On Wednesday, February 1, the Columbia University Law Review hosted Giselle Valdez, a Columbia College alum and current Columbia Law student to present about her organization, The Legal Gist, which aims to demystify the law school application process. Staff Writers Ella Ferguson and Maya Reisner were in attendance.

Valdez has launched her organization, The Legal Gist, across multiple platforms including Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, and Tik Tok in order to share the ins and outs of applying to law school. As a first generation college student and a Mexican-American woman, she explained that her Instagram aims to make the law school application process accessible and transparent to everyone, citing barriers, namely financial ones, that complicated her own process.

Giselle Valdez applied to Columbia Law after receiving her master’s degree from Oxford University in Social Science of the Internet. Her passion for law began when she was an undergraduate student studying English at Columbia. She was very involved on and off campus: being the Editor-in-Chief of CULR, working as an administrative assistant at the Columbia Law School, and even interning for Google’s legal team before deciding to ultimately pursue intellectual property and tech law.

Valdez began with a thorough presentation on what resources are available to help students prepare to apply and attend law school—all of these resources are linked on the @TheLegalGist Instagram page—followed by a Q-and-A session where attendees were asked to submit questions beforehand. One attendee asked Valdez to briefly touch on her time as an undergraduate student. She stated that as an English major, the extensive reading and writing prepared her well to be a lawyer. Lawyers spend countless hours reading cases and writing briefs and the like, so what law schools are looking for is a demonstration of your critical reading and writing skills. She also recommended taking interdisciplinary classes that combined both the fundamental skills lawyers need and niche interests that may guide you in choosing a practice specialty. She specifically recalled the class American Legal System where she was able to practice writing briefs.

Another question that came up from the audience asked about building a robust resume. Valdez stressed the importance of networking here. Her job as an administration assistant at the Columbia Law School as an undergraduate student allowed her to have contact with professors that she otherwise would not be able to have. She recommended both cold emailing Columbia Law Professors to ask questions related to their work or go to any pre-law events on campus usually offered by CULR or the Athena Pre-Law Society and follow up with panelists there. From her experience, a strong resume also includes involvement with pre-law organizations, leadership experience, or summer internships with exposure to attorneys work. A crucial thing that will make a potential graduate student stand out is demonstrating a niche interest in one specific area of the law. Top-20 schools look for passionate individuals who are driven to achieve their goals, and who they know will succeed at their school.

In a changing world, Giselle Valdez stands as a role model toward a more diverse legal system with a multitude of perspectives. Currently, 86% of barred attorneys and 93.4% of equity partners at large firms are white. Only 36% of attorneys are women. Valdez mentioned that some of her biggest challenges applying to law school related to the financial aspect, and that she simply could not believe that she could do it. Thus, The Legal Gist was born.

More information about The Legal Gist is available on their Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, Tik Tok, and LinkedIn.

Image via Maya Reisner