Coffee Break: Hug Pouch Bag

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woman holds yellow Ferragamo Hug Pouch Bag

I tend to think of Ferragamo for shoes and suits, but I really like this bag.

The bag comes in a bunch of sizes, with different carrying options — I like that the “Hug Pouch Bag” (pictured) can be carried both as a clutch, as well as a shoulder bag with short straps, or a shoulder bag with longer straps. (There's also a “small leather pouch” that's a more usual size for a clutch/shoulder bag.)

There are smaller options with top handles that can be carried as a crossbody, and larger options with top handles that almost remind me of Hermès bags.

I love the colorful options — the yellow pictured, a nice dark green, or a bright blue — and the bags range from $1090-$3400.

The pictured bag is $2900, and you can find it at Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks, and other retailers.

Sales of note for 2/7/25:

  • Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
  • Ann Taylor – Extra 25% off your $175+ purchase — and $30 of full-price pants and denim
  • Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 15% off
  • Boden – 15% off new season styles
  • Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
  • J.Crew – Extra 50% off all sale styles
  • J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything including new arrivals + extra 20% off $125+
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – 40% off one item + free shipping on $150+

132 Comments

  1. My kindergartner has his first spring recital soon, and I’m unsure how to dress him or what I should wear. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve attended such an event, and without local mom friends for advice, I’m uncertain about current norms for this sort of family and community event. I feel a suit for a kindergartner might be too much, and khakis seem too casual. What should my little one and I wear? We’re in a metro Detroit suburb, so, not a fashion haven. I just want to ensure we don’t stick out in a bad way.

    1. for my son’s band concerts (7th grade) they have the kids dress in khakis. what instrument does he play? something like a suit feels like it would be too restrictive for his movement.

        1. I have a kindergartner at a public school in the Midwest and 99% of the kids just wear their normal schools, which for kids this age is often leggings, sweatpants or basketball shorts. I think khakis would be ok but anything fancier than that would stand out as super formal.

        2. Khakis are fine. Both my kids did orchestra & sometimes band from 4th grade through 12th and the acceptable outfit was always black pants/skirt + white shirt or black pants/skirt + orchestra or band tee.

    2. Can you ask the teacher? Or are the photos from previous events online? Failing that, I’d try to find a cute navy blazer at Target or similar and pair it with the khakis and a white or pastel button-up shirt.

        1. My comment is in mod and has typos but thanks for the tips! I will check for pictures.

      1. It’s a school event. His group will just be signing with very simple choreography.

          1. +1 maybe this varies based on region, but virtually no one would be dressed up for this where I live. When you said “recital” I thought you meant a piano recital or something like that that he’d been practicing for outside of school.

          2. yeah, I’d definitely look at pictures from past events before buying fancy new clothes. Our school just posted pictures from the first grade music performance. The vast majority of the kids are in t-shirts or sweatshirts. The dressiest kids were some girls in cute casual dresses (Hanna, Boden, etc.) that would also be appropriate for a day on the play ground. A kid in church clothes would really stand out.

    3. Oh man, if your school is anything like my kids, you’ll see the gamut. I’d say most boys will be in khakis and polos, girls in spring dresses. But there will definitely be a boy in a suit and a girl in a fancy frilly dress. And a boy in basketball shorts and a jersey and a girl in sweats. And the same with parents.

      1. Haha this was the experience at our school too. When my son was still young enough to not really care what he wore (lasted until about 3rd grade for us), I would always put him in a little suit or at least a dress shirt with a vest and tie. He wasn’t the only one dressed this way, but not in the majority either. We were at a large, suburban public school that served a mix of income levels. Formality of dress did not seem to correlate at all with income level either.

      2. +1 This is our school. I’m team polo and khakis for these events with my boys.

      3. I’m old, but where I grew up (predominantly Christian area), school spring concerts were a way to get another wear out of a new or new to them Easter outfit.

      4. In my area kids would wear their normal school clothes unless the teacher gave specific directions. Dressing up would stand out in a very weird way.

    4. Costco has the cutest suits for little boys. I would go with that because why not?

      1. It will look ridiculous to wear a suit if the rest of the kids are in jeans and sweatpants. Where I live, kids just wear their normal school clothes for this kind of thing. Maybe a slightly cuter than normal outfit like you’d wear for school picture day, but I’ve never ever seen a kid in a suit at an elementary school class-wide performance.

