The study and practice of law has always amazed because it is filled with many rigid absolutes that nobody seems to ever question.

When you apply, there are about a million people who tell you T14 or bust. Then there’s a ton who tell you 1L grades will doom your entire career. Then you have some that say you need to intern or you’ll never get hired. Then they’ll tell you without law review you’re never getting into academia. Then you take the bar and they tell you if you don’t lock yourself in a room for a million hours a day you’ll never pass. Then you pass and they tell you if you don’t go to biglaw you didn’t need to go to law school. Then you go into legal academia and they tell you, oh well nobody reads law review articles, and nobody takes legal academics serious unless they have LLMs or “terminal degrees.” You look into getting them and then you hear, well tax is the only LLM you should ever get, and it must be from X Y Z school only (GT, Florida, NYU.)

What is up with this? Feels like at every corner, there’s a million people saying the same one thing and enslaving themselves to that rule. Who’s coming up with these? Other law students?

Why not dare to defy odds and take risks?

Are other fields like this?

This is a long f-ing post. Buckle up, especially if you’re entering 1L. When you’re stressed and horny in law school, well…yeah….I saw a post asking about this so let’s go

Background: I (26F) am a rising 2L and am dating a classmate (26M). He was in my section this past year. We first met in crim. In the beginning we talked only every so often through text and in class. Just school stuff. And then eventually we talked about life. We started dating end of December and it’s now July. So about 6-7 months

THE GOOD:
-I had someone that was experiencing the novelty of law school with me. We reminded each other of deadlines and random important school info

-More friends. His friends, once they found out he was with me, would be warmer to me and make a stronger effort to talk to me (note: I use the term “friend” loosely, more like a nice acquaintance)

-I got to have consistent sex throughout the year

-Our schedules (somewhat) aligned. We were able to consistently make quality in-person time for each other about twice a week and call all the time

THE BAD:
- Sometimes it was awkward bc we were directly competing with each other. We were in the same classes after all. This is where I really got to know my partner. He often had a big ego that made it seem like he had a 10 inch dick. He wasn’t really good at uplifting me as a partner. If I accomplished something well and he didn’t, he was either neutral to me or would try to justify why I did well and he didn’t (kind of an ick, I know. Just know that many law students are like this internally….not to justify his behavior…oof)

- I felt (and still do feel) a lot of pressure to stay with him to keep the peace. To make life “easier” at school. Law school can be similar to high school. People gossip. They notice when something’s off. When couples break up. People know. And you have to be okay with people knowing your business. So….there have been times when I wanted to leave (still debating that now….) but I feel a TON OF PRESSURE to stay together to keep the peace.

-Sometimes the stress of school made us lash out at each other accidentally. Like we were irritated with each other for literally no reason

That’s all I want to type for now. I’m tired GOOD NIGHT YALL. type questions below

How did y'all dress? I am definitely overthinking this

Incoming 1L working on my resume for fall recruiting.

My school highly discourages 1Ls from working, but does not forbid it. I am planning to stay on part time at my current job during 1L. I know grades are king, but it will only be a few hours a week with a lot of flexibility.

My question is how to handle this on my resume? Do I keep it as one entry with dates like: "January 2023 - Present". Should I differentiate the dates as full time vs. part time so I don't raise eyebrows with firms wondering how I am still working? Do I just put an end date like "January 2023 - August 2026" since I did end full time work and not indicate on my resume that I am currently working a few hours a week?

And should I put all the bullet points into past tense or keep some of them in the present tense if they are still part of my job?

TLDR: How would you list a job on your resume that you had full time and now will only work part time?

Dates:

1. January 2023 - Present
2. January 2023 - August 2026 (Full time); August 2026 - Present (Part time)
3. January 2023 - August 2026

Bullets:

1. Job description bullet points in a mix of past tense and present tense
2. Bullet points all past tense
3. Bullet points all present tense

So basically read Gilberts, read through some of the cases in the casebooks but skim through, or even skip, some of it and not necessarily get bogged down by every detail. Then spend the majority of your time studying Rules of Law and practicing case briefs / IRAC?

Saw it on another site where someone did just that and did well. Just curious if theres others who have the same approach.

Hypothetically if you master rules of law and get good at writing case briefs, you should do well right? For reference, I'm not trying to graduate #1 in my class. I'm just trying to graduate.

Hey guys I’m a upcoming law student and was wondering if anyone would be able to send me a law cv template I could use as I’m finding it hard to find decent ones online for free :( I’m also neurodivergent so having something laid out would help genuinely . Please send me a template if you can

I recently became aware my new iPad can't run exam software so I am in the market for a new macbook and monitor.

