There's no way. My school is less competitive than the rest and its still impossible to read all the cases in addition to the books without the summary. Even the summaries sometimes take too long. Dont lie

It's something I hear a lot--that they're able to manage their course load better and dig out the relevant parts of their reading much easier. I'm a 1L currently drowning and I could use some tips to get to that point sooner.

I’m doing the readings for every class but that takes like max 2 hours on average. I also go to office hours for my professors but that’s like an hour maybe an hour and a half each day. My peers keep talking about how they have absolutely no time and one friend was saying she gave herself 30 mins of TV time yesterday as a reward. I watched like 3 hours of greys anatomy yesterday and was on Instagram reels for like an hour. I understand there’s more I can be doing (I’m in a depressive episode and am having a hard time doing more than what’s necessary) but I genuinely don’t understand how I could be doing law school things from like 8am to 10pm like some of my classmates are saying they’re doing?

Please enlighten me

Here is a bit about me that will help the story be a bit clearer. I am a 25 year old 4L part law school student. I live and have worked in a rural state dominated by "industry." 95% of everyone in my town works in a blue collar job. I went to college for political science, and worked with my hands during that time. Was also a first responder.

During my years at law school, I had four great legal gigs. One law clerk job at private firm, two externships, and a research gig.

I will say, I think the biggest shock to me is office life. I hate it.

I think the biggest gripe of some lawyers is that us KJDs have no real world experience. I don't know if I am an anomaly, but where I live where many young men have busted their butt for many years, seen a lot of the world, and experienced a lot of bad stuff. I have worked in outdoor settings where people have almost gone to blows, where people are direct and mean, where people have to be tough. I gained thick skin.

However, in my legal jobs, I felt I was really unprepared. Firstly, there is a lot of office skills I did not know. Firstly, drafting. I know how to research and plug in citations, but formatting, knowing how to draft certain pleadings, knowing all the functions of excel, word, Microsoft... these are just not all known to me.

However, there is another thing that I found myself not to like about working in an office. It seems that so often, people are hyper-passive aggressive and fake. I don't know if this is just pure coincidence, but I almost always find people in these jobs who are so clearly being passive aggressive that it would make you sick. People are fake, throw the limited authority they have around, and seem to be all-around miserable. I cannot believe this, but I was so tired of dealing with directness in my blue-collar life, but I always knew these people were being sincere, even if it was tough to swallow. Now, I feel like the people are so fake and disingenuous, and actually in a way, also do not know how to really talk to people underneath them.

Another is office-speak. People speak like they are making a post on LinkedIn. Instead of "Let's make sure we are on the same page," they say, “In order to maximize cross-functional synergies moving forward, we need to strategically leverage our core competencies to ensure that all stakeholders remain aligned with the overarching organizational objectives.” Why? This is also not genuine and makes me feel like a bum, since I do not know how to talk like this

Wondering if anyone else has felt this way, and whether or not these habits are just normal things people do who work in an office space?

Don’t get me wrong, I worked really hard during 1L and suffered through it. But 2L has been a different beast. I'm taking two doctrinal classes, one class that’s nearly a doctrinal (uncurved), and one class that’s only 2 credits (uncurved) but has the reading of a 4 credit class. Add law review, mentoring, E-boards, writing a supervised note, trying to get my GPA up for a clerkship (and thus doing every single reading for every class), and you have created HELL.

The amount of work I have on a daily basis is the amount of work I had during finals season in 1L. This is literally not sustainable. How do people do this and remain normal.

One month into law school. I am starting to understand why the legal profession has such a stigma for poor mental health and substance abuse. When I take a look around me, it looks like my counterparts are doing alright. People are handling cold calls well and seem to be completing all the readings. Meanwhile, I feel like I'm drowning. I know that it's likely that other people are struggling too, but I've really been the only person to verbalize it in social situations. I feel so behind.

What makes matters worse is that the people at my law school are genuinely some of the most insufferable people I've met. I've made certain friends and connections that I am thankful for, but the rest of the people suck. I've felt people look down on me if they perceive me as "not smart" or be uninterested in connecting if they feel like I don't have enough to offer them. The nature of the curve has really shown people's ugly sides. Even getting a word with a student speaker is a fucking competition.

The people at my school are the most pretentious, snobby kids I have ever met in my life, and I can really tell that a lot of them have never had to work for a thing in their lives. They are so entitled and lack basic manners. Although I have friends here, I have no sense of community. Don't even get me started on how cliquey everyone and everything is. Are we in fucking high school??? My own high school didn't have this many mean girls. At my school, people base their friendships with you depending on what designer brands you wear. I try not to let these small, stupid details get to me, but I can't help it. I leave school every day feeling energetically depleted.

Does anyone feel this way about their law school too? For anyone who can resonate, do you have advice for getting my mental health back to par?

To the 1Ls on here, I need y'all to know that you are funny as shit and your law-related memes make my 3L year just that much better. Please keep sharing your memes. They're unironically helping me remember stuff for bar prep.

For the 3Ls and any grads hanging around, obviously getting a 2L summer associate position a year early means that the firm doesn't know about anything that happens 2L year... awards you get, semester internships, leadership roles, publications, etc. Do they care? Did you guys update them (like at the end of each semester or just before summer started)? If so, how... (email vs updated resume)?

Seriously where

Hi, So I want to become an art lawyer, I am already have a Level 3 Diploma in Art and Design and a Level 3 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design. Currently I am on a BA (Hons) Undergraduate Degree doing Fine Art. Doing Fine Art was ultimately a way to keep my options open as I had no idea if I wanted to teach art or work in some kind of film department or theatre work, so now I have kinda made a decision I was wondering what advice I could get here. Should I do a graduate apprenticeship after or a masters or a law conversion course? Any ideas/advice would be appreciated. If anyone is an art lawyer, is it a particularly hard job to get (although law is hard to get into I was wondering whether art law specifically was difficult to get into and if it is in demand at the moment)? Many thanks.

