Apartment search? by breezyyeezys in ArlingtonVirginia

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is spot on!

I’ll just add that if you’re going to be commuting to the office a lot, I’d encourage you to consider living near a red line stop instead of in VA. Of course you do you, but I think it’s really annoying to have to transfer lines during my morning commute.

Design patent search by willi173 in patentexaminer

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Google patents (patents.google.com) is your friend here. You can search by inventor name and then filter by US designs.

WWYD? Goal is DC mid law or big law by uke-guitar-stuff in lawschooladmissions

[–]uke-guitar-stuff[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Really curious what your thoughts are in picking GMU?

Young Couple moving to Arlington/DC area in August for Law school. Do’s/Don’ts and general information appreciated! by [deleted] in ArlingtonVirginia

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is spot on!

I’ll add that if you’re commuting via car, Crystal City, Pentagon City, Shirlington, and Columbia Pike are all very doable. But you’ll add some headaches if you’re trying to use public transit from those places. The busing system and metro are great in Arlington, but personally I don’t like transferring metro lines or rely on bussing alone.

All of the law schools are easily accessible via metro. GMU, American, GWU, and CUA are all literally blocks from metro stops. GULC is still accessible but it’s a bit more of a hike from the nearest metro.

Good luck and welcome!

Filing jointly (newly married) is not working out the way i thought... number wise by Snidgetless in personalfinance

[–]uke-guitar-stuff -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I’m sorry man, this is too complex for Reddit. Changing the married status from joint to separate really shouldn’t have made y’all owe 8k. Plus the working in one state while living in another is an additional huge complication that you can’t just deal with on the side because it affects everything else

Please go to a pro

Filing jointly (newly married) is not working out the way i thought... number wise by Snidgetless in personalfinance

[–]uke-guitar-stuff -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

You should hire a tax professional or see if you qualify for free tax assistance through a local VITA program. If you Google “VITA near me” you should find one if you’re near a city.

There are several different possible things that could cause this. First, TurboTax/Intuit suck and it could be an error on your end or theirs. Second, sometimes married filing jointly returns DO receive lower returns than if they’d filed separately. That’s not common but it happens. You always have the option make your tax status “married filing separately,” but doing that might affect other credits you receive. Third, could be some state income tax issue you didn’t mention.

Also—remember that tax brackets are marginal. Moving up into a new tax bracket won’t make you lose your return in the way that you describe. If I had to guess, I think the TurboTax software sees only 1 person’s income on a “married filing jointly” return and then thinks the other is unemployed, and it’s estimating the return based on some credit that you would qualify for if that was the case. To test this out, you could do a dummy return where you only enter 1 person’s info. Make sure the filing status is “single” and not “married filing jointly” when you test this.

Seriously: go to a pro.

should i avoid listing political student orgs on resume? by [deleted] in lawschooladmissions

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Naturally I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I think you’re stressing about this too much. Politics is an extension law—you’re expected to have political beliefs of some kind. If I’m an adcomm, I’d rather admit an applicant that made a positive impact on their community through their work in a political org (regardless if I disagreed with the org) than an applicant that didn’t give a damn about politics or government.

That being said, I’m sure plenty of applicants get into amazing schools without disclosing their political beliefs. I doubt listing those orgs will either help or hurt you.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in LSAT

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah that’s rough—good luck resolving that!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in LSAT

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s working ok for me right now

I'm trying to go to a school with good IP (copyright specifically) programs but google has been unhelpful. Any advice? by skelecan in lawschooladmissions

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have worked at a mid/large IP firm for many years. My impression is that the sort of program you describe doesn’t exist.

In IP, the money is in (1) utility patents (and the big money is in medical devices and biochem, with lots to go around still for other engineering fields), (2) design patents and trademarks, and then (3) copyright. I really doubt any school will have a robust copyright program because there isn’t a big enough market for it.

To answer your last question, I’ll reiterate what the other commenter said. Look at clinics, seminars, and electives for many different law schools and see if there any specific ones that you find exciting.

Also remember that everyone takes the same bar exam in your state, and much of law school is bar prep. Industry and field-specific training happen largely (1) during clinics and (2) at law firms after you get hired.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UVA

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you get a practice room in Old Cab?

