This is a common question for evening students who hold down full-time jobs while going to law school. Particularly in interviews. My friend (and sometime FTH commenter) Jorge suggested I share the real secret behind the ability of evening law students to balance all that they do. Pulling the curtain back on our secrets might be helpful to those looking for ways to cope with totally unreasonable demands made by bosses, school, friends, and family.
Of course, the public answer – the only answer we can typically give you non-evening law students – is a mix of:
- “aw shucks” gratitude for (what we think is) a rather flattering compliment (but may actually be genuine wonder over how we actually went insane);
- disbelief over the sheer absurdity that you think we’re balancing anything well;
- genuine eagerness to give your friends and family credit for their support and patience (which is real, invaluable and indispensable); and
- a sense of how you become a slave to your To Do list (everything else, including your concerns about “balance,” falls by the wayside).
But we all know that’s not it. Sure your significant other is a picture of patience and source of support. But what else could it really be? Here, for the first time, I reveal our secrets!
While there any number of factors that contribute to this miraculous feat, there are clearly a few that are most prevalent.
Frankly, many evening law students possess Super Powers. Yes, many evening law students do indeed have super powers that enable them to maintain an inhuman level of focus across their family, professional, and academic commitments. Even though that may sound like snoring on that conference call or coming from that study carrel, it’s actually the inescapable hum of superhero respiration at work – it’s impossible to mute. Much like that finely tuned sportscar sitting next to you at the stoplight.
Also, many evening law students are in fact Mutants. Some–many more than you’d think–are actually X-Men. When they are not working 8 hours per day, attending 11 credit hours of class, editing law journal articles, researching moot court arguments, helping with the Student Bar Association, and spending time with family they are actually keeping you safe from the dangers of Magneto and his vile henchmen who peddle a uniquely dangerous blend of violence and intolerance.
There was also a rumor that many evening law students were actually androids programmed by Richard Posner as a way to experiment with the comparative economic impact of droids and humans on the practice of law. His hypothesis is that while droids may master the daily grind and ingestion of multitudes of facts and rules, they cannot seem to incorporate relevant values and policy arguments to give real meaning to those facts and rules. If correct, his work could really change the future of the law and the long-term prospects for Artificial Intelligence. But that’s just crazy talk. That doesn’t sound like anything he’d do.
And despite the bi-annual sighting of unusual lights, sounds, and figures around law school libraries it has never been confirmed that evening law students are actually descended from a superior alien race of robots that accidentally landed at the North Pole more than century ago and are part of an intergalactic struggle between good and evil.
And, last but not least, we take drugs. Lots of them. Uppers during the semester. Downers over Christmas break. Weed during the summer at Phish and 311 concerts. Whatever we need to get us through. (Don’t tell anyone, but I think some evening law students don’t take drugs to get by in school, but actually because they just like drugs. Shhhh….)
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
15 Responses to How Do You Do It All?
- Countdown to Graduation:
0 days. 
Connect
Twitter
LinkedIn
Google Profile
Delicious
Blog
Thank you for posting this! I recently did my own reality check post for the incoming class, and you hit upon a lot of the same issues. Balancing time and real life is extraordinarily hard, and to be a the top with everything you do creates an impossible task for most evening or non-traditional students. As for the drug comment, unfortunately this is not all that uncommon. Most students prefer adderall for studying mixed with some great downers to catch those precious few hours of shut eye each night. Good Luck this semester, everyone!
Thanks so much for the laugh! I wish I had super powers (or even took drugs)! But I’m still here and still in law school despite working full time and have a family, so maybe there is something extraordinary about being a nontrad!
Sorry, forgot to add great post! Can’t wait to see your next post!
I also like to outsource a lot of the work to China…or India. Just depends on who has the best deal.
Courtney:
adderall, huh? if i were a drug-popping man, i might have to check that out.
Ingenue:
Either extraordinary, or insane. I’d say more the former.
Jorge:
I was going to suppress that reason for all of our anti-outsourcing friends out there.
I’ve always dealt with it by utilizing my staff. Most of the kids who work for me are of the generation that thinks it appropriate to use Facebook, Gmail, and their damn iPods at work. My response is that this time can be better spent making copies, running off Westlaw searches, typing up executive summaries of my readings, and transcribing my notes.
