Top Law Schools

kwais wrote:

spleenworship wrote:

nonprofit-prophet wrote:

agree 100%. working for the sake of work is dumb. plans are dumb. However, I definitely don't think people should avoid putting in the long hours if they think their workload demands it.

Fair nuff. When legal writing assignments happened, I would put in a 70 hour week. And finals was 4 70 hour weeks in a row.

the finals thing I kinda get, but 70 hour week for legal writing? That was a few afternoons in the library for me, did fine. Maybe tougher at your school

It was graded, and the prof was a hard ass.

BruceWayne wrote:

kwais wrote:

BruceWayne wrote: Obviously he would be at the top in terms of study time, but he would defintely not be anywhere near by himself at my school. Honestly, most people study to the same exten that an associate would be working at a big firm (i.e 12 hours a day).

no

LMAO right. All those books like OneHell Lawschoolconfidential and movies like the Paper Chase etc. just pulled that out of thin air. I swear, like I said before this has been one of the most annoying things about law school. People are just crazy fake.

Another thing that is really interesting about this topic is that people like to drop common sense and just go off of the bullshit that is spouted on this website about it.

Step back and think about it for a minute. The average median ugrad GPA at a top 14 is north of a 3.8. A plurality of the kids attending went to an ivy or an non ivy top undergrad. Many went to the nation's top prep schools for high school. The job market is absolute trash for legal grads and everyone knows it. But naaaw just like TLS says people aren't studying this hard bro--chill out--LMAO!!!!

First semester I put in 10 hours a day 5 days a week (and a few on sundays), and most of my classmates did 12 hours 7 days a week.

By second semester most of us had figured out it was a suckers bet to study. While I'll admit that top 10% is largely unknown to me and requires effort... Top third required less than 40 hours a week for myself and most of the top third. In fact I seriously doubt if more than 20% of my class does more than 50 hours a week... And most of those are burnt out an don't want to be attorneys- are considering pharmacy school- etc.

I just have a hard time believing that the majority at any school puts in an 84 hour work week into school. I'm sure some do, but that seems overly disciplined even with the pressures of ITE. As an 0L I guess I'll know more when school starts though.

2014 wrote:I just have a hard time believing that the majority at any school puts in an 84 hour work week into school. I'm sure some do, but that seems overly disciplined even with the pressures of ITE. As an 0L I guess I'll know more when school starts though.

There will be a lot of people who do seem to do this. Most won't actually though, and the ones that do are generally below median, in my experience. A lot of people will tell you they studied when they actually played video games or watched a movie or just sat and drank. Others will be in the library looking studious while checking facebook and reading the news. The ones actually studying until midnight every night are generally doing so because they don't know how or what to study. They'll be memorizing the facts of a case instead of the BLL, or reading up on a tort not covered in class, or studying the utilitarian theory of criminal punishment in profound depth, despite the fact that it will only be mentioned once on an exam in a general way. They will make themselves crazy because they can't understand where their grades come from or why... and so they study HARDER. Poor things.