How Hard is Law School Really? Here’s the Quick Breakdown

As college seniors nationwide put the final touches on their baccalaureate degrees, thoughts travel to post-graduation plans and goals. Invariably, some students will look towards furthering their education with one of the two more popular options available: graduate school or law school. Many who might shy from the latter in favor of the former will do so for fear of the reputation for the difficulty that law school has earned over the years.

Is this fear justified? Are the rumors true? Is law school all that hard? The short answer is yes. Law school is a different kettle of fish compared to most students’ previous academic experience, which presents a challenge for even the brightest product of academia. Before quickly switching towards a graduate degree focus, however, let’s look at the unique challenges posed by law school with a quick breakdown of the details involved with going to law school.

Law School is a Different Way of Learning

Perhaps one of the biggest adjustments that the new law student will need to confront is that the information will be delivered in far different ways than they’d previously experienced as an undergraduate or high school student. Indeed, a previous academic experience that featured frequent guidance and feedback, the lack of both will likely cause even the most motivated overachiever to question their abilities.

This learning style, the Socratic Method, has been used to train the critical thinking of aspiring attorneys for generations. This method places a premium on developing critical thinking skills, long-term memory development, and the ability to nimbly recall facts for sophisticated application of previously attained knowledge to changing legal situations.

This learning environment starkly contrasts with previous teaching settings where the priority is placed on short-term memory development designed to pass the scheduled midterm and final exams. As such, adjusting to this new method of instruction can be a challenge for the beginning law student. Considering that you want to hit the ground running in your law school career, stumbling out of the blocks owing to an unfamiliar learning style can be discomfiting.

Closely associated with adjusted new learning objectives and pedantic procedures, the newly minted law student must deal with a new phenomenon: actual competition.

High Pressure and Stiff Competition

The very nature of competitive entrance exams to law school suggests that the average first-year law student is a self-selected population that is probably used to ranking near the top of their classes. That level of achievement evaporates with the realization that law school draws the best and brightest from universities nationwide. This fact presents a psychological response in the, heretofore class leader, which can put them off their game at a point in their lives when they most certainly need to have their game face in place.

Faced with true peers for probably the first time in their academic careers, they will test their mettle on one of the more brutal grading rubrics—the dreaded bell curve.

Unlike previous coursework, where the student merely had to master the material, the bell curve guarantees that regardless of how hard they study, a class of 40 students will only witness eight A’s while the majority will be relegated to the statistical middling ground, or fail to meet even those minimal qualification.

As such, the new legal student is being taught in a new manner, against a cadre of sharp competition, and with a grading rubric that further puts a thumb on the scale against success compared to previous educational environments.

The Humility of Being Wrong/Cold Cocked by the Cold Call

Closely aligned with the previous section, the new law student will in all likelihood, need to learn to cope with the fact of being wrong. While mentally accepting an error is difficult, it is a vastly different scenario when that error is put out on blast in front of all your peers. Specifically known as “the cold call,” it is a practice whereby the professor leans upon the Socratic Method in a technique whereby you will find yourself randomly the recipient of a laser-focused question.

While the cold call might take on a different temperament based on the individual professor’s preferences, each cold call shares certain characteristics.

Among other factors, the cold call will be unexpected, you will have no idea what the professor will ask you, the query will be in front of 200 of your peers, and the question will require you to be mentally nimble while placed on the spot.

For those who were hoping to enter law school for a tax law specialization, with an eye towards minimal public speaking as a result, they will still need to get over their reticence towards speaking before a group as a result of the cold calling requirements of the Socratic Method.

In short, as mentioned earlier, law school places a premium on long term memory formation, quick recall of facts that might embrace a myriad of sources, and the critical thinking skills needed to tie all of these factors together to answer the cold call question before the inquisitive eyes of 200 law school peers.

As stressful as this situation can be, individuals will take solace in seeing their fellow students similarly under the intellectual gun, and a shared camaraderie will become the norm as the group comes to realize that they will probably end up publicly out-ed for being wrong at some point in their law school career.

A Punishing Academic Load

So far, we have primarily looked at the mental and emotional load that the new student must learn to cope with to succeed in law school. Certainly, knowing that you will be publicly humbled on any number of occasions during your law school career, but you will be competing in an arena of academic peers that are just as sharp as they, and they will be judged on a rubric with which they are unfamiliar with.

Let’s turn our eye now towards the actual academic workload that is involved. A great deal of academic workload is involved, which is particularly true of first-year law studies. While attending class as an undergraduate was certainly appreciated, most students soon realized that merely reading the assigned reading would normally garner them an A for the course. Not so in law school.

Law school lectures might only tangentially bisect with the assigned reading with the classroom lecture being used to expand on theories, background, and supporting material designed to buttress the reading. As such, each hour of classroom lecture will prove far more grueling than any previous classroom experience because any given fact in lecture might equate to points lost on the exam.

The key point being, every bit of knowledge you learn, either from reading or lecture, might be relevant to a future case. Unlike many disciplines, there is very little information learned in law school that will not be of use at some point or another. As such, “skating through the reading or lectures” with a plan to cram prodigiously for the final is not recommended.

The new law student can plan on spending much time moving through the assigned readings. With an estimated three to four hours of reading a night, the likelihood of catching up is highly unlikely because the readings don’t stop. Indeed, this pedal-to-the-metal philosophy from day one of law school makes law school so difficult.

The Pressure Cooker of First Year Law

The first year of law school is a pressure cooker of hard work, lack of sleep, and stress that can take a toll on the first-year student. This combination of heavy course and reading schedule, coupled with the unfamiliar teaching methods with very little feedback, is a tinderbox of stress and anxiety. Navigating law school successfully will require landing on your feet running and recovering quickly from the inevitable stumbles that accompany law school enrollment.

The vast majority of successful law school graduates will willingly admit that the first year of school is probably the most difficult when it comes to learning the law. The sheer amount of information and data that must be mastered can be brutal, and the fast pace approach guarantees that your law school experience will be the most rigorous educational system you will ever endure.

Those students who adapt quickly to these changing educational dynamics, and survive that first year of law school, will find that the law school experience is possibly the best years of their lives. Looking back with a sense of accomplishment, more than a few will probably admit that those years were some of the hardest schooling they ever endured.

Tips for Surviving the First Year of Law School

1. Stay Organized: Keep track of your assignments, schedules, and deadlines. Use a planner or digital calendar. Time management is crucial in law school.
2. Take Care of Your Health: Sleep, eat well and exercise regularly. Taking care of your physical health is vital to your success in law school.
3. Stay Engaged and Participate: Participate in class discussions. It helps to reinforce learning and prepares you for the cold call.
4. Embrace the Socratic Method: Understand that the Socratic Method is a tool for learning, not a form of punishment. It encourages critical thinking and helps you to become a better lawyer.
5. Form Study Groups: Study groups can provide different perspectives and help fill in any gaps in your understanding.
6. Reach Out for Support: Don’t hesitate to contact professors, classmates, or counseling services if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Remember, law school is a challenging journey, but with hard work, discipline, and the right strategies. You can succeed and make the most of your law school experience.