May is such a mixed bag for law students. First finals, packing, then graduation, then summer, all in a span of about 3 weeks. It’s a whirlwind of activity and emotion, and getting enough sleep is almost never an option. You’re studying for finals and taking breaks for anything, accepting all distractions. Probably packing for the summer when you feel like it—any non-study activity is allowed if it can be written off as productive in any way.
Law students are hearing 3Ls talk about graduation and the bar exam and getting a job while 1Ls and 2Ls talk about trying to get summer jobs, maybe taking summer classes. Then, faster than you leave the law school on a Friday afternoon, you’re right in the middle of a final. Finals always seem to sneak up on people, even though the whole semester is a steady march toward them. Then, as quickly as they snuck up, it’s suddenly all over, and you’re walking out of the exam room of your last final. The sweet relief of summer beckons—unless you’re taking summer classes.
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It’s that time again. Finals time. There are a variety of signs finals are approaching, including study groups.
Study groups are not for everyone and they aren’t for every class. But at least once in law school, almost everyone finds themselves attending some form of a voluntary group study session. While some study groups seem open to new people showing up and others seem to require sponsorship by a current member and proof of your projected contribution, most study groups are made up of more or less the same personalities. Note: these personalities are not mutually exclusive.
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Law school is a weird place full of weird people. In a lot of ways it seems to exist in a three-year overpriced vacuum. What happens there stays there (sometimes). And you can be certain everyone knows about it. It’s like being famous in a small town.
Some people are helpers. They’ll lend you the study guide they aren’t using, send you notes if you miss class, and in general if you ask for some form of assistance, they’ll do what they can to provide it. They understand that “consideration” has a meaning outside of contract law and that sometimes someone has to take one for the team “for the greater good.”
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Law School Open House Season is drawing to a close. Prospective students have just about two weeks to shell out a few hundred dollars to reserve their seat in the 2015 class, or save themselves three years and tens of thousands of dollars by skipping the whole law school thing and applying now for a retail/food service job.
Two years ago, at about this time, I came to my law school for an open house. The itinerary read something like this:*
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Remember Day One of Orientation your 1L year? Scanning the crowd, making instant appearance-based judgments about your future classmates? Probably thought a handful of them were fairly attractive, comparatively speaking? A few weeks later, after a couple rounds of cold calls and a couple more rounds at the bar, you may have found yourself wondering how that person ever caught your eye.
Enter the concept of the Law School Ten. The Law School Ten, simply put, is someone who is physically a 10, but probably only in law school. The basic formula is Real World Score + 2 = Law School Score. A Real World 8 is a Law School 10.
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When someone says “spring break” around a law student, the initial reaction is often a sigh—composed of equal parts nostalgia, relief, impatience, and frustration. When someone says “spring break” around college students, it conjures the stereotypical image of thousands of twenty-somethings sardined on the sand, marinating in Burnett’s and Keystone Light. It’s reckless, irresponsible, occasionally illegal, and if you’re a law student, just about guaranteed to be a thing of your past.
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In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s a tribute to the most commonly seen law school couples: the good, the bad, and the thank-god-you’re-currently-single.
1. Thing 1 and Thing 2
These two are constantly together, and usually not as adorable as the Dr. Seuss characters. They’re intentionally taking most (if not all) of the same classes, they sit together in those classes, they probably only have one set of notes/outlines between them, and one of them is usually paying hundreds of dollars a month for an apartment he/she can pretend to live in should a conservative family member ever ask or visit.
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We’ve been back in school for something like a month. I’d know for sure if I looked at a calendar, but it doesn’t matter. What I do know is we’ve been back long enough for everyone’s New Semester Resolution to pay attention/take better notes/actually do the reading to fall by the wayside.
This happens every semester. Over break when grades came back we told ourselves we’d work harder, next semester would be different and better. Or we’ll keep up the good work, maybe step it up a notch, there’s always room for improvement.
We come to class early on day one. Even if we are better prepared versions of us, we still don’t want to get stuck in the first row or next to that guy.
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Is this law school or junior high? I’ve asked myself that countless times since law school began. Perhaps it’s something about the relatively small school setting combined with the perpetual expectation and performance of higher, more critical thinking that has left many of us with the social behavior of 13-year-olds.
The average age of my 1L class was 25. After a year and half with my classmates, you could easily convince me we were half that. Nothing seems to be as efficient or effective in sapping a group’s collective maturity. The gossip, unnecessary drama, the “have you heards” and the “did you sees” poison the air like noxious gas. There’s no vaccine, no prevention, no cure, and no recovery.
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