When you spend over $200,000 on something, you typically want to avoid having regrets about the purchase.
The same cannot be said for finishing law school: no matter how hard you try, in the end, you are going to have at least a few reflections on what could have gone better. For me, there are five identifiable regrets I have about law school that I wish I had handled differently.
I didn’t retake the LSAT to try and get more scholarships. My results from the LSAT were fine, but nothing to brag about. Rather than attempting to retake the exam (even though I had ample time between college graduation and the beginning of law school) I just accepted my score and moved on. What would have been more practical would have been to retake the exam and leverage my new score with schools I was interested in to see if I could have earned any additional scholarship money. Talk about an expensive oversight.
I didn’t sign up for my bar prep course as soon as I should have. This isn’t the first time I’ve said this: sign up for a bar prep course as soon as possible. If you can’t afford it all at once, sign up for a payment plan. The prices bar prep companies offer to 1Ls are almost $1,000 cheaper than what is offered to 3Ls–take advantage of this while you can.
I kept some of my textbooks. You are never–ever–going to look at your law school textbooks after you graduate. Not for bar prep, not for fun and certainly not when practicing. For one thing, the text likely contains cases from all states, rather than just where you are admitted. For another, the cases will likely already be outdated by the time you graduate. This is why law firms spend a fortune on services like Practical Law and LexisNexis: you need to be able to search current cases from the relevant jurisdiction, which just isn’t something you’ll be able to find in Introduction to Criminal Law.
I didn’t make enough effort to network with professors and fellow students. This one is a major screw-up, avoid it if you can. Like many others, I was so focused on classes, case briefs and cold calls that I completely neglected the social aspects of law school: I didn’t join any clubs, I didn’t go to any professor’s office hours, I didn’t go out for drinks with friends after class. I just existed for three years: head down, tired, teetering on the edge of doing both not enough and too much. If I could go back, I would make intentional time for networking with peers and professors: so much of practicing law is who you know and I don’t know that many people.
I constantly compared myself to other students. I’m sure a majority of law graduates feel this way; during law school, it is almost impossible to avoid comparing yourself to your classmates. You start thinking things like, “wow, Jessica had a better answer to that question than I did.” And “Brad has a high-end suit while I bought mine from Kohls.” And even “why did he get that scholarship/fellowship/internship instead of me?” It’s both maddening and depressing. I wish I could go back and remind myself that none of that really matters and that while it might seem like you are competing with hundreds of other law students for the same opportunities, in reality, everyone’s idea of a perfect job and career path is different–the pack of competitors will thin itself out as time goes by.
I’m sure there are some profound quotes I could find about the importance of living a life without regrets, but in my opinion, the reason we have them is that we grow and develop to a point at which we know better.
Sure, I wish I had made more friends, made wiser financial decisions and earned more scholarship money. I can’t change what happened–all I can do is advise the people that come after me and approach my future with the insight to avoid these same mistakes going forward. I’d rather live a life with regrets than have never reflected on it at all.
