Tanya Panossian-Lesser, a former educator turned legal enthusiast, reflects on her journey from teaching to law school. Inspired by her teaching experience, she ventured into test prep tutoring before diving into the legal world during the pandemic. Now a 2L, she thrives in internships, competitions, and eagerly anticipates a fulfilling legal career.
I would like to tell you about my journey to law school and beyond. When I graduated from Rutgers as a history major, I was thinking either of taking the LSAT for law school or the GRE for graduate work in education. I had taught for the Princeton Review while in undergrad and liked the experience, so I attended Teachers College at Columbia U. and earned a graduate degree in Teaching Social Studies. I loved the time with the middle and high school kids: they were inspiring in their curiosity, creativity and earnestness to make the world a better place. I taught and led discussions, which developed my skills as a public speaker. I also learned how to fake confidence when I needed it. Teaching U.S. history to teenagers was a way to learn to handle impromptu, challenging questions about justice. How could I have known back then that I was getting litigation training?
I felt my teacher colleagues were some of the best people I’d met; sincere, intelligent, dedicated. But by the time my tenth year of teaching arrived, I was headed for major changes. A sense of “is this it?” regarding my intellectual and personal growth had become overwhelming. I remember visiting a friend at his law school and watching him go through vocabulary flashcards. Specifically, I remember “estoppel” and thinking “where did that word come from? - how lucky that he gets to study law…” I had always thought he was much smarter than I was, and so maybe it made more sense for *him* to be at law school than it did for me. I didn’t dare consider applying to law school myself.
And yet in another direction, the draw to start a family had taken over my immediate future. Moving with my husband and kids to NJ to raise a family near my extended family was right for us, but it meant leaving my job and any thoughts of career change on the back burner. To have part time work while my husband commuted to his job, I started a test prep tutoring business that turned out to be successful- it was the right place and the right time. I worked on small business skills in accounting and customer service. I was learning how to quickly determine which clients had the same outlook on test prep expectation as I did and those who didn’t. Emails with subject headers like “looking to get my 8th grader in an Ivy League school” were indicative of a certain outlook, while “not sure if I’m too late to get help for my senior in test prep” subject headers were indicative of another. I learned how to work with both types of clients, and it’s been a good practice for having clients in any field.
Fast forward to the COVID pandemic and the shutdown of everything… I was tutoring online but also thinking- is this the end of test prep? No one can take a test, and colleges are being forced to drop them as requirements. The idea that test prep could just go away combined with the re-emergence of the feeling that I wanted a career change meant that when paralegal courses at nearby Bergen Community College went completely online, I saw no harm in dipping my toes finally in the legal world. After taking classes with great (SHU Law alumni) professors at BCC, I was convinced that while paralegal work was good for me, actual lawyering would be better. With those professors’ constant encouragement (“Did you start applying yet?), I completed applications and was so fortunate to be admitted to the SHU Law weekend program to start in 2022.
As a 1LW weekend student, I was surrounded by many smart students who had loads more legal work experience than I did. I asked Dean Pirone advice about legal work for my 1L summer. She directed me to judicial externships and pointed out the Symplicity folders of resources. I sent out ten applications to local civil court judges and had positive responses from two of them. One judge’s paralegal emailed me asking me to come in to interview. I agreed to meet with a Bergen Superior Court judge. First, I practiced interviewing with Ms. Monique Blackwood in OCS first, which was so helpful. She encouraged me to add personal interests at the bottom of my resume, which I was reluctant to do. But I added “softball, Lebanese cooking, classic movies, and guitar.” Sure enough, after a few minutes of talking about my career change, the judge zoomed in on our common interest in classic movies, and we must have spent 15 minutes on “The Godfather” alone. Feeling very grateful to Ms. Blackwood and Dean Pirone, I left the interview and promptly wrote a thank you email. They offered me the internship quickly, and I accepted.
During the internship with the civil court judge, I was part of a team of four people- Judge, Law Clark, Paralegal, and Intern. I was lucky that the judge was interested in talking to me during his limited downtime. I asked him some substantitve legal questions on the torts cases I was reading, but I had mostly procedural questions since I was witnessing NJ civil procedure every minute I was there. He helped me improve my memo writing by offering constructive feedback. He encouraged me to sit in on a criminal trial down the hall, which was very educational. The law clerk knew how to give me enough tasks so that I could feel useful and not overwhelmed. After a few days of watching her juggle the demands on the judge’s attention, I could understand why the judge called the paralegal, “The Boss.” It was an all around terrific experience, and I planned to apply in the future for another judicial internship or even clerkship one day.
During the fall of this 2L year, I took a five hour per week remote internship with Legal Services of NYC. I worked with the director of immigration and learned about how attorneys were helping immigrants seeking asylum. During the remote meetings, I heard first-hand how the federal government’s changing policies were affecting vulnerable people in life or death situations- especially from Venezuela at that time. I helped create a Power Point for his presentation to attorneys facing immigration judges. I also met interns from other law schools.
At the same time, I focused on skills I wanted to get out of law school. I worked hard at improving my writing and arguing during App Ad. My fellow weekend student Maureen Camacho and I decided to team up and work on our litigating during the Gressman competition, and we’ve had success so far. As I write this today, our next competition, the semi-finals, will be in four days. Regarding my 2L summer, in the fall I had applied to work as a PSEG legal intern. Jamie Mitrovic, the president of the Environmental and Energy Law Society, kindly encouraged me to apply since she had experience in that position. I had my interview with the coordinators there, and they offered me an internship which I’ve gratefully accepted. I look forward to a summer of assignments from PSEG attorneys in their various fields- torts, contracts, real estate, and more. I hope to learn more about myself and my own calling in the legal field. It will also be my first 40 hour/week position. Thanks to my supportive family any people at BCC, SHU and my internships, my career change years in the making has finally reached a point of full time legal work. I’m not sure what’s next after this summer, but I hope to return to a judge’s chambers – perhaps in bankruptcy- sometime in the future.
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