    5. My 5 yr old nephew wore khakis and a butt0n-down at a recent recital. Rural Ohio, so also not a fashionable place.

    6. Khakis and a polo or collared long-sleeve shirt. A suit would definitely be too much, albeit adorable.

    7. My preK kid had a Little red riding hood play. One kid wore a Batman costume.

      1. See, Batman costume is what I would think of as age appropriate and what I would have worn if my parents let me – from a non-kid-having-non-US-perspective. khakis for me is a just “Welcome to our local bank, we would love for you to open a savings account”. :D

    8. Ask the teachers what the kid should wear. They’ll announce it to the whole class.
      For you – it’s natural to be excited and think this is A Big Deal. I urge you to consider the venue. School auditoriums and gyms and crowded hallways will be uncomfortable temperatures and lack airflow. I urge you to dress in layers and to bring attention to your face so that your kid can spot you from the stage. All will go well!

  2. Hey there! I have a question about gifts for weddings and engagements that I’m hoping you can help me with. So, I know that when you’re invited to a wedding, it’s customary to give a gift to the couple. But what about if you’re also invited to an engagement party? My boyfriend was invited to one recently, and it got me thinking – do we need to give a second gift? And if so, should we stick to the registry? Also, any idea how much we should be looking to spend on an engagement gift?

    I’d really appreciate any advice or insights you may have on this. The relevant parties are all based on the east coast (Boston/NYC/DC), in case that makes a difference. Thanks so much in advance!

    1. I’m not in that geographical location, but it’s my understanding that gifts aren’t expected at engagement parties. If you do bring anything, it should be celebratory like a bottle of champagne or similar.

    2. You don’t normally give a gift at an engagement party, unless you can’t make it to the wedding and give the wedding gift at that time. You give gifts for the wedding and the bridal shower if you’re invited to it.

    3. In my area, gifts are brought to engagement parties but often consumables like wine, flowers etc or maybe a gift card for a dinner out somehwere.

    4. Engagement party- card or small gift up to you

      Shower- a gift from the registry

      Wedding- a gift from the registry mailed to their house or cash

    5. To me (29 and attending a ton of these but also raised by WASPs), it really depends on what type of engagement party it is.

      Waspy engagement party that’s more of a cocktail party by someone the generation of the couples parents? Bring a gift from the registry (but you can go cheaper), or a nice bottle of wine.

      A more casual let’s celebrate right after the engagement attended mostly by young people and more casual (at a bar, brewery, or their apartment?). Either nothing, flowers, or bottle of wine.

      Something in between? Bottle of wine or flowers.

    6. If I couldn’t go to the party I’d send a bottle of good champagne to the friend

      if the party was small I’d buy a round of drinks for the couple

      if the party was big (and maybe includes people not invited to the wedding) I wouldn’t bring anything

    7. I’ve brought small gifts to engagement parties. I went to one where the couple specifically requested monetary gifts for their honeymoon which I thought was a little ridiculous!

      1. I’m seriously so over the grubbing. Every wedding-related occasion I’ve been invited to recently has been a cash grab.

    8. I’ll usually bring a bottle of champagne to an engagement party. The quality ie price depends on how close I am to the couple and what kind of party it is. If someone is hosting me for a formal dinner with printed invitations then I want to express my gratitude at a different level than casual drinks and snacks organized through a Facebook invite. Usually there isn’t a registry yet at the time of the engagement party. If there is, especially if registry info is printed on the invite, I would take that as a signal to bring a slightly nicer (~$100 for two guests) gift than I might otherwise.

    9. Speaking for NYC, for reference. If it’s a formal engagement party (i.e., not an impromptu celebration amongst friends because “we just got engaged!”), the go to seems to be to get a physical gifts, often something from the registry, but more along the lines of something “small” in the $50 range (maybe more now, as it’s been a few years since my friends who have gotten engaged have actually done engagement parties). Yes, you end up getting a separate wedding present later although in some circles that just ends up being a check vs.an actual gift. I can’t think of any engagement party I’ve attended that was close in time to the actual wedding so I think that’s how it ends up being justified.

      1. +1 NYC metro area. Engagement party and bridal shower is a gift off the registry. Wedding is cold, hard cash or a check.

