt instead of for the insurance companies. I think that’s interesting. You know they got to see both sides of the law as it applies to a singular subject, a singular area, which has got to be so fascinating.

NIKKI: Yeah, I think that the thing that law school doesn’t prepare you for is the human element. Often, you know, you talk to clients so much and a lot of times attorneys were not just providing legal support, we’re providing guidance, emotional support.

ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. If you want to listen to our radio show live, you can hear it every Sunday, 8:00 a.m. on 95.5 WSB.

VERONICA:  Welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB. I’m your girl, Veronica Waters, here with legal legacies.

NIKKI: Not all law firms are the same. It makes a difference what law firm you hire. There are critical factors like, for example, being able to speak to your attorney on the first call or even, you know, get them on the phone at all. It’s really important when you call us, you’re going to speak to us on the first call. And if you need to reach us, you know, we’re here for you.

VERONICA: No doubt.

ELIZABETH: Yeah, we answer our phones and we proactively call you regularly. So, we’re always on the same page with you as a client and you always know what’s going on with your cases. And most importantly, you have attorneys that care. So, we care what we’re doing. We care what we’re fighting for you and advocating for you.

VERONICA: And licensed in several states too, which is fantastic.

ELIZABETH: Yeah. Many, many states.

VERONICA: Yeah. All right. Trick question.

ELIZABETH: I think for me, it was just kind of how naturally you kind of step into it. It kind of just everything starts happening so fast. And then you look up and you’re like, oh, I’m just doing it. I’m rocking it. We’re fighting for people. We’re settling stuff and we’re making people happy with it.

NIKKI: So yeah, I think I was I was really pleasantly surprised by how how eager and open other attorneys are to share knowledge with you and help you and lift you up.

VERONICA: Quick question as we get toward the end of our time together. What’s the best advice your dad ever gave you? Nikki?

NIKKI: Oh my gosh.

VERONICA: What about you, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH: I think it’s a hard question because Orlando gives a lot of good advice.

VERONICA: So and obviously both of you love what you do. Thank you so much to Montlick Injury Attorneys Elizabeth Marra and Nikki Montlick for being in the house with lawyers in the house with Motley on WSB. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said whatever you choose to do, leave tracks.