KU Law Blog

How to Take a Break from Law School

As wonderful as the walls of Green Hall are, there is nothing more refreshing than a change of scenery. My law school life flourishes when I find time to escape and recharge. Whether you are a seasoned traveler or devising your first weekend getaway, I have some tips to make trip planning easier!

Step One: Pick a Destination

Sometimes decision paralysis may keep you from hitting the road, but some of my most memorable trips came from just having a general direction to drive. Remember that you don’t have to iron out every detail in advance. Billboards, unexpected small towns and other spontaneous discoveries can be your guide.

Step Two: Find Things to Do

Once I have a place in mind, I rely on those who have traveled before me to tell me how to spend my time. A good starting point is to search “Best [type of food, location or activity] to do in [destination]” on Google. Travel bloggers often share valuable information about popular tourist traps, hidden gems and hiking trails.

I also have two website recommendations for discovering unique attractions. First, Atlas Obscura features thousands of listings for unique spots in the United States. Search by city to uncover attractions you’ve likely never heard of. Additionally, Roadside America allows you to search by state to find odd roadside attractions to keep your drives more entertaining.

Step Three: Map It Out

My favorite way to visualize a trip is with the Google feature My Maps. With My Maps, you can drop pinpoints on the locations you want to visit and customize them with colors and symbols to represent what type of place they are. Then, you can place driving directions between the pinpoints to create a route. My Maps even calculates the miles between each destination, which helps estimate the cost of gas for the trip.

Here’s an example of a trip I planned using My Maps:

A Note on Expenses

Although traveling can be costly, I have discovered some effective ways to make trips more affordable as a law student. Here are a few tips:

Trips don’t have to be long to be meaningful. Choose a destination based on the time and budget you have.
Eating at restaurants can add up quickly. Bring a cooler with your favorite pre-purchased snacks, fruits and sandwich supplies to help reduce trip expenses.
Free activities are everywhere. Save costs by going to attractions that have no entry fee.
To see multiple places on a budget, invest in activity passes. CityPASS grants you access to famous city tourist attractions for up to 50% off their regular admission prices. The National Park Service offers an $80 park pass that covers admission into all national parks for an entire year.
Hotels aren’t the only lodging option. You can sleep comfortably and safely with dispersed tent camping, car camping and motels.

No matter your destination, you will return to law school feeling refreshed. Happy travels!

– Logan Brtek is a 2L KU Law Student Ambassador from Norfolk, Nebraska

Why Work as a Student Editor?

This November, Kansas Law Review co-hosted a symposium with the Tribal Law & Government Center on “Strategic Litigation Advancing Indigenous Rights.” The symposium featured scholars and advocates from across the country who presented on how indigenous communities have used legal action to protect their rights and sovereignty. For example, Sarah Deer, a University Distinguished Professor, presented her research on legal avenues for combatting sexual violence against Indigenous women on reservations.

Professor Sarah Deer at the Strategic Litigation Advancing Indigenous Rights Symposium

The Kansas Law Review hosts a symposium each year that focuses on a specific area of law, and the symposium is primarily organized by the students on the board of the Law Review. The 3L Symposium Editor, this year, Emma Leonard, has the primary task of organizing the event, including coordinating all invited speakers, planning the entire day and eventually serving as editor for the volume in which the scholars’ research will be published. Other Law Review members assist with tasks leading up to the symposium and contribute to editorial work for the published volume.

The symposium is an excellent example of the great experience students get from working as a Kansas Law Review or Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy editor. The Journal of Law & Public Policy also hosts an annual symposium which will take place in spring 2025. Working on either publication is a great opportunity to get exposed to important research that legal scholars and advocates are doing.

Students interested in participating in the Law Review or the Journal of Law & Public Policy must complete a “write-on” competition after their 1L year. Students are given about two weeks to complete a scholarly paper that exemplifies their legal writing skills, which will be important to their work as an editor. Current members of the board of each publication then anonymously review the papers to select next year’s staff editors.

It can be a difficult process to complete immediately after you finish your first year of law school, but it is definitely worth it! Students interested in participating will get plenty of notice during their spring semester on both the competition itself and the role of working as a staff editor. The role primarily entails writing your own scholarly paper called a “comment” and editing the research articles of legal scholars set to be published.