  3. This morning has me thinking about autonomy and privacy in marriages/partnership. My husband and I have mostly joint finances but also each have a separate account and monthly “allowance”. I usually spend mine on coffee and lunches and he usually spends his on the newest unnecessary gadget. I feel like a little bit of sanctioned obfuscation is good for our marriage- do you guys have things you do this with too?

    1. Sanctioned obfuscation is a great term, and yes, we do. We each have a “slush fund” that is part of the grocery budget and can be spent on fancy coffees and McDonald’s cokes (me) or gas station donuts and vitamin water (DH).

    2. Not officially, since we have fully joint finances. But unofficially we have a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy about my vacation spending. My husband is nowhere near as enthusiastic about travel as I am, but has accepted it as a price of admission, and also knows that being able to afford nice vacations is a large part of why I stay in my dead-end job, so it’s best if he just looks the other way on the budget.

    3. YES! It’s so important to have autonomy and know that my partner doesn’t know or care what happens with that money or time. It helps me feel like I’m an independent person with my own likes/needs/wants.

    4. Yes (we actually keep separate finances — later in life marriage with kids from before), but it only works because we share spending values and we both conduct ourselves in accordance with them. Here’s what I mean: do I care if he buys expensive soda or fancy shoes or whatever? No, because I know that he will never, ever spend so much on that stuff that he can’t meet his/our other obligations. And he will never lie about it. Never. He is the most responsible person I know.

      1. I think this is a good way to put it – I have no interest in policing everything my SO buys and I have no interest in having them look over my shoulder at my purchases but I also need to know that we are on the same page about larger values – always paying off the credit card at the end of the month, savings leftover, etc. and, obviously, no lying.

    5. Love the term ‘sanctioned obfuscation’. That’s how we operate. Separate credit cards and bank accounts but regularly sit down and talk through short/medium/long term goals and do our taxes together. IDK what some of the car stuff costs and he has no clue about buying the kids ski or swim or school stuff but we talk through financial goals/budgeting and stick to them.

      The issue in the morning post was that they agreed on financial goals, he wasn’t following the plan, was lying about it and then acted like lying was no big deal.

    6. We spend money on different things that the other might believe is pointless. So of course he doesn’t want to know what my newest running sneakers cost and I don’t want to know what his XBox cost; it’s just within budget.

    7. Yes. All of the money dumps into a big joint account. We each have our own credit cards. Our play money is “discretionary” money; a term holdover from when we were younger and budgeted more vigorously. We also take out “together” money that is basically for takeout and eating out. If one of our credit cards are high from internet shopping or whatever, we mention it to each other but don’t belabor the point. I spend a lot more on my hair and nails and clothing and yoga classes, he spends a lot on his bass fishing boat and everything related. We have joint financial goals that we are meeting, plus the benefit of being high earning DINKs relative to our low cost of living area, so this very laissez faire approach works well for our situation and personalities.

    8. We do not, but neither of us has ever expressed that we feel like we need to. DH’s discretionary spending goes to his hobby and mine goes to coffees and skin care. We share spending and saving values and we both know about the other’s spending. Neither of us feels monitored, so this works for us.
      We do have an agreement that if we are going to spend more than $X on something, then we talk about it first. The $X has been different values at different times in our lives depending on our finances. Anything under $X is fair game to spend money on without consulting. We both know that neither of us is spending ($X minus $1) day after day to skirt the rule because we have similar financial values.

    9. We’re both responsible people who are meeting our jointly discussed financial goals, so we typically don’t have too much friction. DH doesn’t spend much on himself (honestly, I wish he treated himself more often). I, on the other hand, could spend money on myself every day. Hashtag worth it? I basically give MYSELF an allowance for my fancy coffees and other frivolous things.

    10. Absolutely! We have a yours, mine, ours system, so joint expenses – which is almost everything – comes from the joint account, but we each have our own accounts for discretionary spending (shoes, guitar pedals). Not sure if this would have helped this morning’s OP, though. It sounds like there were stated budget goals and her partner was lying about his spending. And by throwing out lunches the OP made, he was not only betraying her trust, he was wasting money spent on the lunches and, more importantly, the OP’s time and emotional labor.

