#1 Learning to “Think Like a Lawyer” is Not a Sterilization Process 

When I heard we would learn to “think like lawyers” on our first day, I wanted to leave immediately. The phrase itself was cringe-worthy enough, but I also worried I would leave law school influenced by principles and values that were not aligned with my own.

Obviously, I had taken the expression too literally.  I wish I had trusted that although I was in a new environment, I was still the same person with the same life experiences. I was not destined to lose my center of gravity and I like to think that so far, I still haven’t. Everything proposed within those 4 walls is a suggestion, offering, or nudge in a certain direction. The response to it is my responsibility and within my mindful control. 

I also wish I knew that the tools, skills, and experiences which helped me get to the starting line of the first day of law school would be sharpened, not necessarily rebuilt. Law school can serve as the perfect place to continue forging what has been working for me while letting go of the rest. 

#2 Keeping My Head on Straight Comes Before Reading

I find it helpful to characterize all the sub-challenges within larger-order goals as either requiring predominately “organizational” or “emotional” skills. No challenge requires purely one or the other, but by teasing these apart and reflecting on how I’m doing along the process, navigating it feels that much more manageable.

“Organizational skills” include all of the strategy, time management, scheduling, and focused deep work required to successfully jump through all the hoops that make up law school as a whole. 

“Emotional skills” are about remaining afloat while I do that and not having my ability to cope eclipsed by the challenge before me. This includes mindset, self-talk, relating with others, resiliency and more. 

Organizational skills are like my map of the terrain, and emotional skills are the fuel to get from point A to point B with my head on straight. 

Before my first day l I thought law school would mainly be an organizational challenge, that would then only stress my emotional capacity when the going got tough. I thought it would be one of the hardest organizational challenges I had ever taken on. In retrospect, I was wrong.

The good part is the concrete organizational requirements making up law school have been significantly more manageable than I had anticipated. The skills I learned in my undergrad to get to this point have still been helping me along. 

It was my emotional skills that were doing a lot more heavy lifting than I had anticipated. A good part of my first year was spent in my head about whether I was doing things “correctly”, if doing things my way was going to be good enough, or what my definition of “good enough” even was going to be. It felt like there were a lot of rabbit holes to fall down and overthink, dozens of people to compare myself to, and a deafening silence of the lack of feedback from the work itself to reflect how my organizational skills were holding up. All of this required minding my emotional equanimity above most other tasks. I wish I had seen that coming. I needed to keep going and not allow a trip in my head to slow me down for too long. Keeping my head on straight comes before reading. 

#3 I Can Keep My Eyes Open, But Not Too Open

I considered using law school as an opportunity to put most of my existing interests and research areas on the back burner just to see which new ones would emerge. That could have been an interesting strategy but instead, I decided to double down on why I felt I was there in the first place. I haven’t regretted this approach. 

I’m glad I kept my eyes open to new opportunities, but not too open. There’s a reason why I decided to go to law school in the first place and it’s been important to remember that. While in law school I’ve learned new avenues of interest that I didn’t even know existed but they all support my larger overarching purpose for attending. I regularly ask myself if I’m living up to the aspirations I set out in my application because I think “selling out” (or drifting away from my values, which is the same thing) happens in daily micro-decisions. “Selling out” may sound extreme, but I think it’s extremely ordinary. I’m constantly making an array of micro-decisions which will define my time in law school and after, practicing law. Building in time to reflect on my larger values, inner compass and intuition even for what seems like small decisions has served me well and I don’t regret the time I’ve spent overthinking this specifically, so far. 

#4 Noting What Made Me Uncomfortable At the Beginning Would Later Be Useful

I wish I knew to take better note of all the small things that piqued my intuition as being “weird” or “off” from the very beginning. Sooner than later as I habituate to my surroundings, I lose that fresh perspective which offers valuable hints at larger influences just be aware of. I don’t need to be on high alert constantly looking for red flags, but the field of law isn’t perfect. Law school, the practice of it, our legal system, is made up of so many moving parts which are miraculous to observe and hard to comprehend how they even function so intricately with this much simultaneous cooperation. But at the same time, other parts of it leave far more to the imagination. My intuition from the beginning and imagination of what could be felt sharpest at my first exposure to it. Over time I lose valuable reflection as my beginner perspective slowly wears off. 

For example, on my first day of school we were gifted bags of various merch, all from law firms I had never heard of. As I looked over all the pens, gadgets, stickies and random items, I wondered if this was how med students felt when they were gifted things from Purdue Pharma back in the day. On a micro level, I felt like we were already being bought. This continued through law school by the companies that could afford massive on-campus recruitment efforts, locking in students early on who might never see what opportunities are available from other firms which couldn’t afford the pens from the start. This was indicative of my feelings toward the much larger industry that is big law from the start. 

I try to take better note of how things hit me for the first time now. How did it feel when I saw everyone bow to the crown in a courtroom for the first time? What about the “capes” that everyone wears in Supreme Court? Or when I first heard the language everyone uses in court? Later on, my clients will likely have very similar reactions when it’s their first time interacting with some of these things. Now I try to remember what just didn’t sit right so I can explore that reaction more deeply, learn from it what I can, and help translate it to other people later on. 

#5 I Won’t Regret Being a “Long Arm”

I saw a graphic online easily 15 years ago that’s still part of my vocabulary today. It showed one friend in a group of friends with literally longer arms, reaching out to the rest, working to hold things together. The blurb below it explained the benefits of being that person with the “long arms”. 

I wish I knew I wouldn’t regret being a “long arm” at law school. I never regret the effort of at least trying to know the names of everyone around me. Later when I’m in the library working on the last stretches of an assignment that just never feels like it’s going to end l see there’s an acquaintance in the cubicle across from me doing something similar, just knowing their name and being aware of their presence helps me keep going. 

Right from the beginning, friendships outside of my cohort who are in various stages of this process have been some of the most enriching ones I’ve made. Having a small sample of people who could hint at what is next coming up for me, and offer their advice and encouragement was invaluable. In cycling, I work hard to stay as close to the wheel in front of me as I can to benefit from riding in their “draft”, where they are breaking the wind and I can pedal easier as I’m pulled behind them. The same phenomenon exists in law school. The entire time I’ve had friends one, two, three years ahead of me. I’ve learned more from them about navigating and strategizing what lies ahead than I ever thought possible and I continue to rely on them today. There’s no reason why I have to figure out all of this on the fly, at the moment it’s first happening. Students came successfully before me, and I can learn from them as soon as I want to reach out. 

Truth is, I’ve found there’s just something about the law school environment that encourages many of us to emotionally and socially devolve to the lowest common denominator by the hardest point of the first year. This poses an opportunity to band together, make different choices, learn new skills and set new boundaries. I like to think we’re all in a rock polisher together, for better or for worse. Try to be a stone that sharpens another rather than leaving too jagged of an edge, if you can. Be a “long arm”.