The recession has only improved this process. While they previously questioned the validity of these requests, now they don’t say a thing.
Seriously, I’d answer the question with another question: “What is this ‘balance’?”
I got through it by giving up any semblance of a social life. Monday through Thursday was work 8 hours, grab fast-food dinner, go to class, go home, go to sleep. Weekends were wall-to-wall studying.
After that, it took a long time to re-learn how to live. But on the plus side, I graduated with only a small student debt.
Ray:
Yeah, clearly there’s no balance. I will sometimes go several days before I even have the energy or time to deal with my personal voice mail let alone this “balance” of which you speak. (Sorry, Dr. Bombay for not getting back to you on Saturday, by the way.)
The sad thing is I’ll graduate with a smaller debt, but not a small one. So if you were able to whittle your debt down to the “small” range, good on ya for accomplishing that feat of superhero proportions.
Balance? Que? Not even remotely. I’ve just begun the massive four year journey and, wow. Perpetually tired and low-bandwidth on the focus outside school/work.
Social life? Surely you jest.
This article is spot-on.
[...] coming across gems of blawgs such as Fight the Hypo. Had a great giggle at the article of “How You Do It All” and nodded in agreement the entire reading. Yeah, evening law studies is pretty much like [...]
So, so true
Thanks for both a laugh and a peek into the difficulties of doing the evening law school thing. I currently have a full-time job in IT and teach undergrad courses online. I’ve been considering applying to take evening law classes at Florida A&M in Orlando but somehow that seems insane. I can picture losing my job and my marriage and not doing well enough to warrant the effort. I suspect that going full-time would be a better bet for me…if I can swing the finances. I’m unfortunately like a good chunk of the rest of Florida – I have a house that’s worth less than I owe on it.
ThinkingAboutIt-
Thanks for checking in. Hope you’ll keep reading and poking around.
It’s a tough choice, for sure. Pound-for-pound I think a law degree is among the best grad degrees you can have.
The advice of going to the best possible school you can get into is the best anyone ever gave me (I didn’t take it, so do as I say not as I did) unless you have other reasons for attending the school you’re considering (i.e. location, specialty, etc). Going in the evening can have a lot of advantages. Sounds like you’re in a job that might have some flexibility for working from home (???). That might be useful. It’s possible to juggle it all but it’s hard to keep up with all the work and it’s nearly impossible to get involved in all you’d probably want to be involved in (journal, moot court, clinic, SBA, etc).
Casebook Sherpa,
I appreciate your thoughts on this. Unfortunately my current FT job contractually requires me to be onsite for just about all that I do (usually 9-10 hours per day). The teaching is online and if I could land a FT online teaching gig, PT nights might work. As you pointed out, though, there are some important (to me personally and possibly to my future career) things I’d want to be involved in, such as moot court, and going during the day would make them more accessible. I was looking at UF in Gainesville, FL and love the idea of their clinics where I could work in the local state attorney’s office and actually do prosecutorial work – what a great chance to get some real courtroom experience! My undergrad GPA is pretty horrid – 2.93, but I rounded-out my MBA with a 3.83 so I’m hoping that plus my as-yet-untaken LSAT score will make me a more serious contender for any school where I apply.
What are your thoughts on school ranking versus coming out with very large amounts of debt, if you don’t mind my asking?
I think rank is important. Not because it tells you much about the actual quality of the school but for the perception of quality it creates among employers. But it’s easy to overcome whatever deficiencies in rank there might be if the school has a good reputation in the market where you want to practice, a solid alumni network, good programs or courses in the practice area(s) you’re interested in (like clinics).
Plus law school is what you make of it. Rank can affect your career prospects, but if you work hard and make an effort to do some extracurricular stuff you *should* be fine. (no promises or warranties, here though)
If it comes down to schools you feel equally comfortable with, my advice is to minimize debt as much as possible (particularly if you’re still carrying undergrad and MBA debt) since it can really impact your options following law school.
Casebook,
Thanks for your advice. I’m trying to talk to as many informed people as I can regarding this as it will be one of the bigger decisions I’ve made and I want to be sure that it’s the right path for me and my family. I’ll keep reading and keep talking to people until I’m sure of what’s right for me.