    11. I’m not married but that level of control would drive me insane. I completely agree that you need to budget for what I call “fun money” that isnt strictly necessary to the budget but if I feel like it, I allow myself to spend it on whatever I want.

    12. Fully joint, no secrets, nothing is hidden. It works for us. We discuss big purchases and don’t ever even have a conversation about each other’s small purchases. I don’t care if he buys some random video game thing and he couldn’t have been happier to help me pick out a new mountain bike. As life gets busier, it’s really nice not to waste any energy second-guessing each other’s purchases. “Complete non-issue” is the best.

    13. We have fully joint finances and no random separate accounts for anything. We both buy whatever we want and know the household income/ spending ability. The only thing we’d check in on is a major purchase like a house or a car. Neither of us has ever questioned the purchase of anything either of us has made.

        1. lol! I read your comment after mine posted and thought “shoot, could have just said +1 exactly”

      1. Same here. Although our threshold for a major purchase is lower (like $500 vs a car).

    14. Not really; I know having an “allowance” would really bother me.

      Caveat that this works for us because we’re both naturally on the same page about finances (not huge spenders, but really enjoy our social lives and hobbies so we’re not super frugal either).

      We have fully combined finances; all CCs and bank accounts* and investments are totally joint. We have a rough idea of what we want to spend overall each month. As long as we’re reasonably within that (or know why we’re not) we’re fine. Our limit for spending on one thing without discussing in advance is $200. It’s 99% of the time an FYI and not an ask.

    15. I did not work this hard to get this far in my career to have an allowance. I really bristle at the concept, and the friends that I know who operate this way tend to be equally rigid about other things and have relationships that feel very rigid or transactional to me. For example, my friend was on a big deal and she was working crazy hours. Her husband all but refused to take on some of her chores because they had set up their division of labor and he had his chores and she had hers and basically too bad that you’re working 12 hour days right now, it’s your job to clean the litter box.

      That being said, neither of us spend foolishly and we live well within our means and are aligned with our financial priorities. But if I want to buy a coffee every day at work, so be it.

      1. I agree. I prefer shared values and both people being financially literate (so no one is making clueless mistakes like not paying a credit card) to an allowance. It wouldn’t work for me.

    16. We have one pot & we each have our own credit cards, even though they’re joint credit cards, each of us tends to use one particular one. Joint money pays them off every month. I don’t want to be questioned about my purchases, and I don’t even look at his.

      The problem arose when my husband decided to use the credit card I usually use for a significant purchase, due to one of those % off deals, and didn’t tell me. Of course, that one transaction caused a fraud alert to be issued, the bank called to ask if I recognized the purchase, and I did not. It’s been a long, confusing back and forth with the bank. So I will just say that if you do this, communication is key!

    17. There’s a difference between maintaining some autonomy and secretly counteracting a stated and agreed shared goal.

    18. We’re about as independent as they come. He makes a lot more than me so pays the mortgage and most bills (will go to me if he dies and will be paid well via our prenup if we divorce). I pay for our health insurance, my phone, and a couple of other bills. I pay my share on taxes (I have a lot in stocks and savings). I spend and save how I please and he does as well. The idea of having to account for a McDonald’s visit makes my stomach turn–and that’s before the McDonald’s. If I were married to someone where our earnings were more equal, an equitable arrangement would look quite different. But I would still always want at least some finances that aren’t joint.

    19. We do, but by default, not design? We have three different credit cards for the specific points; I primarily use two of them and my husband primarily uses one (they got divided that way naturally based on what we each buy for the household as part of our routines and by who brought which card with them into the marriage, it wasn’t really deliberate). We each have a copy of the other cards and could definitely look at the statements but in reality, I don’t think either of us ever have; we just don’t care enough to. I know my husband is super frugal and doesn’t put a lot on “his” card in general; he knows that I’m less frugal but certainly very practical and put most of our household maintenance spending on “my” cards so they naturally run higher each month. We don’t line item budget, though – we live below our means, pay ourselves first, and then we can spend whatever is there (and have never gotten close to that line where we would want to check on the spending).

    20. Ha, ‘sanctioned obfuscation’ is how I shall now be referring to my skincare/Botox/fancy clothing budget.

    21. This morning has me thinking that the OP needs to get away from a man who’s using her money, her time, her goodwill and lying to her.

