THE TRUTH ABOUT 1L YEAR FROM A SURVIVOR

Abandon all hope ye who enter here… I’m kidding, but seriously, it makes you wonder if Dante ever went to law school. Anyone who tells you that your first year in law school will be easy is either one of two things: a liar or a genius. 1L year was one of the most challenging years of my life, and I have three grey hairs to prove it.  Before you take the plunge and decide to embark on the hunt for your J.D. here are some unsolicited words of wisdom from a 1L survivor. You’re welcome.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: FEAR HAS NO PLACE IN HERE

Some people have asked me why I didn’t go straight to law school after undergrad. The truth is I was afraid. I was worried that I didn’t have the right study habits, the attention span, the drive, the personality, the grit, the list was longer than a Charmin double roll. But that fear is dead. RIP. One of the most critical tasks outside of your class work will be to slay any and all doubts you possess about your ability to succeed. Until you do that you will never see what you are truly capable of accomplishing. Get rid of your fear one small victory at a time, after all, wars are won by an accumulation of successful battles. You beat the curve, yay you! Answered correctly on a cold call, kudos! Did your Friday reading by Wednesday! Snaps for you! Little by little, you will start to see scintillas of success sprinkled throughout your journey through 1L. Cherish them but power through even when success is silent. You are stronger than you know, smarter than you think, and braver than you believe. You’ve got this.

GET IT TOGETHER HONEY

I remember looking at my planner for the first week of school and feeling light-headed. The amount of work you will be tasked with your first year can be daunting, and at times you’ll feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done but trust me you will find a way. One of my mistakes in my first year was that I was inconsistent about logging my assignments in my planner. However, I learned that when I did record my deadlines, it was much easier to get things done. Maybe it’s the tangibility of a hard copy planner that allowed me to feel grounded when my mind was dizzy swirling in a twister of tasks, or perhaps having one less thing on my mental checklist allowed me to focus better, but whatever the reason it really did help. The other benefit of having a planner is that you can see what’s coming up, so you don’t fall behind. One of the scariest places to be during law school is behind in your work. Be proactive and stay on top of your assignments. Procrastination is an open invitation for Murphy’s Law to kick in—anything that can go wrong will go wrong. This can be easier said than done but trust me it’s way better to get the work done ahead of time if possible than to be pulling your hair out because you waited till the night before your memo was due to start it—or so I’ve been told. Just get a planner and avoid this nightmare, ok?

GET A GOOD SUPPORT SYSTEM

You cannot make this journey on your own. 1L year will leech the life out of you if you let it, which is why it is crucial that you have a reliable support system to help get you through this year. Unless you have family members who are attorneys, your family try as they might, will never fully comprehend what it is that you are going through.  It is essential to make friends, not only for the purposes of study groups (more on that later,) but for your own sanity and well-being.  You need some who understands your plight, who won’t make you feel guilty for venting, and let’s get real if your momma is Latina like mine all you’re gonna hear is “ah no mijita ahora se aguanta!” (suck it up, sweetie) or “estas llorando, yo te doy algo para que llores!” (are you crying? I’ll give you something to cry about!) As I said, unless they’ve been through this, your family and friends won’t get what you’re going through. I don’t know what I would do without my friends. Bonded by our roots and the strain of school, we came together quickly and powered through the year with laughter, tears, and high-pitched venting sessions. They were strangers who became family, and I am so grateful to know I can count on them. If you’re shy and have a hard time making friends muster up some courage and go join a club or go to a mixer. Law school is hard enough without having to do it on your own. Get out there and meet some people, they are all just as nervous as you, and you’ll never know what great friendships await you unless you put yourself out there. No fear remember. 

FINDING PEACE WHEN YOU’RE OVERWHELMED

The most important thing for me this year was to remain grounded in my spiritual life. Everybody has their own faith and their own way of manifesting it. For me, I like going to church on Saturday nights with my husband. A night of cathartic reset after a long week, Saturday church was something that I chose to make time for because I felt that I couldn’t afford to. Now I’m not saying that anything weird or supernatural happened as a result of my attendance, or that I miraculously became #1 in my class without studying because I prayed, or anything of the sort. What did happen is that when I was overwhelmed with the weight of school, I could pray about it and find peace. Prayer didn’t make things go away, it didn’t make things easier, it didn’t may me finish assignments faster, or more correctly, but it gave me peace. Peace to know that my best was good enough, that no matter what happened I was still valuable, a peace that would allow me to stop worrying about things that I couldn’t control, and peace to find sleep amidst a racing thought. For me, peace in law school is priceless, and since I can’t purchase peace at target or on a late-night infomercial for the low-low price of $19.95, I got it the only way I knew I could, through faith.

GOOD LUCK

You are about to embark on a journey that will literally change your life. There will be days when you are so exhausted that you think you can’t write another brief or read another chapter, but you have to find a way to do it. There will be days when you are so sick that you have to drink Pedialyte and an energy drink so you can keep studying for your midterms, and you have to suck it up and power through. Remember you aren’t the first law student to go through this, and you certainly won’t be the last, so just face it head on, hold nothing back, and live every day like Elle Woods after Warner told her she wasn’t smart enough for Harvard. You can do it!

With love from the Lonestar,

Isabella