The Last Three Years

Pending grades, I have completed all of my law school courses, and I want to take one post to reflect on what I thought went well and what I thought I could have done better. I'm going to try my best to avoid the same, often-useful-sometimes-trite advice that a lot of former law students hand out. I have a reminder on my calendar to write a response to this post one year from now when I have a different perspective.


1. I should have completed my previous degree before trying my hand at law school. I devoted every other weekend of my 1L year to completing my M.M. thesis. I still did well, but I was running out of steam by midterms in the spring, and I really had to dig deep for a while there. My advice to anyone that is going to do lawschool is to get as many other obligations out of the way as you can before starting.


2. I'm glad that I aspired to read every word that was assigned. I remember one of our 1L professors promising that we would be handsomely rewarded if we would do the work assigned. Beyond a few memos, we were assigned to do a lot of reading, and I gave it my all. I didn't read every word that was assigned (who could?), but I always tried. A lot of students realized that they could make it through without doing all of the reading, claiming they had become "efficient." My advice: read everything you can while you have the luxury of time and a professor that's usually willing to entertain your questions.


3. I'm glad that I had other things going on. I know that I said everyone should seek to fulfill all other obligations before starting law school. That was true to a point. Most of my favorite memories from the past three years don't involve law school. I will look back fondly on our neighborhood and learning about home ownership and other grown-up stuff from all of our awesome neighbors. Also, I loved our Wednesday dining group and making music with the people out in Henniker. Enjoy law school for all it is worth, but make sure you have something else that you can do for fun. You'll do better in the end.


4. I wish that I had written a lot more. I tried to take as many doctrinal classes as I could, classes that only had final exams, so I could get a broad education. This was very good for me, but I wish that I had taken a few more writing classes--particularly an independent study where I had another full-length paper to shop around for publication. You can never get too much writing experience (or so I've heard), and becoming an expert in a focused topic is a nice counterbalance to the broad legal concepts you will learn in the doctrinal classes.

It's been a great three years, and I hope that these thoughts will help someone along the way.

3 comments:

Austin P. said...

I should clarify what I meant in Point 2 when I say that professors will "usually [be] willing to entertain your questions." Any of our professors will entertain your questions, but some students think that asking a voluminous questions will help them build a relationship with a professor and prove that they are interested in the topic. I don't think that is necessarily true. Never hesitate to ask a question if you don't understand something, but be sure you've done your best to understand something before you ask. This might involve hitting the library for some treatise research. Any professor at FPLC will help you get to where you need to be, just be sure you're putting your best foot forward. The same is true if you become interested in a topic outside of tested curriculum: research first then go and express your interest.

Unknown said...

Austin, I have to say, I've just discovered the ADP blog and absolutely love hearing what's going on with you. I especially love this entry, as I'm about to embark on the law school journey myself. Thank you for the advice and I hope at the end of three years I'll do you proud by taking to to heart. Glad to hear things are well! :) -- Chandra

RZ said...

"Don't be an idiot" best advice you ever gave me - Dwight, The Office