      Agree that people can have autonomy and privacy. But not privacy to abuse the other person’s goodwill and save their own, larger resources and gaslight the person with less. That is not autonomy or privacy, that is abusing somebody’s trust.

  4. From this morning’s thread, I know a few people who failed the bar at least twice. All were good, solid people. Some had wanted to be lawyers since childhood. Two were first generation to college in their families. One went to a bad undergraduate college and a medium law school, one went to a SLAC and T25 law school, and one went to top-tier schools. iDK what happened in the last case but the schools that took them in and took 3 years of their lives and let them borrow a ton of $, I feel should pay the loans back when their graduates can’t pass the bar. I think that CA is different where they have unaccredited law schools, but that to me also seems to easily wreck the futures of eager kids who trust that they have a fair shot at a dream but the deck is stacked against them.

    IDK what LSAT score means that you are unlikely to ever pass a bar exam, but someone should post it here so it may save someone from this grief. Law schools to me are predatory and are never candid with sh*t like this.

    1. From what I understand (I professionally studied this issue years ago – long story), these numbers are roughly correct:

      https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/12/88-of-152-lsats-and-97-of-160-lsats-eventually-pass-the-bar-.html

      and

      https://www.lawschooltransparency.com/trends/admissions-standards

      This is not an issue of judgement: if you’re bad at high-stress, time-limited tests, both the LSAT and the bar will be rough sledding – even if you would be a fantastic, say, estate planning attorney.

    2. Everyone applying to law school should look at that law school’s bar passage rate. If the bar passage rate is low, absent extenuating circumstances, they should not go to that law school. Passing the bar is the literal ticket to practicing law; if you go to a law school with a 50% passage rate, it hardly seems like a gamble I would take.

      1. But is this a measure of what the law school teaches or of who goes there? I know people who went to Ivy league programs who felt the need to take entirely separate prep courses for the bar. My impression was that they passed because they were the kind of people who get into Ivy league schools, not because their classes prepared them particularly well to pass the bar.

        1. Ok, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Literally everyone takes a prep course for the bar. And if you don’t, you’ve made a poor decision. It’s basically mandatory.

          1. I just did the practice books to study for the exam. No class but this was when the bar exam was easier.

        2. At least back in the aughts, the top schools generally taught more theory and the lower-ranked schools generally taught more bar-like material.

          1. I’m from an areawith a top ~30 public law school and a third tier private law school and people always used to say the third tier school people did better on the bar because they actually learned practical things. I don’t think that’s true though if you look at the actual bar passage stats.

        3. Yes, smarter people go to higher ranked schools and pass tests more easily. Everyone takes a prep class so that’s not the difference maker.

    3. If you went to a T25 or top tier law school and fail the bar multiple times it is your fault not the schools.

      1. I don’t know that I agree. A lot of schools take just waive kids in and figure their shine will run off on some kids who need it. I think that is wishful thinking. And for kids who went straight through, they have no idea how they may be set up to fail because they have never failed anything g before. With so many schools being test optional and not ranking, I think some kids just float through and are truly unaware how poorly prepared they are.

        Please tell me med school isn’t like this (I don’t think it is). I use doctors all the time but not lawyers. For lawyers, I think there are just too many people in law school relative to jobs available, sort of like how there are a lot of D1 football players in college but most dont get drafted by the NFL (but unlike failing the bar, going undrafted is expected and not a surprise because there are a ton of relevant metrics along the way).

        1. It is actually hard to get into a top 25 law school. And those schools are good. They provide a great education. If you aren’t smart enough to pass the bar after attending one, that’s a personal problem.

          1. I don’t think it’s a question of “smart” per se, I think some really smart people are bad at taking tests or just don’t devote enough time to studying for it. But yes, I agree, if someone from a top 25 law school fails the bar the problem is with the individual not the school. The top 25 law schools mostly have first time bar passage rates >95% (and presumably a lot of the 5% pass on the second try) so clearly they’re preparing their graduates well.

          2. Yeah, the commenter above is right that there are too many people in law school, but that’s a lower-tier/for-profit law school problem, not at T25 law school problem.

            I went to NYU and someone in my class failed the bar twice, and I wasn’t super surprised and nor would I ever in a million years think that was NYU’s responsibility.