As a current staff editor for Kansas Law Review, this has been my favorite “extracurricular” thus far in law school. It has helped me improve my legal writing, get exposed to new areas of research and has also helped me get to know other students who I would not have otherwise met.

– Madi Stapleton is a 2L KU Law Student Ambassador from Olathe, Kansas

Growth in a Time of Change

Mid-November is always a stressful time for the students of Green Hall. With less than a month until finals, the realities of test preparation become unavoidable. For first-year students, this is a new kind of test and something that can be difficult to get comfortable with. Second-year students are as busy as they’ve ever been in their academic careers, and third-year students are beginning to reckon with impending BAR prep.

This year, the world outside Green has contributed to the anxiety brewing inside. Law students learn in great detail the impact that political developments have on the legal system, and every day they read cases that demonstrate what kind of real-world impact those legal developments have on the American public. The post-election environment in the building is one of uncertainty, apprehension and anxiety.

However, blossoming within that stressful ecosystem has been a genuinely exciting development. The student organizations, founded and run by busy students nonetheless committed to social and professional development and community, were severely damaged four years ago during the pandemic. For several years, we have been trying to foster the development of new organizations to fill the cultural and social void left by COVID.

In the last two weeks, I have been approached by multiple students looking for advice and guidance on starting new groups. Whether they are action-oriented, politically motivated or just searching for community, the students of Green Hall have responded to the feeling of apprehension with diligence and persistence. What was once a relatively limited group of disparate organizations is growing into a vibrant community of diverse interests and identities. I, like many, am dealing with high stress, both academic and personal, but I have been struck by the response from my fellow students. No matter what the next four years may hold, I am confident that the current generation of Jayhawks will enter the legal world with experience and determination. There are good things yet to come.

– Will Orlowski is a 2L KU Law Student Ambassador from Lawrence, Kansas

Giving Story Turning Taxes into Impact with an IRA Transfer

Alumni gift turns taxes into impact

How an IRA QCD Can Support KU Law Students

As both a tax attorney and the dean of the KU School of Law, Stephen Mazza knows something about taxable income and funding the school.

“We don’t want to get into the business of giving out tax advice,” Mazza joked. “But the tax benefits of transferring minimum distributions from an IRA to a charity, like the School of Law, can be significant.”

The IRA qualified charitable distribution (QCD) presents a valuable giving opportunity. If you’re 70½ or older, you can direct a portion of your IRA distribution directly to charity — up to $105,000 per year — without it being reported as income. For those over the age of 73, this QCD counts toward your required minimum distribution (RMD).

“Donating your QCD is a straightforward way to reduce your tax burden while increasing our ability to teach our students,” Mazza said.

Donors can use their QCD to create endowed named funds, support the School of Law with unrestricted dollars or even leverage later through a beneficiary designation.

Martha Coffman, L’79, has settled into retirement after an established legal career that included opening her own firm, working at the KU School of Law as assistant director of the Paul E. Wilson Defender Project (now known as the Project for Innocence) and serving as general counsel in the Kansas Supreme Court’s Office of Judicial Administration.

“For several years I have given small donations to the law school to support its work educating new lawyers,” Coffman said. “I am grateful for the legal education I received and for the many friends I made in the process.”

Coffman worked with Kristin Shore at KU Endowment to donate her QCD to the scholarship fund at the School of Law.

“When I considered making distributions from my IRA, I immediately thought of the KU School of Law,” Coffman said. “I want to support current law students facing financial and other challenges like those I experienced in law school.  Although my donation is not large, I hope it will help current students reach their goal to be an attorney. I have asked that my donation be used to support scholarships and the law school’s program preparing students for the bar examination. The KU School of Law and KU Endowment made it easy to make my gift.”

If you’d like assistance or have questions about making an IRA QCD gift, please contact Kristin Shore at KU Endowment (785-832-7341). Checks must come from the IRA custodian and be made payable to KU Endowment to benefit the School of Law.

-By Derek Helms, KU Endowment

Compassion in the Chaos

This week especially, many students have been struggling with how to balance the very real need for self- and community care with the equally necessary and unavoidable grind. Classes are tough, work is hard and finding friends and support can be a real challenge. It’s important to be kind to others, and it’s important to be kind to yourself. Here are a few small ways to effectively balance life and the never-ending workload.

