When Kristen Bandura walks across the dais to receive her diploma from the School of Law on Sunday, she will literally be following in the footsteps of her older brother. Kristen and her brother, Justin, are both receiving their Juris Doctor degrees on the same day, and as Justin likes to point out, J comes before K in the alphabet, so he gets his diploma first – even though Kristen started the law school journey before her brother.

After completing her bachelor’s degree in 2004, Kristen spent several years in the aviation industry, first as a buyer, then in supply chain management, and later working on mergers and acquisitions. One particular M&A project made her decide it was time for law school.

“I was working on the implementation side of a huge acquisition and I saw what the lawyers were doing. It seemed really interesting,” she says.

Kristen’s employer, United Technologies Corp., pays her tuition, so she says the decision to attend school was a “no brainer.” She has been working full-time, while attending classes as part of the Law School’s part-time Evening Division. Kristen was finishing up her first year when Justin found out that he too had been accepted to UConn Law, and would be starting classes as a full-time day student in the fall.

“When Justin got the acceptance letter, I received a text message and it said ‘You might have started law school first but I’m going to graduate first!’” Kristen recalls.

Prior to law school, Justin had also spent several years in a career before returning to school. He worked in medical device sales for nearly a decade, eventually working his way up to a management level position. He decided to attend law school because he was looking for a degree that would give him a better understanding of the contract agreements in the medical device business.

“Any sales function is highly transactional,” he explains. “So instead of just having a general understanding, I wanted to be part of the action. I wanted to be able to not only red-line the contracts, I also wanted to draft the contracts.”

While attending law school was something both Kristen and Justin were sure they wanted to do, it wasn’t always easy, especially for Kristen who often had days that began at 5 a.m. and ended at midnight. She was assigned to a project in India and would often be on conference calls on her way to work, put in a 10-hour day at the office, attend three hours of class in the evening, then participate in another conference call on her way home. Both siblings say having each other to rely on made law school much easier.

“We’ve leaned on each other the entire process. Any time we’ve had three finals back-to-back, we’d be calling each other to say ‘We need a break, we have to do something after this is all over’,” says Justin. “So even though there’s that competitive aspect, there’s also that goodnatured ribbing that any sort of brother-sister relationship should have. I think it’s been more supportive than anything.”

Both siblings say they feel incredibly fortunate in the opportunities they had while in law school. Justin joined the Latino Law Students Association; participated in the tax clinic, where students assist low-income Connecticut residents with their taxes free of charge; and worked in the mediation clinic, a one semester program in which students undergo intensive training in mediation and conflict resolution techniques in order to serve as mediators in selected Connecticut agencies and courts. He also worked with the Connecticut Urban Legal Initiative, an affiliated non-profit based at the Law School that provides legal services to needy non-profit organizations. Kristen was able to take a summer off from work so she could intern at a law firm, and she participated in one of the school’s legal clinics.

After doing their “own thing” for several years, the Banduras say law school brought them closer together and gave them a chance to bond. Now they are getting ready to head out on separate paths again. Kristen has job opportunities at her company, although she is weighing the idea of working at a law firm, a decision she says her current employer would support. Justin, who earned a tax certificate alongside his JD, is looking at opportunities back in the medical device field and in pharmaceutical compliance.

“This is really exciting, because it’s almost like I’m right out of college again and have all these options and choices ahead of me,” he says. The difference is that now he is married, and has a son and a mortgage, so he has a “defined” job search area.

Even though there may be some friendly ribbing on graduation day, the siblings know they will be there to support each other and commiserate, no matter where their lives take them.