It’s all over save for the shouting now, and I’ve been trying to come up with some overarching theme, some great lesson I’ve learned from my first year in law school. But truth be told, I can’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a tremendous amount myself, my friends, this whole process, but I can’t distill one single lesson that I think everyone should know about being an evening law student.
I think this is because far more than day students, evening students have a diverse set of experiences outside of law school that affect how the process goes. Someone have no job, so have soft jobs that let them study at their desks, and some have complete soul-crushing jobs that cause you to show up late to your exams. Problems with your spouse or your children don’t go away because you’re in school. Hell, they might get worse. People will still get sick, have babies, loved ones may pass away. In short, life does not stop just because you chose to go to law school.
And maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe the most important piece of advice I can give is that all the talk of the transformative power of law school, of teaching you to “think like a lawyer” doesn’t mean that you have to change who you are. And that is not a bad thing.
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3 Responses to “So that Happened.”
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I’m sitting here asking myself this same question, and I think I’ve come to the same conclusion. The only thing that I really think I wasn’t expecting was how much law school would change my life. It really does make you think differently and my outlook on the world is not the same as it was in August 2007.
That’s kind of cool.
Some things I’ve been thinking about of late on “what did I learn” question:
1). Don’t let law school consume you. Law school often feels like an all-consuming experience. But it should not come at the expense of family and friendships. Like Bombay says – you don’t have to change who you are. While your time will naturally be consumed by work and school, staying connected to friends outside school can help you stay sane and help you find some sort of balance and relief from the pressure. I was frankly terrible at this during my first year – hence my new found insanity.
2). Law school does change how you view the world. At least it has for me. Aside from seeing lawsuits in just about all everyday activities, I simply approach problems differently looking for issues to solve and rules to address them, trying to address problems more systematically and analytically. I’m also a bit more argumentative and skeptical.
3). Despite #1 and #2, Dr. Bombay is right: law school doesn’t have to change who you are. Although I’m using law school as an excuse to question a lot of assumptions I’ve held since high school, it hasn’t changed my character or personality (their both still pitifully low).
I’ll add this as a P.S. If you are where we were a year ago, deciding among schools and programs (evening vs. day). I’d say your default should be a day program at a public school (unless you are really considering going to a T-14 program). If you can get in-state tuition at a good day program, go for it. While I love my school (despite its legion of blemishes) and an evening program has definite advantages, I’d choose less debt and a day program if I had the choice to do it all again.
The most annoying change I’ve noticed about myself since law school is that I now utterly lack the patience to watch movies.