Episode 86: A Happy Beginning

Thinking LSAT

Nathan Fox and Ben Olson

Education

4.8 • 868 Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2017

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nathan introduces guest Chantal Renta, a Chinese-speaking, freelance-accounting, tax-law-loving 3L at Southwestern Law School. The show begins with Chantal, a self-proclaimed “tax queen,” warning students about the downside of federal loan forgiveness, an issue previously discussed on the Thinking LSAT podcast in episode 83. (1:30)

Chantal discusses the mistakes that she feels she made in preparing for law school and shares tips on how to avoid them. Nathan asks about her unique path to law, a journey that includes Chantal teaching herself accounting, studying postmortem medicine, traveling through China, and playing drums in a technical death metal band. (12:45)

Chantal describes the high and low points of her 1L experience at Southwestern Law, including her less-than-awesome first semester grades and what she did to turn them around quickly in the second semester. Nathan is awestruck by the long and impressive list of extracurricular activities Chantal has been involved in while at Southwestern. Her passions are varied and span from acting as President of the Tax Law Society to hosting a panel on the Muslim Ban. (30:01)

As the interview winds down, Nathan asks his guest what she thinks her future holds. Chantal plans to take the bar this summer, to become a CPA wherever she ends up, and to continue her legal education by earning an LL.M. in tax law next year. She hasn’t applied for any legal jobs as of yet, but she isn’t worried about her prospects in the market; we aren’t worried about them either. Chantal has no current plans to tour with any death metal group, technical or otherwise. (50:40)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to episode 86 of the Thinking El-Sat podcast in Los Angeles. I'm Nathan Fox. With me today I have a special
0:15.7	guest, Chantal Renta. Chantal, you are in Los Angeles, yes?
0:21.2	Yes. Cool. What about whereabouts, by the way? So I live in
0:24.5	Korea town actually. Nice. I was there the other night for Korean barbecue with
0:28.7	some friends and it was amazing. It's everywhere. Yeah, everywhere.
0:34.0	I went to some crazy place that had 3,000 yelper views.
0:37.0	So, yeah, it was awesome.
0:41.0	Chantal is a 3L at South Western Law School specializing in tax. She's the president of the
0:49.9	Tax Law Society. She's also editor-in-chief of development
0:54.4	of Los Angeles Public Interest Law Journal.
0:57.8	And we will talk about her bio, her path to law school,
1:01.7	and all sorts of interesting stuff. Ben is on the road
1:06.3	this week so it's going to be just me and Chantal at least for now. So Chantal
1:12.3	our mutual friend Niggi
1:14.9	got us in touch because you listened
1:17.8	to a recent episode where we were talking
1:19.7	about loan forgiveness.
1:21.9	And as a tax specialist you wanted to talk about that a little bit is
1:26.9	that right?
1:27.9	Yeah that's correct.
1:28.9	Cool so why don't you just lay it on us?
1:32.1	Sure okay so there are essentially don't you just lay it on us. Sure, okay.
	...

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