You sat there, laughing uneasily, while all your college "friends" made two hours' worth of lawyer jokes at your expense. (Q: What's the difference between a dead rat in the road and a dead lawyer in the road? A: There are skid marks in front of the rat) You listened to your mother crying on the phone and told her that everything would be all right, that you wouldn't become like Them. You read One-L. (You know you did; you're not fooling anybody.) Yet despite all that, despite that warning blaring in your head-Run! Run, fool, run!-you're still here, ready to start your first class on the first day of what (there's no doubt in your mind) will be the worst year of your life. Yeah, that's right, you're going into your first year of law school.
Sucker.
Look to your left, look to your right: future money-grubbing Dershowitz clones on either side of you, right? Look at Them, sitting there all smug. They'd probably sue their own mothers if they had half a chance. (Q: Why won't sharks attack lawyers? A: Professional courtesy.) You don't belong here. This isn't for you; this is for somebody else. Isn't it? But what if you become like Them? Or worse, what if you already are like Them?
The urgent voice in your head begins to sound a little more reasonable-Run! Run while you still can! Your muscles tense as you crouch low in your seat, ready to explode into movement like a leopard who has just realized it doesn't want to be a lawyer. Run, run, run! Yes, in one swift and fluid motion, you'll be past the professor and out the door, romping free in the sunny, familiar world of non-lawyerdom. Run!
WHY SCOTT TUROW IS A WHINING NINNY AND OTHER INSIGHTS
At least, that's what you could be thinking on your first day of law school, especially if you read One-L, the book that, for some unfathomable reason, every law school applicant seems to read. Scott Turow wrote about the first year of law school as if it were a hell unimaginable, a period of such unending oppression that YOU WOULD BECOME ONE OF THEM, no matter how good your intentions at the beginning. There's something you should know about Turow's book, though: One-L is not how your law school experience will be. Read it as a fable and, more than that, as a fable written as if Aesop were a whining ninny. Believe us, it's not gonna be that bad.
Still, there's something important to learn from One-L-a moral, if you will. Even if Scott Turow's world once existed, and even if law schools today were like that world (they're not), the key to avoiding Scott Turow's experience is this: Moral No. 1-Don't be a Scott Turow. How well you do in law school, and how much you're able to enjoy it while you're there, depends on you. Sure, law school's not going to be all champagne and caviar, but it needn't be One-Hell, either. It's within your control, and this book is going to try to give you a little help in how best to exercise that control.
Moral No. 2-Do what works for you. Try things out, figure out what works for you, and do that. You'll hear lots of methods, approaches, and systemologies, especially in your first year of law school. Some of these may turn out to be miracle cures; most will inevitably be miracle crap.
Do what works for you.
It sounds so common-sensical that it's stupid, but you'll be surprised to see how many of your classmates fall into meaningless routines and kill themselves with unnecessary, unhelpful work, work that will not help them do well in law school. It's so easy to follow a plan. It soothes your conscience to know that you did X and Y and Z before getting your three hours of sleep. It's nerd machismo: If you've done 15 hours of work under your plan, it means you've done three times as much as that slacker who's only done five. But, as some of your less enlightened classmates will be dismayed to find, three times as much work doesn't mean you'll get three times as much out of it, just that you worked 10 extra hours. (If it helps put things in perspective, quantify this time in terms of a currency you value: 10 fewer hours spent with your loved one(s); 20 fewer episodes of the Simpsons watched; 60 fewer beers drunk; a whole lot less sleep.)
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We're not saying don't work hard; just don't work stupid. Yes, it's hard to evaluate and reevaluate your work habits to make sure they are efficient and effective. Yes, it's hard to be critical of your own study methods. But it's immensely important. Always be sure that your work is getting you somewhere; don't just work for the sake of working! Be alert: Repeating an empty ritual will feel good, and the repetition of the ritual will reinforce your sense of how important you think that ritual is. Keep your goals in mind and ask yourself if what you're doing is helping you get there. We're going to give you some advice that works for most people, but remember that nobody knows you better than you do (that is, of course, nobody except the FBI and that creepy 12-year-old who's profiled you on the Internet). The mantra one more time: Do what works for you. It's the best way to keep successful and sane in law school.
Now this leads to one more point: Moral No. 3-Remember who you are. Again, this sounds silly, but the rate at which law students lose themselves in the beginning makes the first year of law school seem like the Bermuda Triangle (except with more reading). Don't think that to do well in law school you have to change who you are, that you have to become some bland, tireless automaton; it won't necessarily work (see Moral No. 2, above). Keep your sense of humor about things. Step back every now and then. Are you becoming like Scott Turow (see Moral No. 1, above)? If so, be afraid. Be very afraid.
I was afraid. I spent my first day of law school looking around at all the other students who I thought were smarter than I was. I had read On&-L by Scott Turow and thought my experience would be just as bad. I had heard the reading required in the first year was undoable. The classes were supposed to be harder than any I had taken in undergraduate. One person told me I could forget spending anytime with friends or my wife. How ridiculous! The first year of law school was hard, but so was learning to ride a bike. I wish someone had given me the old FDR quote: The only thing you have to fear is fear itself. I spent more time worrying during my first year than actually studying. What a waste!
