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| title | tags | date | lastmod | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resources for Law Students |
|
2024-03-07 | 2024-03-07 |
For those considering law school, I'd like to suggest two resources to you.
- During my undergraduate studies, I stumbled across an excellent account by Rhett Campbell, a retired energy bankruptcy attorney. I don't know where I found these, probably on Reddit (I ignored r/LawSchool and r/lawschooladmissions in my Essays/law-school because they're just as toxic as all of the rest of the site). At the time I found these (and presumably when they were updated), he was the CEO of a nonprofit called the Terry Foundation. A lot of his opinions hold up, and I've uploaded them here as PDFs at Why Not to Go to Law School and Guide to Making Good Grades in Law School. All credit goes to Campbell for these resources. If you only take two things from these documents, let them be "law school is hell" and "outline early, outline often."
- Sidebar: I do agree with Campbell's view that there's a certain "fire in the belly" that you need to be a lawyer. I think I satisfied this because reading these documents made me excited, not stressed.
- Sidebar x2: The resources he recommended weren't that helpful to me. The real value of his writings is his firsthand experience.
- During the application cycle, I also enjoyed Kathryne Young's book How to be Sort of Happy in Law School, and I think it provides a realistic expectation of what it means to be a law student while also being a person.
My personal advice to prospective law students is do some soul searching on what you really want to be doing in 3 years. If that's either practicing law or working in policy/advocacy, only then should you choose law school. You don't need to know an exact field, but I love my job and I think I'm the exception for that. There is something to be said for a meaningless 9-5 surrounded by hobbies you truly enjoy, but the law takes too many of your hours in a day for it to not interest you. Any further questions or ways I can help, contact me!
Detour: Finals tip
You'll be taught final exam strategy early on, and it's going to be highly professor dependent. However, one thing I learned late into law school is what you should actually do when the law runs out on a question. Previously, I've just identified the fact that it could go either way and analyzed both potential paths (known as a "fork" if you spend too much time on Reddit). My new approach is to go back to policy before the fork. Using the goals underlying the usual rule in an instance, you first fashion a new rule, then apply the new rule and conclude one way. Only then do you analyze the other side of the fork. Feel free to give it a try if you think your professor would appreciate it.