If law school is in your future, *this* is the period in law school you’ll hear horror stories about (you’ll have to camp out in the library just to keep up with your classes, you’ll become the worst possible version of yourself, etc., etc.) Here’s the reality (from the perspective of one law student).
Like many Americans, you may be reading the torrent of terrible news in the morning and feel the urge to do something important with your life, like defending justice with the help of a JD (that’s what is stands for, right? Justice Degree?).
But there’s much more to becoming a lawyer than increasing your proficiency on logic games and landing a near-perfect LSAT score. If you want to work in the law here is a quick breakdown of the process of becoming a lawyer.
Despite the warnings I heard before law school, the great majority of law students I’ve met are thoughtful, interesting and supportive people. The “gunner” stereotype of a law student is essentially the opposite: a self-important student who sits at the front of every class, takes up class time with their own philosophizing on the law, and ensures that everybody knows just how much they’re studying. My experience has been that the “gunner” rarely exists in its full form, but you do see different pieces of the gunner personality in people you meet in law school.
When I was applying to law school, I ended up having to make some difficult decisions (as we all do). Basically, my options boiled down to School A with some financial assistance, School B with more assistance, or School C with a significant amount of assistance. I distinctly remember discussing those options with a friend/recent graduate. He told me that he’d attended a school with minimal assistance and his loan payments repayments were essentially going to amount to a second mortgage for the foreseeable future. Suffice to say, loans are a significant factor driving many applicants decision to apply to law, and the practical ramifications of taking out significant loans should not be ignored.
When you think of law school, the scene that comes to mind might well be the beginning of the movie The Paper Chase, where a law professor calls on a student the first day of class and ruthlessly interrogates him about a case he didn’t know he was supposed to read. Law school professors are notorious for “cold calling” students — essentially, calling on individuals at random to answer questions without waiting for students to raise their hands. It’s a source of stress, especially when a lot of new law students are used to seminar-style classes in undergrad where they could pick up participation points by giving their opinion about a novel they looked up on Sparknotes that day. Cold calling takes away so much of your control over how and when you participate, so you have to be on your guard all the time. Now a few weeks into law school, I have been cold-called, and I’ve also observed it in my classes almost every day. With that experience in mind, I can answer some of the most common questions people have about professors cold calling in law school.
In debating where you should go to law school, there are many factors to be weighed and contemplated. There are considerations even beyond the boring-old things everyone talks about, like ranking, prestige, location, financing, and cetera. Some law schools give you a good shot at passing the bar exam, while others do not. Some law schools have the status and connections to help you land that remunerative job that will bring in enough lucre to repay the cost of school before your temples grey and your body ripens into a soft middle age, while others will not. Some laws schools remain open and ABA-accredited throughout your three years spent there, while others, sadly, do not.
The LSAC updated its site with new features to help prospective law students learn about their legal career options. I think the highlight of LSAC’s new features is easily their BuzzFeed-style quiz, where instead of revealing Which Famous Chris is Your Soulmate? or What % Millenial Are You?, LSAC claims their quiz will tell you what field of law is right for you. As an aspiring lawyer, I took the LSAC legal career quiz and I’m ready to tell you about it.
No prospective law student likes how expensive law school is. A lot of people take on tons and tons of debt to go to school. Then, when they graduate, the pressure is on those lawyers to chart a career path that lets them have a chance at getting out from under that debt. For graduates of lower-tier schools with lots of debt, it’s often hard to find such a career path.
My law school orientation began August 22, so I’ve officially experienced two weeks of law school orientation and classes as a 1L. My year before law school was filled with current law students and lawyers providing ominous and contradictory clues about the first year law school experience: “It was the worst year, but it’s supposed to be that way” or “I hated 1L — it was the best year of my life.” While it’s still very fresh in my mind, I’m here to provide at least a few more concrete details about my experience of the very beginning of law school.
Growing up, I used to wish that my school would magically disappear, leaving me free to play around all day without any responsibilities. Well, for law students at Arizona Summit, that childhood dream is quickly becoming an adult nightmare.
In case you missed it, the latest in beleaguered law school news is that Arizona Summit will not be holding classes this fall semester.