Category Archive: Law School Life

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law schools

The 3L Winter Break

The third year of law school is regrettably still a thing. Most people will line up jobs at the start of their second year, which leaves you wondering what the point of the third year is. At any rate, here’s what I’ve been doing with my third year.

Traveling

Judging from Facebook statuses it seems like half the law school is studying or traveling abroad right now. I plan on taking my own trip to Japan in a few weeks. It’ll be my first time in the country and I’m extremely excited to try as much authentic Japanese food as time will allow.

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Law School Exams Are Different, In Ways Good And Bad

Law school exams are very different from what you’re used to in undergrad. In a way, undergrad exams are more fair. If you study a lot, memorize the material that you’ve covered, and mange to demonstrate that you’ve done all this work on the day of the exam by basically regurgitating the material in a mad dash to fill as many blue books as you can, you’ll do really well.

cold calling / law schools

Law School, Actually

Law school classes are very different from undergrad classes. Here’s how.

1. Cold Calling

One of the biggest differences from your undergrad experience is that most law school professors will cold call students from a seating chart or list of names. Law professors don’t like to wait for volunteers. What this means is that you’ll have to be prepared for most of your classes, instead of leaving things for last minute cram sessions at the end of a semester.

law schools / professors / students

The People You Meet In Law School

Law school is a lot like high-school. There are lockers, people carry backpacks, and everyone knows about everyone else’s business. We all know that high-school has certain defined social groups (see “The Breakfast Club”). This post is going to discuss the types of people that you meet at law school, both good and bad.

Now, we all know the classic variety of law students — the “gunners.” These are the students who stay late after class to talk to the professor, raise their hand for every volunteer question (and, evil of all evils, ask questions in the last two minutes), and brag about spending every waking moment in the library studying.

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administrators / law schools

Law School Administrators, The Workforce Behind Law Schools

Heading into the second half of the semester, it was time last week to submit bids for Winter term courses. Six classes, ranked in order of preference, strategically reranked and fretted over to optimize the odds of a sufferable professor or subject, and – most importantly – submitted to Mrs. Burns promptly at noon on

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internship / law schools / summer

Summer Lovin’

I’m a rising 3L at Columbia Law, and I just completed a summer program at large law firm in Los Angeles. This post is going to discuss my experience at the firm. I’ve often heard that the time you spend as a summer associate is the best job you’ll ever have. I can now wholeheartedly

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clinics / law schools / LGBT

LGBT Issues in Law School

Your first year in law school will be full of standard courses in property, torts, contracts, civil procedure, criminal law, and legal research. These classes involve tons of reading and a single four-hour exam at the end. Most people don’t want to repeat this experience by taking more black letter classes in their second and third years. So as an alternative you can do something radically different by signing up for clinics.

1L / advice / law schools

Legal Internships Without the Law Firm

Big tech companies are increasingly hiring law students to be summer associates (but not really associates since it’s not a firm). How does this stack up against a more traditional firm/government gigs, and what kinds of students should be looking into this kind of thing?

clinics / law schools

Law School Clinics: A Great Way to Learn and Serve

Have you ever had the opportunity to peruse a stack of law school applications? Specifically the Personal Statement/”Why Lawschool?” sections? You’ll find a pretty common theme across them: I’m going to lawschool to save X (where is X is “the orphans,” or “Brooklyn,” or “the blue-footed booby,” etc). X, in the context of Why Lawschool?, is pretty much never “SIFIs from overburdensome regulation” or “Microsoft from paying royalties on questionably-acquired IP.”

Harvard Law School / hls / law school life / seal / slavery

Slavery and Symbolism at Harvard Law School

As you may have seen in coverage from The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Law School is considering changing its seal. In a social climate laden with cheeky editorials about excessive PC culture on college campuses – or, for that matter, in an election dominated by The Donald – it comes