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Loving law students? They're trapped in there with you! And because law school is America's Great Fallback Option, some human beings accidentally snuck into their ranks. Find them. They're the ones who think everyone around them is crazy too, and they'll be a LOT more fun to be around - especially after 1L, when they take the drugs out of the water supply.

Loving the law? Eh. Parts of it can be interesting and challenging. That's a very personal thing though.

Shhhhh it'll be O.K.

thesealocust wrote:Loving law students? They're trapped in there with you! And because law school is America's Great Fallback Option, some human beings accidentally snuck into their ranks. Find them. They're the ones who think everyone around them is crazy too, and they'll be a LOT more fun to be around - especially after 1L, when they take the drugs out of the water supply.

Loving the law? Eh. Parts of it can be interesting and challenging. That's a very personal thing though.

Shhhhh it'll be O.K.

thank you TSL. i gotta find these people... slowly losing my sanity here. also, is LRW a good heuristic for determining whether i will love being a litigator? because this is awful.

I wasn't a litigator so I can't really say. Of course a big part of the reason I didn't ever try to become a litigator is because I hated LRW...

Idk if law school is getting better of if I'm just numb to the constant feeling of stress. For some reason I feel like I should be caring more than I currently am.

Yeezus wrote:Idk if law school is getting better of if I'm just numb to the constant feeling of stress. For some reason I feel like I should be caring more than I currently am.

it's working

Just want to add that I had bad anxiety 1L (this is all relative). I didn't realize it at the time, but for the first time in my life anxiety impeded how I lived my life. It messed with how I studied, how I took notes and how I paid attention in class. It messed with personal relationships I had with others.

It wasn't until I began to manage my anxiety that I realized how much I had been feeling and how detrimental it had been. Once I realized what was going on, I straightened it out and grades shot up. Still not sure how to really explain that to employers.

Take care of yourself, everyone. Sleep enough, get exercise, eat well, go to church, take time off, stretch, skip class, talk to a doctor, breathe, put a timer on how long you will work and stick to it, don't pull all-nighters, have something every week that you look forward to, eat lunch with friends, etc. Get that stress and anxiety under control.

And you know why? Because you are good people. You are smart people. You can do well. You can do important things in your life. You deserve good things. And things will work out. People are proud of you for all that you have done. There are people in your life who will still be proud of you no matter what your grades are. You are not a failure.

LitttUp wrote:Just want to add that I had bad anxiety 1L (this is all relative). I didn't realize it at the time, but for the first time in my life anxiety impeded how I lived my life. It messed with how I studied, how I took notes and how I paid attention in class. It messed with personal relationships I had with others.

It wasn't until I began to manage my anxiety that I realized how much I had been feeling and how detrimental it had been. Once I realized what was going on, I straightened it out and grades shot up. Still not sure how to really explain that to employers.

Take care of yourself, everyone. Sleep enough, get exercise, eat well, go to church, take time off, stretch, skip class, talk to a doctor, breathe, put a timer on how long you will work and stick to it, don't pull all-nighters, have something every week that you look forward to, eat lunch with friends, etc. Get that stress and anxiety under control.

And you know why? Because you are good people. You are smart people. You can do well. You can do important things in your life. You deserve good things. And things will work out. People are proud of you for all that you have done. There are people in your life who will still be proud of you no matter what your grades are. You are not a failure.

I should never have neglected my readings during memo week.... The process of catching up is overwhelming

Just took a look at my syllabi for the 5 weeks left of the semester. Dear God, how is one person supposed to learn that much material between now and mid-December, let alone figure out how to apply it on an exam? Especially with CivPro, where apparently we're going to cover pretty much the entire FRCP and several major cases each week. What kind of sick system is this? I knew it was going to be hard, but I just hadn't conceived of the VOLUME.

the closest I ever came to breaking down was on thanksgiving when I realized how much shit I needed to teach myself for civ pro. it seemed overwhelming and impossible. I didn't get over it that day; I actually kind of felt like it was hopeless for a while. but I pulled through and crushed that exam.

read "Acing Civ Pro" and watch Freer's Barbri lectures. making my own, short, 12ish-page outline helped me understand it.

this post was not chill

foundingfather wrote:the closest I ever came to breaking down was on thanksgiving when I realized how much shit I needed to teach myself for civ pro. it seemed overwhelming and impossible. I didn't get over it that day; I actually kind of felt like it was hopeless for a while. but I pulled through and crushed that exam.

read "Acing Civ Pro" and watch Freer's Barbri lectures. making my own, short, 12ish-page outline helped me understand it.

