LAW SCHOOL : FEAR, WORK & BOREDOM

"The first year they scare you to death, the second year they work you to death, and the third year they bore you to death."

This short description of law school sums up well my law school experience, and the law school experience of many students I have encountered. This is the first article in a series of five articles on the law school experience on this website. The other four articles are Law School: First Year-The Fear, Part I , Law School: First Year-The Fear Part II , Law School: Second Year-The Work , and Law School: Third Year-The Boredom.

These articles are meant to give you insight into my perspective of the law school experience. If you are interested in attending law school in the near future, or will be attending law school, speak to as many law graduates as possible to see what others have experienced.

If you do choose to speak to others about the law school experience realize that all the information you will receive can be overwhelming, especially when there is conflicting advice. So to help you here are a few tips:

1. Seek out people who are trustworthy, hard working, and who are or were deeply committed to their legal education. Even law school has slackers.
2. Speak to people who have recently attended, or are attending, the law school you will attend. They will have the best understanding of what you will experience.
3. Whenever you begin to hear the same advice or story from different people there is a good chance you will have a similar experience.
4. Don't give too much weight to stories in which things turned out extremely good or bad. Those kinds of stories often depend on unique circumstances that occurred at the time of the story and are not likely to occur again.

Below are a few websites that discuss the law school experience.

http://www.law.fsu.edu/prospective_students/prelaw/handbook/the_experience.html

http://www.abanet.org/genpractice/compleat/spr96schick.html

http://www.nyu.edu/cas/prelaw/experience.html

http://dennistonsing.com/

Enjoy the experience!

Michael Santana

michael.santana@lawboost.com

If you have any questions or comments about this article, or want to write your own article about the pre-law or law school process, feel free to contact me.