By Alison Monahan
Looking around at your classmates, you might feel like the odd one out. Maybe you’re a “traditional” law student, who has come straight through and sees people around you with more life experience. Or maybe you’re a non-traditional law student, who doesn’t see yourself in many of the law school materials.
Maybe you’re a first-generation law student who doesn’t have someone to advise them, or a second- or third-generation law student who is getting way too much advice.
Or maybe you’re someone who has or needs accommodations, or is dealing with a life situation that is not ideal for being in law school.
- Advertisement -
No matter where you are on all these spectrums, here are some pieces of advice that apply to nearly everyone.
- There is no one-size-fits-all magic bullet for success in law school. Seriously, if your best friend or parent or grandparents’ neighbor’s kid tells you that they have the secret to the perfect law school experience, congratulate them on having found what worked for them. Should you try it? Sure! If you want to. But be honest with yourself about whether it’s right for you. This is especially true when it comes to a study routine. Many people found that it was best to treat law school like a very busy full-time job, and they stayed on campus from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. But this doesn’t work for all students. Some people don’t do well trying to study in the law library, and they’re better off being on campus for as short a time as possible. Others study late into the night or very early in the morning. None of these approaches are wrong, unless they’re wrong for the person doing them.
- Different brains learn differently, and you should make notes and study materials that work for you. We often hear about visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners. But most people are some combination of those learning types, so different strategies make sense for different people. Take time to try different methods. Some people do well drawing pictures in notes, while others like to use multicolored highlighters or read study materials out loud. If you have trouble sifting through the wide variety of options out there, seek an objective opinion. I’d recommend an academic support specialist at your school, a therapist who focuses on education, or a law tutor. When it comes to outlining, try to do as much of the work yourself as possible. If you work with a study group, that’s great, but put your own stamp on your study materials to make them right for your brain and how it works.
- Practice is important. No matter how well you think you understand the material, you won’t know how well you know it until you actually use it. Also, no matter how great your writing was in undergrad, the approach to writing in law school is different, and it takes some time to learn. So practice, review (preferably with an outside opinion, at least occasionally) and then practice again. Start small, with single-rule questions and hypos that you make up based on your notes. Then expand to multi-topic past exams (if you can access them) and even bar questions as you get closer to the end of the semester. Mistakes are really uncomfortable, but they’re really important too. Find a way to learn from them, and you’ll be in much better shape when you have to write an exam essay.
- Focus on yourself instead of making comparisons. I know it’s a cliché, but you can’t know what’s inside another person’s head. From the most active gunner to the calmest notetaker, everyone is dealing with things that you know nothing about. Just because your classmate is answering questions doesn’t mean they understood the reading. I know that most law classes are graded on a curve, so your classmates’ understanding is actually pretty relevant to your own grades. The problem is that you can’t control how well they do on exams. All you can do is focus on how you learn and how you need to prepare. Do that, and do your best. If you don’t do as well as you had hoped, then talk with professors and academic support specialists about what you can do to keep improving. This is a process.
- Figure out why you’re there, and what you hope to accomplish. Law school is hard. Anyone who is there should be there for a reason. And in theory, you’re in luck. Law school comes with a built-in goal: to help you become a lawyer. But that goal is so generic that it’s useless for most people. What kind of lawyer do you want to be? Why do you want to be that kind of lawyer? Where do you want to be after graduation? You don’t have to answer these questions right away. I encourage you to consider several possibilities and stay open to opportunities that come your way. But when you hit a wall in your reading, or you can’t write another word in your LRW assignment, or you’re just so stressed out that the thought of, “But I’m in law school” or even, “I want the best grades” isn’t likely to be a particularly motivating one. “This could help me if I decide to apply for those internships” or “My law degree is really going to help me help the people in my hometown” are much more inspiring thoughts. So find your why, and add to it as you learn more about your options and motivations.
- Find something that centers you and helps you relax. I know, I know, I’ve just given you a list of things to think about, probably things that are super stressful to think about. And then I throw out a word like “relax.” But I mean it. In addition to having a reason for everything you’re doing, taking time to be human is key to reducing burnout. Vacations are great, but they can only happen occasionally, and there’s usually too much to do during the semester to think about taking several days off. So think about small things: movie nights once a week; a daily workout routine; or a meditation practice. Consider a hobby that keeps your hands busy even when you’re sitting still. (I took up knitting a few years ago, and I wish I had found it when I was in law school.) Take time for phone calls with friends and family members who can be trusted not to give you advice about law school. Basically, take a little time each day to remember who you are away from law school.
I think it’s common for people in law school to want a plan. And there are a lot of options out there. All that’s left for you to do is to sift through them and figure out what works for you and how you learn.
You can do this!
Alison Monahan is founder of The Girl’s Guide to Law School and co-founder of the Law School Toolbox/Bar Exam Toolbox. A graduate of Columbia Law School, she was a law clerk for a federal judge and a Big Law patent litigator. The Law School Toolbox and Bar Exam Toolbox podcasts reach a wide array of law students and bar exam takers.