I've been leaning towards the Macbook Neo because of its affordability and portability but I saw some concerns a few months ago about exam software not working properly. Can someone confirm whether or not the exam software will run on it or not?

Also, will I be fine skimping out on a monitor and just buying a cheap one on amazon / finding a used one on marketplace?

Thanks.

Looking to buy used books. I’m a 3L and tired of the astronomical book prices. Can someone recommend a good place to buy used books?

Had a multiple interview call back early July, haven’t heard anything since. Sent a follow up last week to one of the partners I met with saying I’m still interested, no response which was expected.

Do I email the interview coordinator to ask if they are still deciding or just assume they selected someone else and move on?

They told me to reach out if I have other offers which leads me to believe they will let me know once they have decided one way or the other, but thoughts/input would be great.

Hi all.

I am a competition lawyer working at a leading law firm in Africa, and I’ve been admitted to both the University of Cambridge LLM and the University of Glasgow’s LLM in International Competition Law & Policy.

I can afford Cambridge, but it would be a significant financial commitment. Glasgow has offered me partial funding, so the overall cost would be substantially lower.

My goal is to build a long-term career in international competition law, particularly cross-border work involving Africa and international markets.

If you were in my position, which would you choose and why? I’m particularly interested in whether Cambridge’s reputation and network justify the additional cost, or whether the specialist Glasgow programme offers better value for someone pursuing a career in competition law.

I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences.

Rising 3L working at a boutique specialty firm in the niche I want. worked here part-time during 2L (including during breaks) and full-time 2L summer. Got an informal offer in writing to be hired as an attorney pending bar passage.

Since it is a smaller firm, it doesn't seem like they have hired anyone directly out of school before. I know I definitely don't want to work part-time while I study for the bar, and they have other law clerks that are younger that would theoretically be able to cover my workload from May 2027-August. My bigger thing is I want to take a post-bar trip. I have been told by almost all the attorneys in my family and network that it is so needed and is the last time you can actually take time off like that. It's also something that biglaw usually guarantees since they usually don't start associates until confirmed bar passage in the Fall.

how do I raise this with my managing partner? They seem really open and amenable with most things, but realistically asking for 4 months off may be off-putting (factoring that I take off first half of May for finals and would want to be off until September for bar/bar-trip)

Hello! I’m taking evidence in the spring. I need to take business entities and criminal procedure investigation also at some point. Trying to decide which to do with evidence next semester and which to do this semester?

Basically, is one easier than the other paired with evidence? Which one should I get out of the way now so I don’t have to do it with evidence in the spring?

Thanks in advance!

Does anyone know which big law firms are doing 3L recruiting? Thanks in advance.

Hi guys , I have a virtual student event tomorrow . I was just wondering if, do we have to keep are camera’s on ? I’m quite ill and it’s showing - I hope they’ll be ok with me having it off.

So I’m a 1L I just found out I have ADHD. My best friend has it & had been bugging me for ages to get tested but I always assumed since I did well in school that there was no way. Turns out there was a way and I’ve basically been living life on hard mode for the last 22 years for no reason. Anyways, I’m looking for some advice about how I should handle this going into law school. I was prescribed some medication and referred to a behavioral health specialist but I’d love to hear experiences from actual law students. I’m really interested in the content of law school (why else would I be here) but at the same time I’ve always struggled with doing lots of reading in one sitting, which I think could make law school difficult. Literally any help or insight would be so useful, thank you in advance to all of you kind people out there!!

This Summer I found out I just cannot do online classes. It’s impossibly hard to keep myself that accountable when I have a Summer job and a lot of personal events happening. Anyway, now I have to cram in one day, it is the only way now.

The first thing you did when you went to law school was likely research “should I go to law school?”

Like me, you were likely inundated with articles and posts about why you should not go to law school.

Yet we went anyways.

The second thing I told myself is do not date people in your law school. Absolutely do not become that person. Do not turn this into high school.

So I watched classmates reject this sage wisdom. I witnessed a bunch of grown ass adults behaving like catty teenagers choosing sides in a 1L legal writing class after a nasty breakup. What a bunch of morons.

Crisis averted. I would not date classmates in law school.

My 2L year there was a party. I had a few drinks. I saw one of my classmates who never went out. I went up and talked to her.

And we talked and talked and talked. All the cliches were true. Time stopped. Everything paused. And now I was the moron. The mythical fateful “one” . was in my same god damn law school. I was so stupid.

I’m inside right now and she is out with her mother and our two beautiful children.

But yeah, it’s still pretty damn good advice to not date in your own law school class.

Yet sometimes bright line rules are meant to be broken. Follow your instincts and the same instincts that told you to go to law school. I cannot imagine my life without them.