First Day of Law School? / First Year? Forum

[lawschoolbound13]

I'm wondering what I can expect on my first day of law school? I'll more than likely be attending Indiana Maurer and have always wondered if law school is as horrifying as people make it sound on this site. My guess is that the answer falls somewhere in between. I know my first year will be extremely work intensive but how difficult is it to keep up/ get good grades? For example, how much reading should you do a night to stay on track?
Any feedback much appreciated

[InTheHouse]

Treat it like an 8-5 jobs and make some friends outside of law school and you'll be fine.

[monsterman]

As far as the first day goes, my profs would start cold calling immediately (I think they have fun with it at our expense). But then they acted quite differently the rest of the semester.

[Patent2014]

My typical day goes from 8am-9/10pm, but occasionally cut it short for an intramural or bar review. Classes will consume a few hours but then reading/briefing for each class usually takes ~3hrs, so that tacks on another 8hrs/day. I know many law schools give out less reading than mine on average, though. I usually have 25-30 pgs/class, which is 3-5 cases, and have on average 3 classes/day. Then you need to review your brief before class, so that takes a bit as well.

[BigZuck]

Law school is pretty chill, you'll have tons of free time punctuated by days (maybe weeks around finals) of busyness.

Most of the scariness/intensity of it is self-imposed or comes from listening to people like one of our friends here in this thread. Just don't believe the hype and you'll be fine.

[Johann]

law school is pretty easy. most of my time was spent on legal writing outside of class. theres really not much to do besides reading the cases which takes about an hour for every class. some people make their own outlines, but i just always used or tailored a previous one. for non legal writing courses, id factor in about 1 hour for every 2 in class. so thats like 10 hours of class a week and 5 hours of prep. legal writing can take up 10-15 on its own though. more on busy times. you can take every fri and sat off in law school no problem.

[twenty]

It's ridiculously easy and laid back IF you're making good choices in attending in the first place. If you're going to Indiana with the expectation of transferring/getting biglaw, you will be stressed and miserable - furthermore, you're playing against really bad odds. You have a 90%~ chance of failure if you consider biglaw your only opportunity for "success."

[jk148706]

My typical day goes from 8am-9/10pm, but occasionally cut it short for an intramural or bar review. Classes will consume a few hours but then reading/briefing for each class usually takes ~3hrs, so that tacks on another 8hrs/day. I know many law schools give out less reading than mine on average, though. I usually have 25-30 pgs/class, which is 3-5 cases, and have on average 3 classes/day. Then you need to review your brief before class, so that takes a bit as well.

no

you do not need to do anything close to this much work

[InTheHouse]

My typical day goes from 8am-9/10pm, but occasionally cut it short for an intramural or bar review. Classes will consume a few hours but then reading/briefing for each class usually takes ~3hrs, so that tacks on another 8hrs/day. I know many law schools give out less reading than mine on average, though. I usually have 25-30 pgs/class, which is 3-5 cases, and have on average 3 classes/day. Then you need to review your brief before class, so that takes a bit as well.

no

you do not need to do anything close to this much work

I dunno. Depends on your background. I'm guessing Patent2014 was a STEM student. First semester of law school can be a little rough for us since we never really had to write exams in UG. Took me a semester to learn how to study for LS.

[BearLaw]

My typical day goes from 8am-9/10pm, but occasionally cut it short for an intramural or bar review. Classes will consume a few hours but then reading/briefing for each class usually takes ~3hrs, so that tacks on another 8hrs/day. I know many law schools give out less reading than mine on average, though. I usually have 25-30 pgs/class, which is 3-5 cases, and have on average 3 classes/day. Then you need to review your brief before class, so that takes a bit as well.

no

you do not need to do anything close to this much work

I dunno. