Nurse, Mom, Veteran Navigates Unique Journey to Bar Exam

Christine Pokryfky celebrating her time as a student and graduate of Scenario Western Reserve College University of Law with her son Jack and spouse Ean.

Christine Pokryfky celebrating her time as a scholar and graduate of Situation Western Reserve College Faculty of Law with her son Jack and husband Ean.

The previous two yrs have been a series of changes for legislation college students aspiring to grow to be attorneys. A single future lawyer’s activities geared up her to cope with life’s hurdles.

Christine Pokryfky’s journey to the February Ohio Bar Evaluation has been a continuous condition of changeover considering that she enrolled in legislation college in 2018. Right after many a long time as a registered nurse (RN) – both on active obligation as a member of the U.S. Army and an RN scenario manager at the Cleveland Clinic – she sought a distinctive way to acquire treatment of some others.

“During my Army times, I noticed the way clients had been having difficulties to navigate their treatment in just the [Veterans Affairs] devices,” said Pokryfky. “It was incredibly unsettling to see those people complications and wanting to aid in some way, but not be able to.”

The concept of service is practically nothing new to the Situation Western University College of Regulation graduate. Pokryfyky arrives from a very long line of veterans. Her loved ones has served in each individual armed conflict in the United States dating back again to the Revolutionary War.

Whilst in law university, she juggled teachers, function, and a spouse and children. The tasks in that dynamic promptly changed in 2020. With no in-particular person options for faculty or daycare, and her spouse as a frontline employee at the Cleveland Clinic, she became her son’s teacher. She guided Jack by his lessons as a kindergartener and initially grader in the course of the working day, then would do her personal schoolwork at evening.

“I’m very grateful to have some form of qualifications with official management where by you never know what just about every day will be,” Pokryfky mentioned, referring to her armed service schooling. “I come to feel fortunate that I was ready to be home with my son whilst finishing school, and even though it was challenging, it was completely truly worth it.”

Owning managed a demanding life-style for a few years, Pokryfky graduated last May perhaps and signed up for the July bar exam. Days right before tests, she was hospitalized and underwent unexpected emergency kidney surgical procedure.

“It was pretty strange to conclusion up currently being a affected individual,” explained Pokryfky. “Thankfully, I experienced very good medical care and am sensation a lot far better.”

With no more hurdles in the way for the February test, she’s relieved to finally to choose component. When it’s completed, she designs to proceed her work with a Cleveland-location legislation business that will boost her to an affiliate legal professional if she passes the test.

Pokryfky hopes to integrate professional bono get the job done into her exercise, and “give back again to the patients” who led her down this route. That incorporates ultimately training in advance of the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

“I figured out who I was by shedding myself in the support of other people,” she reported.