Post On Behalf Of A Student

[ZineZ]

Hey all, 

I had a student reach out and ask me to post this on their behalf. Please provide advice as you can, I'll have thoughts I'll put up in the next couple of days as well. 

 

"

So the semester just ended, and I am looking for some positive stories, advice, and reassurance.

I have been struggling in law school since the beginning of 1L, with not being able to stay on top of classes, understand concepts, or feel like I ever really am able to properly manage my workload and complete everything I need to do. This is all new to me, as my undergrad was not a challenge like this at all. I chalked up my issues in 1L to the fact I was having issues in my personal life at the time, but 2L has so far been even more of a struggle than 1L was...

This is making me nervous for when I get to actually practicing as a lawyer - I am worried that if I can’t even survive law school, there is no way I will be able to balance all the deadlines and understand all the new areas of law that I will need to pick up as an articling student/associate. I am hoping that some of you guys on this forum have positive stories of things getting better after graduation… I am worried that the rest of my life is going to be a constant cycle of feeling inadequate and burnt out.

Does struggling in law school mean that I am not cut out for being a lawyer? This might just be my brain spiralling after exams, but it is currently a very big worry for me.

Thanks x"

 

 

[Scrantonicity2]

Others will likely have more to share, but I can say that practice is quite different from law school. This includes the challenges and the sources of stress/motivation. I've personally enjoyed law school, but I will always find it easier to motivate myself when there is a real client involved and a supervising lawyer waiting on the caselaw/memo, compared to entirely internally motivated studying during a semester to prepare for a final. There are also some areas of law where either the concepts themselves aren't that complicated, or mastery of complex caselaw is less important than skills like negotiation or understanding the needs of your clients.

[Steve from Stevenage]

Since it's the holidays and people aren't likely to be at their keyboards as much, I figured a law student's perspective might be better than nothing.

First of all: no, struggling in law school doesn't mean you can't succeed in your future practice. How do I know? Because at this point I've spoken to plenty of lawyers who hated law school but are now thriving in a number of different practice areas. I won't belabour the point - you can hear it from them - but if the question is just "will my law school experience dictate my legal practice experience", then you can almost certainly rest easy over winter break.

What I would encourage you to reflect on is what exactly is causing these struggles, because you bring up a number of issues. If the root of your worries is that you're not "staying on top of your classes", well then I've yet to meet a law student who is. Nobody does everything: all the readings, all the clinics/extra-curriculars, all the recruitment events, etc. If you're measuring yourself against a hypothetical student who is doing everything, then yeah you're going to need a lot of therapy to keep up with those expectations. And if you're feeling that you aren't doing enough because the grades weren't what you wanted them to be, then the good news is that you're at the point in law school when grades really don't matter anymore. Either you've already got one of the jobs that values them, or you're going to be applying to places that care much less about your transcript than you probably realize.

That being said, you also mention struggles to understand concepts and manage your time. If it's the former: are those struggles across the board, or are there some areas of law that make more sense to you? There are very few lawyers who practice across a wide variety of areas, so if wills and estates is your vibe but criminal law gives you nightmares, let that guide you towards a career that makes sense. Your fear that you're going to have to learn "all the new areas of law" as an articling student is probably unfounded: most of my articling friends are doing very rote, basic things in one or two areas of law (which they chose).

Time management might be the biggest red flag. Law school is a step up from undergrad, but it's certainly not as demanding of your time as... basically any full-time job. It's not a death sentence, but again try to reflect on why you're struggling to keep on top of your tasks: e.g. is it because a 100% final exam seems like a very abstract thing to work towards in September, only to loom over every waking moment in November? Is it because you're trying to be everywhere at once, as I alluded above? Whatever it is, you need to self-assess and address it.

That goes for all of this. I don't know what you went through in 1L, so I don't mean to sound judgmental (also, I had an awful start to law school myself, so I empathize), but it kinda seems like you were hoping that when the bad thing was over, things would just work themselves out. (And listen, I get that: you were probably exhausted and hoping to catch a break.) But now, they haven't. It's a hard lesson, sometimes, but this is your life and you have to make it happen. You can absolutely do this (where 'this' is both law school and being a lawyer), but no one else is going to do it for you. I get that you're feeling inadequate and burnt out, at the moment, but you have your entire life to get where you need to be. Take some deep breaths, try to recharge over the coming week or two, and then start plugging away!

[SNAILS]

First of all, set realistic expectations for yourself. Law school is full of high achievers and it can be an adjustment for 1L's/early 2L's to not be top of the class. Your 2L grades are probably not out yet, so your "struggling" might turn out to put you at the average of the class. You may not have straight A's, but you might very well have a B average, which is great. I also want to address that maybe you ended up near the bottom of the class academically...

I'll move on to my second piece of advice. Law school is different than undergrad, and you'll need to adjust your habits. If you are used to doing a lot of things before and after class that have nothing to do with school, maybe cut those back and focus more on reading and studying. Some of your classmates might study very little (or claim they study very little) but most law students need to study much harder than they did in undergrad. Also remember that your exam performance is based on spitting out very specific answers in a very short period of time, so you'll want to hone your skills at picking out key concepts, focussing less on irrelevant fluff in the readings, and work on CANs/summaries early. 

Treat your January start as though you are already behind on your readings. I found that if I stayed caught up or even read a week ahead until early March, that I could use extra time for review before exams rather than try to catch up on March readings while also trying to do the final exam review. 

Stress management - sometimes "struggling" has nothing to do with your actual performance or the impact of your performance on future job prospects. Learn to be proud of your achievements and praise yourself for how far you've come. If you end up with a B average, you are doing as well as most of your classmates and better than a good chunk of them. If you end up with a C average, you will graduate law school and find a great career. You are doing better than people who could not get accepted into law school or who are failing courses. 

Take breaks, nap frequently, take a walk, but always get back to work and hit the books once you've had your break.

1L vs Actual Work as a lawyer - I'm an articling student, but I summered at one place and am now articling at another. My experience is that the duties of an articling student/junior lawyer, test at most 10% of what you learned in law school. Things like people skills, writing skills, research skills, punctuality, professionalism are far more important than knowledge of obscure legal concepts. You also don't use nearly the breadth of legal subject areas as you would in 1L. This will also begin to materialize in 2L and 3L where you will likely focus on picking courses that interest you and avoiding those courses that you do not like, and therefore feel are more of a "struggle."

My personal experience is that grades do not matter much at all for career advancement. It seems to come down to people skills, hard work, your reputation for professionalism with people in a position to hire and give references and so on. (In fact, I'm in the process of hire backs and have never reported my 3L grades to anyone, and my 3L was the year I got the most A's).

Edited January 1 by SNAILS