Kath Xu ’20

I chose Yale Law School for the unprecedented opportunities and the incredibly warm community that I found here. For example, something I worried a lot about before coming here was being cold-called, which is when law professors will randomly pick out your name and ask you a lot of questions about the case or a legal doctrine. So I did get cold-called during my first semester. But after every cold call, someone would come up to me afterwards, whether this was a fellow classmate or even a professor, and tell me what a great job I did, which I really appreciated. And I think it's indicative of how supportive the Yale Law School community is.

The faculty, students, and alumni are all willing to go to bat for you, pick up the phone and call someone they know. And the Yale Law School name has definitely opened up doors for me that otherwise would not have opened up. So I'm very appreciative of the chance to go to school here.

Before coming to law school, I had a lot of questions about my financial aid and the packages. But the office here has been extremely kind and responsive to all of my questions. And I have found the Yale Law School financial aid package to be the best among its peer schools. Along with the public interest fellowships that they offer, which really is unparalleled here. And so, I think the financial aid office really does its best to make law school affordable for everyone, and especially those who are trying to go into the public interest arena. And they also offer a lot of sessions throughout the year to help law students manage their finances, both during law school and afterwards.

So I'm involved in the Title IX Working Group, Law Students Advancing Reproductive Justice, the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, the Temporary Restraining Order Project, and the Civil Rights Project. And Yale Law Women and the Women of Color Collective also put on great events here that I also like to attend. And so, the feminist community here has been great and really supportive. And I'm also part of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic here at the law school, which is led by the legendary Mike Wishnie. And both my cases this term center around combating sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military, which is something we take very seriously, and something we're not afraid to be aggressive about.

I hope to leave the law school at least as warm and social justice oriented as I found it. So next year, 2L year, is when students usually take on the leadership roles in the extracurriculars. And so, I hope to do that for the feminist organizations here. And next year I will also be serving as a dean's advisor, which means I'll be helping shepherd first-year students into their 1L law school experience. And I hope to help make it as enjoyable for them as I have found it to be for me.