        2. There are too many law grads relative to available law jobs, but that doesn’t really impact the top tier schools, whose graduates will almost all pass the bar and get decent jobs. The problem you’re describing is because there are too many crap law schools that will admit basically anyone, not because Harvard doesn’t vet their applicants thoroughly enough.

        3. I don’t think med school is like this, but perhaps because medicine is so complicated and practiced in such an adverse environment, my experience has been that practicing medical providers make basic mistakes often enough that I think (hope?) a lawyer with the same batting average would run into some kind of trouble.

          1. Huh? You seriously think doctors make more mistakes than (checks notes) lawyers? No one is infallible, but making a blanket statement like that is just strange.

        4. That’s actually not entirely true. There are too many lawyers who want certain jobs, but there are actually whole areas where additional attorneys are needed. They are not jobs that pay well or are in less desirable areas though.

          But as a lawyer who’s known lots of lawyers, not passing the bar is generally not the school’s fault.

        5. I went to a T25 and everyone I graduated with eventually passed.

          One woman needed test accommodations; she was helped tremendously by that. Some other people were too mentally wiped out after graduation to kick it into high gear for the bar; they passed the next time they took it. Sometimes there is “other stuff” going on in the background: controlling boyfriend or family who torpedoed bar study efforts. But that all gets straightened out – everyone was smart enough and motivated enough to pass within a year.

        6. The equivalent would be not matching to a residency, which is required to practiced as a doctor. This year 93.5% of MD grads matched, which is still a lot of people in a crappy situation and a lot of debt, though it’s a little more complicated than not passing a test.

    4. I’m an actuary. One of my actuary friends failed the same exam something like 7 times. We all spend years and years taking a series of exams that are major time sucks – estimated 300+ study hours to pass each – so my friend probably invested thousands of hours, and that exam is only offered once per year, so 7+ years. But they did eventually pass it! I was more impressed with them than someone who passed it the first time, like me. Excellent actuary. I have no hesitation thinking of them as a top actuary. Crap just happens sometimes.

      1. I know an attorney (who was a practicing nurse before going to law school…) that failed the bar four times, finally passing the fifth. I would have pivoted from a legal career much sooner than she did!

    5. I went to a top 20 law school, and there are a handful of kids each year who “don’t get it.”

      My first year writing partner was paired with me because our last names were right next to each other (that’s how the teacher paired the whole class). We were given strict instructions on how to write a brief, and whether we were arguing for the plaintiff or defendant. My partner FELL ASLEEP on the last night before the brief was due. He told me he was working on it, and I stayed up waiting until 3am to compile his portion, and then at some point, he just…went to bed accidentally. I ended up writing the whole thing, doing an all nighter, turning it in, and telling the teacher what happened. He didn’t even wake up until noon the next day. And he wasn’t that apologetic, which was mind-boggling. We had weeks to do the assignment–it didn’t need to involve an all-nighter at all.

      As part of the same project, a week or two later, we were supposed to argue for our side (the side we wrote our brief for). Inexplicably, he stood up in front of our class and argued THE OTHER SIDE’S position, even though he and I had practiced arguing our side. This told me that he had never really understood the assignment (literally), and didn’t even have a grasp of what was going on. It was both sad and incredibly frustrating. My teacher was super-confused, even though she knew what happened with the brief.

      He failed the NY bar twice, and as far as I know, works in compliance (a JD-preferred, but not required position) at a large financial institution. He was from an underprivileged background, and he did try. But law school was too much for him. He went to a not-great college and excelled there, but this was a level up, and he didn’t know how to handle it, and my school didn’t know how to help him properly.

      My section was kind to him, professors were kind, I was kind, but…it was just so clear we were doing him a disservice, and OMG, the debt burden on this poor kid. It was a real travesty. I do not think we are helping people who are over their heads, and who also can’t step up when given a lift up. Law school was not right for him. It was a wonder he graduated.

      1. I know a few people who left law school after the first year. They have great careers now and were able to get rid of their debt.

        I wish law schools were better at telling people that it isn’t working out and their best bet is to not start 2L year.

      2. Not a lawyer; never attended law school. Do law schools have academic advisors, or is the track pretty much set? I’m wondering how he DID graduate and whether there was someone who should have candidly told him about his chances for success.