Thanks for the tips. Hard to see myself having time for yet more supplemental material (still haven't had time to crack Glannon and try some hypos), but will look into those.

foundingfather wrote:public service announcement to 1Ls thinking about doing a clinic during your 2L:

don't do it. chances are, you don't want to do that to yourself. seriously. it brings a lot of unnecessary stress to your life, unless you're totally in love with that area of the law.

This is a bad post. Employers love clinic experience.

foundingfather wrote:public service announcement to 1Ls thinking about doing a clinic during your 2L:

don't do it. chances are, you don't want to do that to yourself. seriously. it brings a lot of unnecessary stress to your life, unless you're totally in love with that area of the law.

Clinics are easy. Go in, do some work, leave. Unless the lawyer in charge is a dick, they should help you figure out anything if you're stuck. As long as you don't go into particulars, you could probably talk to some profs on campus for any other substantive help too.

But if you're the type of person who bitched about LRW because of the work:credit-hour ratio, you'll bitch doubly so for clinic. Other people don't mind it because it's substantive, you work with clients, and it's different than spending hours outside the classroom reading/outlining.

LetsGoMets wrote:Just took a look at my syllabi for the 5 weeks left of the semester. Dear God, how is one person supposed to learn that much material between now and mid-December, let alone figure out how to apply it on an exam? Especially with CivPro, where apparently we're going to cover pretty much the entire FRCP and several major cases each week. What kind of sick system is this? I knew it was going to be hard, but I just hadn't conceived of the VOLUME.

Find your chill. The BLL isn't hard. Never be intimidated by the material in LS.

edited for chill

We should probably keep the bitching about journal and clinic out of this thread. This is a safe space for 1L's.

LetsGoMets wrote:

foundingfather wrote:the closest I ever came to breaking down was on thanksgiving when I realized how much shit I needed to teach myself for civ pro. it seemed overwhelming and impossible. I didn't get over it that day; I actually kind of felt like it was hopeless for a while. but I pulled through and crushed that exam.

read "Acing Civ Pro" and watch Freer's Barbri lectures. making my own, short, 12ish-page outline helped me understand it.

Thanks for the tips. Hard to see myself having time for yet more supplemental material (still haven't had time to crack Glannon and try some hypos), but will look into those.

Civ pro is a beast, TBH. I went seriously HAM over thanksgiving break for that class and that's the only way I made it through all the material. On the bright side, there is some "crucial" information and some less important materials. Take a look at a few old exams and you'll see what your professor values: e.g., most exams will always have a personal jurisdiction issue and a choice of law issue as central, with other rules-based facts sprinkled in.

Upperclassmen have advised me to draft rule pre-writes for all the major topics (PJ, SMJ, venue, transfer, Erie, etc.) and doing a ton of old exams/hypos to practice using them. Apparently, this works well for my professor in particular since those who simply made an outline always ran out of time and did poorly.
Do you think I should still put such information in "outline" format in addition to pre-writes? I feel like my time would be better spent practicing the application of those rules via practice exams or outlining the material on pleadings, joinder, etc.

pancakes3 wrote:But if you're the type of person who bitched about LRW because of the work:credit-hour ratio, you'll bitch doubly so for clinic. Other people don't mind it because it's substantive, you work with clients, and it's different than spending hours outside the classroom reading/outlining.

LetsGoMets wrote:Just took a look at my syllabi for the 5 weeks left of the semester. Dear God, how is one person supposed to learn that much material between now and mid-December, let alone figure out how to apply it on an exam? Especially with CivPro, where apparently we're going to cover pretty much the entire FRCP and several major cases each week. What kind of sick system is this? I knew it was going to be hard, but I just hadn't conceived of the VOLUME.

Find your chill. The BLL isn't hard. Never be intimidated by the material in LS.

Thanks, I guess, but not really a constructive comment. If it came easily to you and you were never intimidated, congratulations on being a champ. Meanwhile I'll be here piecing together supplemental jurisdiction.

Does it get better? I'm not sure if this is for me anymore. Is all the stress worth it? It's not even like I'm being productive either while being stressed out. I'm losing motivation at the worst possible time...

pancakes3 wrote:Find your chill. The BLL isn't hard. Never be intimidated by the material in LS.

I hear this a lot, but I've also heard simply knowing the BLL isn't going to help you get a top grade anyway? Like I can make an Erie flowchart, and pre-write all the rules and magical court language, but who can't/isn't?

We need thesealocust here to say:

thesealocust wrote:

It will all be fine. This isn't the thread to debate strategy or advice. It's for everyone to breathe deeply (or take a shot) and destress.

pancakes3 wrote:We should probably keep the bitching about journal and clinic out of this thread. This is a safe space for 1L's.

i agree - i'll delete my stuff