Student blogger:
Ali Bollbach (’14)
Co-President of the Public Interest Law Foundation
Chapman Law has students from around the country and around the world. We have recent college graduates, grad school graduates, semi-recent graduates, and long-time veterans of the work force.

But who are the faces you see in the hallway, the opinions you hear in class, and the students you study with in your study group? Who are the gunners, the fashionistas, and the people who sit in the back of all the classes?

You’ll never know who you meet on the first day (or on any day for that matter), until you start to talk to them! I’d be willing to bet, you will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of people roaming the halls of Chapman.

Standing outside Chapman Law’s orientation before it was about to begin, I approached a gentlemen whose name I was a little unsure how to pronounce, Minhquan. He flashed a smile and introduced himself, shortly after a photographer appeared and asked to take a picture of the students chatting in our group. Within minutes of meeting Minhquan (affectionately called MQ by most of us) –our meet and greet was memorialized.

Flash forward a months, and MQ and I have received funding to attend Equal Justice Works, a non profit organization based in Washington D.C. that hosts one of the largest public interest law conference career fairs in the country! Upon hearing the other was going we booked flights together and travelled across the country for a job fair.

While waiting for our red eye flight to take off, MQ plugged in his laptop and was furiously typing away (no book in hand). Now I knew we had property reading… and contracts… and a few others but at the warp speed he was typing there was little chance he was working on something school related. Once we boarded the plane and had a 5+ hour flight ahead of us I asked what he was working on.

Turns out the guy that I met on the first day and sat to my left in most of my classes was a comic book reviewer (on top of being on Mock Trial, Moot Court, Nexus, PILF Co-President, a foodie, and so much more)! MQ contributes to a website called the Weekly Comic Book Review, he reviews comics as well as TV shows based on comics (like my new favorite show Arrow). Each comic/TV show follows the same format beginning with the story, followed by a review where he discusses and critiques the story line, a grade, conclusions and (my favorite) some musings. On his 1,000th comic review, MQ notes that given the average word count of his reviews, he has surpassed the word count of War and Peace.

MQ and I might never have become such good friends had I not walked up to say hello. Since then we have tackled our 1L year, traveled to DC and back (twice), dined at more Pho places from Little Saigon then I can count, become Co-Presidents of the Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF) together, and are about to have another year under our belts, and all because of a brief hello.

Chapman Law has some pretty amazing people from all walks of life. Who will you meet? For me, it was a comic book reviewer turned great friend!

If you want to check out MQ’s 1,000th review it can be found here.

Ali Bollbach ('14)

Ali Bollbach (’14)

About the Author:
Ali Bollbach is a second-year law student and the current Co-President of the Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF) at Chapman University School of Law. She went to University of California, Davis for her undergraduate degree. Ali enjoys swing dancing, the rain, and a great cup of tea.

The views expressed in the student blogs are those of the author and not the law school.