I am here by declaring this week “National Hug-A-Law-Student Week.”
Despite the fact that I have no official powers to do so, I am nevertheless seizing the opportunity to encourage you, my fair readers, to take a moment and recognize the law student in your life. If you don’t have one, find one.
You may be unaware of the horrors besetting law school students. Upon reading this, your immediate reaction may be to protest, “But lawyers are out to get everyone and they make so much money!” On point one, they are NOT out to get everyone. Only the bad ones are. On point two, if you consider having the equivalent of a second mortgage upon graduation to pay back your loans making so much money, we should have a conversation.
So now that your protests are dispelled, take a moment to enter the world of said law student.
You have more reading than you can possibly imagine. 300 pages a night is not unheard of. And you must read, reread, digest, and understand every word, every case, every legal issue, every potential scenario.
Why don’t you just skip the reading, you ask?
Well, two reasons. Three actually.
- You live with the distinct possibility that upon arriving to class, your professor will call on you to explain the “facts of the case” to the rest of your class. If you succeed and do well? He moves on to the next victim. If you fail? Two things happen. The entire class laughs. And your professor responds with either “You make me want to kill myself” or “You make me want to vomit.” These are true responses, witnessed by yours truly.
- If you don’t do the reading, you will be unprepared to write your outline at the end of the semester. More on that later.
- Since you are putting yourself through this torture, you might as well read what you’re paying for… and going into debt for.
You spend countless hours in your chair at your desk. You dream about your professors, about what might happen if you show up unprepared. These are nightmares, actually. You start to sprout grey hairs. You look tired and haggard. And it’s only October.
Thanksgiving arrives and you decide that you’ll take your FIRST FULL DAY OFF studying. First one. In three months. And during your turkey dinner all you can think about is what you are NOT doing. Black Friday shopping? Forget it.
Instead of joining the masses at the mall, you’ll be feverishly crafting your outlines. Now an outline is not just an outline. It is a book written by you. We currently have about twenty of these precious books on our bookshelves.
You take all of the cases, all of the hypotheticals (read math problems for lawyers), all of the notes on the blackboard, everything you’ve ever remotely discussed in class and organize it, highlight it, cut and paste it into a single space, double sided work of art that you print off at school. Over 100 pages in length (per class), you print it off at school simply for the reason that you are a law student and this amount of printing (at home) would bankrupt your office supplies budget.
You’re now at the middle to end of November. “It’s crunch time” becomes your mantra and you stay at school until all hours of the night. You seriously consider getting a hotel room close to school during finals so you don’t have to waste the drive time to and from school. This is not a joke.
Finals week arrives and chaos ensues. You’re feeling okay, but no amount of studying feels like enough. Your professor tells you that if you get 80 points out of 100 on the exam, he’ll take you out to dinner. If you get 90, he’ll buy you a new car. Translation? It’s impossible to get everything on this test, so good luck trying. How’s that for professor/student encouragement?
By this point, your only choice is to buckle down and take the tests. You type madly for 3 hours, trying to spew everything and anything you can about the material. Organized or coherent? The professor tells you “no” — it doesn’t even have to be a complete sentence. Just “throw up” your knowledge. Great.
Finals conclude and Christmas arrives. After a few years you learn to put nightmares about failing out of your head. You just have to let it all go and enjoy the break.
*Up Next: The-Adventures-of-Summer-of-Bar-Prep, Spouse Style