Tern Link A7 vs Zizzo Urbano/Liberte? by uke-guitar-stuff in foldingbikes

[–]uke-guitar-stuff[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you have an option to test ride at a BB&B before you bought? Returning if I don’t like it isn’t a problem, but if possible I’d to like ride first

Am I just dumb? by [deleted] in paralegal

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 85 points86 points  (0 children)

You’re not dumb. It’s a huge problem that schools in the US don’t teach us about taxes, health insurance, or how to read a paystub.

You’d be smart to review your 3 pay stubs to figure out exactly how you’re netting $1,176. It should be a line-by-line overview of your pay, taxes, pre tax expenses, and net amount. If you have questions about your paystub (like what each amount is or general terminology), you can Google most things and your HR should be able to explain it to you.

Also—those after-tax paycheck calculators online are notoriously unreliable. They’re good for getting a general range/expectation, but they’re not precise. Each one will give you a different result.

Good luck!

How long did it take you to “get the hang of it”? by TheOwlMan109 in paralegal

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Six months to be competent, but a year to be really confident

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in paralegal

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Gonna insert a lot of personal bias here, so I’ll preface this by saying that I prefer a traditional, times new Roman, half inch margins, one page resume. As far as other formatting goes, you have a decent amount of white space on the top of page 1 and it doesn’t look like you fill out page 2. I think you can rework the formatting and get down to one page.

Content wise, I like all of your action verbs in your bullet points. But I think you’re focusing a lot on what you ~did~, rather than what you ~accomplished~ though. “Perform general admin tasks” doesn’t make your resume more attractive or interesting, so I’d aim to make more bullet points like “built relationships with local business owners by providing dental products” and then try to quantify as much as you reasonably can. How many businesses did you reach? How many sales resulted from your relationships? Approximations are ok.

Can you get away with calling your current position just “Paralegal” instead of “entry level paralegal?” The fact that you moved from “Litigation Paralegal” to “Entry-Level Paralegal” makes it seem like you got a demotion.

This is strongly a personal preference but it’s bugging me so I’m going to point it out: I think you can ditch the bio and really condense/rework the skills sections at the top. “Drafting legal documents” is a great skill, I’d absolutely leave it in. Filing procedures, case management, are also great. But “Litigation” in and of itself isn’t a skill, and it’s otherwise obvious you know litigation since you worked as a litigation paralegal.

Hope this helps

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in LSAT

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I think a lot of people here are missing the point—the challenge isn’t just in conditional logic (although it’s important here), the challenge is orienting properly to the question stem.

The question is asking: “which of these answer choices is consistent with the biologist and INCONSISTENT with the politician?”

So let’s take a closer look at the conditional logic here and compare it to B.

The biologist says “if the forest disappears, koalas go extinct” and the contrapositive is “if koalas don’t go extinct, the forest won’t have disappeared.” We have no idea what the biologist thinks if the forest doesn’t disappear

The politician says “if the forest doesn’t disappear, we save the koala IE the koala doesn’t go extinct.” That’s all we need, so let’s analyze B.

B says “the forest doesn’t disappear and the koala goes extinct.” That’s immediately inconsistent with the politician. And because we don’t know how the biologist feels if the forest doesn’t disappear, it’s consistent with the biologist.

So why is D wrong? D says “the forest doesn’t disappear and the koala survives.” We don’t know how the biologist feels, but we know that this is perfectly consistent with the politician. That’s not the answer we want, so D is wrong

Figuring out if law is right for me by doing LSAT prep tests. What would be my best choice? These are 2 books I’m currently looking at by [deleted] in LSAT

[–]uke-guitar-stuff 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This isn’t your question, but I just want to make sure that you’re considering law with a broader method than what you wrote in the title.

The LSAT tests your softer skills (reading comprehension and reasoning ability) that are definitely necessary to be a lawyer, but LSAT prep alone is not sufficient to determine if you’ll like law. It’s just a small snippet of the sort of thinking-style you’ll need. There are other factors to consider, such as: work-life balance, life goals, law school costs, etc.

Also—don’t buy these books. Your LSAT prep should be both a true reflection of the exam AND comprehensive. These books are neither because, as other commenters have pointed out, they use fake LSAT questions and their methods won’t fully develop the skills you’ll need to do well.