1. Set your work hours.

This one is probably the most difficult, but in my experience, it is the best way to stay sane. Many students will talk about treating law school like an 8 to 5 (and in fact, one Ambassador has already made a blog post about it!), where you show up early, stay a little late, and get as much done as possible. It’s a popular tactic for many, especially students who are not used to school being their entire life again. Doing this allows students to leave work at the door – or even all the way back in Green Hall. Creating this boundary between schoolwork and home life can be crucial in stress management, and for me personally, helps make prioritizing much easier. The subjects that I really struggle with I keep at school, where I can talk to classmates and professors; the subjects that I truly enjoy, I still try my best to keep at school, but I certainly don’t mind reading about Fourth Amendment violations as bedtime stories.

2. Know when to walk away.

No one is perfect, and no one has unlimited patience. It’s important to know when you’ve hit a wall. This goes for schoolwork and for social outings. When you’ve gotten about as far as you can get with work for one class, sometimes it’s better to pivot to another subject instead of forcing yourself through. If you’re slogging your way through a conversation with someone who makes you feel disrespected or uncomfortable, you are not obligated to stay! If your situation stinks, you can hit the bricks. In this atmosphere, it often feels like optics are the most important thing. Everyone wants to be the smartest, or the most hardworking, or the nicest, and if no one else has told you, please let me – none of those things are more important than your well-being.

3. Eat!

This sounds obvious and silly, but many students prioritize reading just one more page or revising their brief one more time over stopping for a snack. And I get it – creating a reward system is pretty intuitive for many of us, and food is a fantastic motivator. It can also feel tough to pull ourselves away from our work when we feel like we’re in “the groove,” whether that’s classwork or club-oriented organizing. Often, whatever we’re doing just feels more important than having a full meal. But nutrition is not only going to keep you going, it’s going to make you a much more efficient machine. Take care of yourself.

–Wren Browne is a 2L KU Law Student Ambassador from Midland, Michigan

Where the Misfits Fit

Finding time for yourself during law school

As an out-of-state student from Virginia, I began to explore the Midwest and all the unique places to visit in Lawrence as a 1L. One of my favorite things to do is travel, whether in my home state of Virginia, saving up to visit family in Scotland or camping with my family and recently rescued dog, Agnes. My most recent adventure entailed a five-hour drive to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, with my co-pilot, Agnes.

My wanderlust tendency largely began in college. Traveling has been one of my outlets from school since my senior year of college. A few weeks into law school, I knew my travel bug would be a way for me to maintain balance, even if I merely daydreamed about future travel plans.

Keegan and her dog, Agnes, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas

During my first year of law school, classes started out with a bang and before I knew it, October rolled around and fall break of my 1L year was on the horizon. I had the unique opportunity to travel with KU Law to Wichita for the 24 hours in the Wichita program. Through this program, I met with dozens of attorneys to speak about their experiences in the legal profession and in Wichita’s legal community all while seeing the expansive Flint Hills and city of Wichita.

Fast forward a year, after completing numerous first-year law school exams, memos and briefs and an internship with the U.S. Department of Transportation, I found myself edging towards another fall break as I learned about hearsay and witness impeachment in Evidence, and personal jurisdiction in Jurisdiction. I knew I wanted to spend time outside of Lawrence over break and explore more parts of the Midwest while in law school. As any law student would do, I researched where to find the best fall foliage within a five-hour drive from Lawrence and EUREKA!

Eureka Springs, Arkansas, popped up in my fall break search. As I delved into the history and community of this quaint town, I knew where I’d be spending part of my fall break. Agnes and I ventured on a five-hour trip, stopping in Fort Scott, Kansas, and the four corners to visit a new state for me: Oklahoma. After arriving in Eureka Springs, we did a self-guided tour of the numerous springs throughout the town as fall leaves fell to the ground. We walked the streets of Eureka Springs, finding bookshops, art galleries and coffee shops. After a wee bit of midterm prep, Agnes and I got a coffee and went to a local fall festival, driving along the mountainous roads filled with vibrant reds, oranges and yellows. While my trip encompassed two days, the colorful drive, kind people and memories allowed me to reset and realize the benefits of fitting in a community, even if one is a bit of a misfit.

– Keegan Fredrick is a 2L KU Law Student Ambassador from Fredricksburg, Virginia

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