What does law school feel like?

Many say the first year of law school is the worst. I think I understand why.

Brooklyn, NY

Jonathan Quénard

October 2020

People also say that you "either like law school or you don't." Well, I think describing law school this way overlooks all of its complexities. I don't think we have to approach law school, or life, by that matter, in such a dualist way because we'll lose out on all the overlapping details of both law school and life. I think this statement, however, exemplifies what law school feels like: it feels like constant tension.

We're so accustomed to either/or thinking in our society and I think the main thing that makes law school feel hard is that in law school, this thinking gets intensified. Yet this way of thinking is polarizing, limiting, and less harmonious than a both/and thinking. Either I rest or I excel. Either I eat well or I'll fall behind schedule. Either I hang out with old friends or make new friends. The first year of law school is particularly hard because 1Ls get thrown a lot of new and complex content all at once, and the snowball never stops getting bigger and bigger. Digesting all that content and retaining it in a way that somehow becomes our natural way of thinking demands extreme rigor. So, we are forced to believe that must compromise certain things or else we won't excel, even worst, we'll fail and our impostor syndrome will be confirmed! (Everyone suffers from impostor syndrome, by the way. It's a self-worth thing, not an IQ thing – and we all struggle with self-worth to various degrees). I think the hardest part about law school, specifically for first-year students like me, is learning how to navigate the constant tension generated by this either/or thinking.

I don't think law students are the only ones experiencing this ever-growing tension, though. Law school may intensify these polarities, but we all navigate either/or thinking daily because our lives are so fast, politics are so bad, and money always feels tight. We are trained to believe that our only option is to compromise one thing for the other: a donation to an organization or your next pair of shoes; being in a relationship, or being miserable this winter. Laws are constructed in either/or forms, so it makes sense this thinking has become so ingrained in our daily life. After all, we are a reflection of the laws we allow authorities to create on our behalf. Six weeks into my first semester as a 1L (i.e. as a first-year student) and I can confirm law school feels tense, unbearable, intimidating, frustrating. Notice: these are the same sentiments evoked by either/or thinking in other regards! Either you wake up late and your day is ruined or you wake up early and take advantage of the day. Either you forget your friend's birthday and are a terrible friend or you remember and are a good friend. Either you keep all your plants alive or you're terrible at caring for plants... the list goes on.

I find that I both like and hate law school. I was scared that law school would zap me of all my creativity. Law school is so formulaic and old. But here I am writing my blog after writing a very dull legal memo. I'm finding that law school is forcing me to somehow incorporate a both/and thinking. We can say that it's both brainwashing me with formulaic, dull legal thinking and, in a way, also increasing my creativity. Perhaps because law school intensifies the either/or tension, it is the best playing ground to train a both/and thinking. For me, this requires that I constantly recommit to feeling uncomfortable and de-conditioning myself from thinking that if I don't get it the first time, I'll fail as a lawyer. If I take breaks to make healthy food, I will fall behind schedule. Hour by hour, I am training myself to ease into the strenuous weeks of mid-semester exams by both staying on top of my readings and getting rest, even if it is through 15 min cat naps. Similarly, like an optical illusion, sometimes my mind can't grasp that I will have a successful day if I don't wake up at 6am. When I wake up at 8am (which is late in my terms) I feel like I've failed. So it's taken a lot of creativity on my end to say, "OK, I woke up at 8am today and I may very well have one of the most successful days this week." I am also constantly asking myself what becomes possible if law school were both rigorous and freeing?

So, I wonder, what are the either/or's that you can challenge in your personal playground? What if it were possible to both forget a friend's birthday and still be a good friend? Perhaps we would validate ourselves for all the times we have been there for our pals, as opposed to beating ourselves up for the one time we forgot to make them feel special. And if it were possible that we both killed a houseplant and are still very much capable of developing our green thumb? Perhaps we'd realize that nature gives us a second chance so long as we are willing to take it because even though we killed a plant, we are still capable of caring for living things...

Stay curious. Stay forgiving. Stay open to possibility. xx Sulafa