Generally speaking, newspaper advice columns do a good job of providing some solace to people facing difficult situations and looking for some genuine guidance to help guide them to the right decision.
Or maybe that’s the Horoscope?
Regardless, advice columnist Carolyn Hax recently got a question from a nervous law student and managed to respond with the sort of answer that may calm the nerves but manages to miss the wide-ranging crisis of legal education in this country. First, the question:
Dear Carolyn: I’m in my first week of law school, and I’m soooo nervous.
I honestly believed everyone when they warned me how difficult law school is and how much hard work it is, but somehow the severity of it didn’t really come alive for me until now, when I’m already in it. I’m FREAKING OUT. Any advice??
Is law school difficult? Sure. But the difficulty stems from the unfamiliar material and the struggle to keep everything straight at the end of the semester. If the workload seems hard in the first week then one of three things is true. One, if the problem is just the sheer amount of work, then your college did not prepare you adequately and this might not be a good match. Two, the work isn’t the problem and it’s that the answers aren’t immediately coming easily to you, in which case your college did not challenge you adequately and you need to learn to get some perspective on what real learning is or this might not be a good match. Three, you’re neurotic and need to chill out fast or this whole profession might not be a good match.
Everyone who warned you was right, now you know, and presumably most if not all of everyone-who-warned-you got through it. Right?
Putting aside the “look to your right, look to your left” phenomenon, what are those people who got through it doing these days? If they’re buried under debt and barely scraping by, did they really get through it?
So, barring the unforeseen, you will get through it, too.
Remind yourself this is not your unique terror for which you are ill-equipped, but instead your turn through a tough obstacle course through which others have passed and through which you were deemed qualified to pass. Widen your view.
No, remind yourself that it’s your turn through a tough obstacle course which you were deemed to have enough access to tuition dollars to prop up some dean’s salary. Even with the selection of good law schools, your selection likely had more to do with your LSAT score which is, in fact, an indicator of legal aptitude, but has nothing to do with one’s capacity to handle the workload. It’s the equivalent of getting an NBA tryout based solely on being 7 feet tall.
And, remember the strategy for getting through anything difficult: Break it down into small pieces and work at it steadily.
Breaking things down into small pieces is a key analytical skill, though drawing connections from a wide body of data is also pretty important and more in line with what the school is looking for. The 75 page reading assignment for today comprises a number of cases that the professor wants to see students bring together to draw comparisons and distinctions from a line of cases involving similar themes. Reading it in chunks misses the point.
Thankfully, what makes Hax better than most advice columnists is her willingness to bring in people with expertise to help out. A former law student chimes in to say that the unfamiliarity with the whole “thinking like a lawyer” thing will fade over time, which is true.
As a law librarian, I would like to add: Seek help from the reference librarians when you need research assistance. Law school involves a lot of research, much of which can be overwhelming to newbies. We know which resources are going to be useful for your topic, and we love providing assistance.
The term “law librarian” probably needs to be tossed in the dumpster, because these days they really aren’t about keeping a library as much as they are tech gurus who can navigate the limitless knowledge of the digital world. “Librarians” kept knowledge in ordered locations so users could find it. The people with that title today don’t keep or order anything, they craft the searches that help people find the information out there where it lives. But, yes, law librarians will be helpful with those later in school chores. Probably not week one readings though.
Finally, a lawyer offers that this student should study 40 hours a week which is probably excessive and only feeding the neuroses of any student obsessing over how the answers aren’t coming easily enough, but counters that a bit by offering this great advice:
And don’t let the competition and peer pressure make you work harder or longer than you need to. You’ll pick up how you learn pretty quickly if you don’t know already.
While it’s probably unfortunate that they chose to enter an environment built entirely around competition from the grading curve to the journal selection to clerkships to jobs, this is still sound advice. Most of the time law students aren’t competing with other law students but their own mythology of what the other students know. Just do what you need to for your own understanding.
No, wait, I remember! The part of the newspaper with genuine guidance that helps guide people to the right decision is the Contract Bridge column. My mistake.
A Freaked Out Law Student’s Plea For Help [Washington Post]
Jordan Rothman is a partner of 