    6. I failed the bar the first time I took it. For Reasons, I ended up in a state I had never expected to be in, and their bar exam had an entire day of state law on it. I had never in a million years given any thought to this state’s laws, and there just wasn’t enough time to learn them. (It’s been over a decade and I’m STILL salty about their questions, like “What is the number of the form used to file a divorce petition in county court?” Please. That’s not the kind of thing you test for on the bar exam.) Anyways, I ended up moving back to an MBE jurisdiction and did just fine.

      Similar to Anon at 4:24’s last paragraph, I had a classmate who everyone just KNEW wasn’t going to pass the bar, wasn’t going to be able to get a job. It was such a disservice to admit him to the school. He was on academic probation every other semester because he just didn’t have what it took. Last I heard, he was working as a paralegal, which is what he had been doing before he went to law school.

    7. I live in the Florida and there are too many crappy law schools competing for substandard students and the bar exam has gotten harder over the years. Yes, law schools are predatory but if you want to be a lawyer, you should be a little bit savvy. It seems as though everyone who ever dreamt of being a lawyer thinks they are entitled to just that. I wasn’t good at math or science so I didn’t think to apply to med school! I don’t have too much sympathy for those who took out loans to substandard private law schools.

  5. My admin. assistant of five years just got a significant promotion (will now be a supervisor, with her own office, and salaried for the first time). I lobbied hard for her to get it and am so happy for her. Thoughts on a small congratulations gift?

    1. will she have her own office or desk now? maybe something for that like a plant?

    2. Take her out for lunch or happy hour to celebrate and offer to be her mentor as she moves into management.

  6. Is anyone else getting calls that, if declined, the same number will call again immediately, multiple times in a row? My phone isn’t automatically blocking these as spam, but they are spam, right? They’re not from local area codes, and no company name pops up.

    1. Let them go to voice mail then block after. There’s probably tech that distinguishes between a non-answer and a decline and registers a decline as an active phone number because someone had to decline the call, and that triggers the call back.

  7. Hoping for some shopping help. I’m getting married in Hawaii in May and looking for a reception dress. Ideally white or light blue, midi to maxi length, something elegant with a wow factor. Asymmetrical cut preferred but optional. I’m a pear shape, size 0 on top, 2-4 on bottom. Budget up to $500, though willing to go a bit higher for something really special. I’ve struck out at many many stores, so getting a bit discouraged. Thank you!!

    1. I feel like what my local N-M has often fits the bill for stunning and festive. $500 might not go far there but it’s worth looking for inspiration.

      Farm Rio would be something to check out. And FWIW, I got an awesome dress years ago at the Aloha Bowl flea market that is amazing still.

    2. Have you tried David’s Bridal? I feel like they do this price range very well and you can try the dress on in your actual size. I was skeptical before going there but had a good experience.

    3. I’m just vicariously shopping by clicking the links people have already provided. The Acler Delacourt definitely, definitely has the wow factor. Gorgeous.

  8. What do I wear to a wedding shower followed by a low-key bachelorette dinner? Weather will be in the 40s or low 50s, venues for both appear to be pretty casual restaurants. Casual dress+boots? Jeans + sweater or slightly fancier top?

    1. Definitely check with the crowd! I once went to an event like this dressed in jeans and a blouse, and I was the only one…by a mile. Everyone was in spring dresses and heels, even though it was a cool, rainy day. Ask the bride what she’s thinking of wearing. “Hey Jill, what are you wearing Saturday? I just want to be sure I get the vibe right. Can’t wait to celebrate with you!”

      1. the bachelorette part is actually a surprise to the bride, but I’ll check with the MOH! Because this would so be me to get the vibe totally wrong (I’m also coming in from out of town and most people are local and I don’t know the local vibe on these things)

      2. +1 – I got married 16 years ago now so it was the heyday of ‘jeans and a going out top’ which is what we all wore to the bachelorette party or the odd mash up of going out top, dark jeans, heels, and a blazer that was all the rage.

    2. Props to this very reasonable bride for having a combined event.

      I’d probably do something more festive than jeans. Since it’s cool out, maybe a spring dress layered with boots, tights, and a jacket?

    3. I had a similar combined event when I got married. This was a while ago so fashion has changed, but most people were a bit more festive than jeans (although there were a few pairs). I wore a gold skirt and a white t-shirt.

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