Congratulations! Watching Legally Blonde 750 times has finally paid off, and you are officially a law student! Or, like many people this time of year, you’re getting your applications ready to send in to your top-choice law school. Either way, you are preparing to embark on one of the most challenging, but rewarding, periods of your professional career. Law school is incredibly difficult and strenuous, but we’ve got you covered with some advice to survive.
First off, the first year is the worst year. Just like in undergrad, everyone takes the same courseload their first year of law school, and it usually involves thousands of pages of reading, and the Socratic Method of teaching, which you’re probably not used to. This means your professors are likely to call on anyone they want, anytime they want, to answer anything they want.
Assignment One: Read the book. Yes, all of it.
This method is extremely stressful, and the best way to be prepared for it also the hardest – reading the material and understanding it. A simple way is to write your own outline- not copying someone else’s outline or using the outline provided by the course. Writing your own ensure that you are really understanding the words and concepts, and that makes it easier to remember all these details. It can also be helpful to get to class early to get a good seat. This means don’t try to hide from the Professor, they will notice and call on you more.
Your social life might take a hit during the first year of law school as well. Most of your socialization will be in the form of “study groups”, which you’ve known since high school to be either social or studious, but almost never both. It’s a good idea to make sure you have some form of support system both within and outside of law school as well. Some of the best ways to refresh your brain is to be with people that won’t make you think about school for a bit, or better yet, people with no law background that will force you to explain the concepts to them. If you can explain what a “tort” is to your English-major friends, you’ve probably got it memorized.
Welcome to your social life.
When preparing for exams, one of the best things you can do is go and talk to your professors. Often they will have older exams that you can study and try to understand the kinds of topics they can answer. It’s also a good idea to pick up a book like Mastering Law Studies and Law Exam Techniques. (This is specifically for our Australian readers, but there are similar books for all countries.)
Mastering Law Studies and Law Exam Techniques is comprehensive in basic and advanced legal argumentation for both the taking and the writing of law school exams. It provides helpful guides to creating informative study notes, as well as checklists of typical issues and pitfalls that students run into in the exams themselves. In addition, there are multiple sample questions and essays complete with notes from actual examiners. There’s even chapters dedicated to non-law students that have to study law, such as economists. This can come in handy when explaining things to those non-law school friends you have from the paragraph above.
No matter what, you are entering one of the toughest points in your professional career. But with your expectations realistic and the amount of resources at your disposal, law school doesn’t have to be painful. You can get through this, and you will be better for it. Just trust yourself, and be resourceful. Soon you’ll be saving the world just like you said you would when you applied.
Maybe not like this fellow, though.