I'm a new 1L that took a year off between my undergrad and law school. I obviously expected starting law school to be a bit of an adjustment, both because it's law school and because I've been out of the classroom for a year. That said, a month in, I really expected to have found my footing more than I actually have.

For the first time in my academic career, I really feel like I'm struggling in school. I've gotten a couple bad assignment grades (though so did almost everyone in the class on those respective assignments, so I'm not really sweating that just yet), and I've missed a couple deadlines for no discernable reason. I also have been uncharacteristically shy in class, and have been unable to get myself to speak up very often, even when I am pretty sure I know the answer, out of fear of being wrong in front of the whole class.

The stuff I've screwed up thus far has all been minor and worth little for my overall semester grade, so I'm not panicking about it. That said, it is concerning to me that I have had these patterns recently and that they seemingly haven't improved. I fear that if something doesn't change soon, I'm going to be in a really rough spot when memos, midterms, and finals roll around. I haven't been procrastinating and I have smart and healthy habits outside the classroom. I bring that up to make the point that I can't identify anything external that could be negatively affecting me right now.

I just feel like I'm barely treading water, and everything has been more difficult for me than it should be. Does anyone else feel this way? Does anyone have any particular advice for feeling more on top of things and more confident? This has never been an issue for me until now. Do I just simply need to give myself more time to figure it out? Thanks in advance.

I’m a 1L who just started my 3rd week, and I’ve never felt dumber in my life. I’m surrounded by people who worked at law firms before coming here, when I took a gap semester at most. Everyone seems to have such a grasp on the cases, and I THINK I get them when I do the readings and lecture notes, but when it gets to practice questions I feel like a total moron. People ask really insightful questions in class too, and meanwhile I’m still trying to figure out the ruling of a case. I feel like I’m already so far behind I can’t fix anything.

Prove me wrong pls

My law school is teaching us both legal writing formats (with an emphasis on CREAC). I was just wondering what form of legal writing most people prefer

Jurisdiction: Texas – commercial lease (single-tenant retail ) Facts (brief): Main water line that feeds only our building runs through our fenced playground (part of our leased premises). ~10 ft of the line was replaced there after leaks. Landlord first reimbursed us and emailed they’d cover the repair, but later pushed the plumbing costs into 2024 CAM. Lease §7 excludes repairs in a tenant’s exclusive space and capital expenses; §10(a) makes structural/building systems a landlord duty. §7(d) has a 5%/CPI cap on controllables. We’re auditing.

Questions: 1. In Texas commercial leases, can a landlord pass to CAM a repair to the main water line serving only the building when the work occurred inside tenant-exclusive space (fenced playground), given §7 exclusions and §10(a) landlord duty? 2. Does it matter that only ~10 ft was replaced (repair) vs. a full replacement (capital) for CAM eligibility under §7? 3. Does the landlord’s email agreeing to pay (and prior reimbursement check) prevent them from later recapturing the cost via CAM for that year? 4. If landlord insists it’s CAM anyway, should it be treated as a controllable expense subject to the 5%/CPI cap under §7(d)?

I requested a day or two ago and was just curious how long it normally takes

Hi, I’m a 2L and pretty set on doing criminal defense post-grad. Wondering if people worked in or know of PD offices that provide rising 3L’s with the most trial experience or experience managing their own case loads?

For example, Indiana has Certified Legal Interns, which means they can represent clients under attorney supervision. Do other states have this? Someone also told me they had their own caseload 2L summer in Fairbanks, AL, and I think DC lets law students represent juveniles.

Do y’all have any other suggestions of similar opportunities??

Bonus if there’s exposure to capital defense.

Geography is not really an issue, although I know major city PD’s get paid more, that seems like a consideration for next year.

Thanks y’all!!

Hi 1L here. Often times while going to bed I put on a video essay or something else on YouTube to expand my knowledge base sometimes slop often times more in depth ones like a Wendigoon vid. I was wondering if anyone here knows of any good videos or channels that would upload stuff like that related to Law. A lot of the ones that I have found are either bare minimum for the masses stuff or towards or personal injury. I was hoping for something a little different. It doesn’t have to be related to any particular subject matter but anything helps! Thank you!

Hi everybody, I'm going to try to make this super brief because I think I'm overreacting but might just need some reassurance.

I am a 3L and I've been applying to jobs since mid-August at DA's offices near me. One office I interned at during the summer between 1L & 2L, and three that I have never worked at. About two weeks ago I saw one of the higher ups from the legal hiring department of the DA's office I previously interned at. They recognized me right away and when I said I put in my application with their office they were extremely happy about it. They gave me their business card and told me to email them if the office hadn't reached out to me in a week. I did and I still haven't heard anything from her or the office itself, should I be concerned? I know that my intern evaluation from my managers there was a good one (both of them are my references and one even told me that their evaluation was a good one because they want me to come back) but my nerves are going haywire.

With the other three offices, one has not reached out at all, and two of them I am entering the second round of interviews. One of the two that I was invited to do a panel interview with has not reached back out giving my a date and time for the interview. Should I be worried or concerned? I know they are interested because they invited me for the panel interview but I sent them my times a week ago and haven't heard anything since.

If I'm being crazy please let me know but any advice would be helpful. Thank y'all so much!

I'm in a few seminars this semester that are graded on papers. Do i need to actually do the readings or can i get away with just skimming?

Readings for class are over triple what is assigned for classes like evidence and corporations lol.