5 Tips for Starting Law School

If you are about to start law school, you may feel a mix of excitement and nerves.

As a now-lawyer, I started law school in 2019, and there are definitely things I wish I had known before starting law school. And no, it’s not “that it was nothing like Legally Blonde“.

In my law school journey, I failed 8 classes. I do believe that some of these things would’ve helped my grades.

Now I’m going to share this wisdom with you.

First, I’m going to break it down into study-related & non-study-related.

The study-related refers to the study tips that will help you get good grades.

The non-study-related refers to your life outside of law school.

Let’s dive in.

Study-Related

1 – Doing your exam notes as you go

Every single week, after you’ve gone through that week’s content/topic, take extra time to create study notes for that week.

I have found that it only needs to take an extra 30 minutes.

Sometimes, it involves organising your readings, lectures, and class notes into exam-ready notes. Other times, it’s making summaries.

Nonetheless, you are preparing something exam-ready each week, so by the time it gets closer to your exam, you have these notes ready to go. The timeframe between your last class and your first exam isn’t much.

By having your exam notes ready to go, you can optimise that short timeframe by focusing on what matters more: reviewing concepts you don’t understand, practicing exam questions, etc.

2 – Address what you don’t understand immediately

Something I would’ve benefited from in my first years of law school is addressing things immediately.

This is pretty much a habit you practice throughout the semester, which is:

The moment you don’t understand something, address it immediately.

This could involve talking to your teachers, going through your notes again, and doing extra research on it. Regardless, it’s better to address it right then and there, than at the time closer to your exam. The things you come across that you “don’t get” can accumulate throughout the semester.

3 – Familiarise yourself with AGLC4

AGLC4 is a significant part of law school because it’s the very thing that can cost you easy marks.

The first time I saw the AGLC4 book, I cried. After all, the AGLC4 book has a lot of pages.

But what would’ve stopped me from crying?

Creating cheat sheets or even just bookmarking my most used pages. This simple strategy can help save you so much time when you do assessments.

If I were to start law school again and wanted to familiarise myself with AGLC4, I would’ve started with this.

Non-study related

4 – Take as many opportunities to attend law school events

No doubt, law school will take up a lot of your time. Sometimes, it’ll feel like you don’t have a social life.

But it is good to take the opportunity to attend an event whenever the opportunity arises.

Networking is an important skill to develop, not just in law but for any career. As an introvert, I have found that attending university events (even if they are not law-related) was really helpful for my social skills. They became good practice for the “bigger” networking events where you interact with professionals.

Plus, you don’t want to look back at your law school journey and see that all you did was study. You want to look back at some memories as well.

5 – Get some job experience

Keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be law firm experience during your first year!

I didn’t start my first law firm job until I was in my 4th year of law school, but I didn’t feel like that was a disadvantage. Here’s why:

All jobs (whether they are law-related or not) give you transferable skills.

• For example, when I was a tutor, I had client service skills whenever I did personalised tutoring for my students. These were easily transferable skills for a law firm.
• Working in retail is also another very similar example.

So, even though I didn’t have direct legal experience, I had developed many transferable skills that still made me valuable for any law firm.

BONUS: do at least one law competition (e.g. mooting)

In my first year, I did a mooting competition, a client interview competition, and a witness examination. I’ll be honest with you, my first year was the only time I ever participated in these competitions, BUT they were great experiences.

I find that these competitions are a good way to help you get out of your comfort zone, build tangible skills (that will be helpful for the workplace), and network. Looking back, it was also a safe place to practice because, after all, it is all pretend, so even if you say the wrong thing, the worst that can happen is you lose some points.

You don’t have to compete in every competition throughout your law school journey, but maybe consider participating in at least one competition.

To Wrap Up

Overall, these are the tips for if you are starting law school:

1. Do exam notes as you go (study-related)
2. Address what you don’t understand immediately (study-related)
3. Familiarise yourself with AGLC4 (study-related)
4. Attend law school events when you can (non-study related)
5. Get job experience (non-study related)
6. BONUS: Maybe do a competition? :))

Law school is an exciting journey, but it can also be overwhelming.

However, always remember that you ended up making it into law school for a reason, and you’ve got to give yourself credit.

I’ll admit, it may not be like Legally Blonde or How to Get Away With Murder, but law school can still be a great (and hectic) journey.

So hopefully, some of these tips can help make the transition into law school easier. There will be ups and downs from start to finish, but there are definitely different strategies you can use to make it less stressful (as best you can).

If you want more law school tips, you can check out the law school blog here and also my Instagram.

Good luck with law school! I believe in you so much <3

-Lauren 

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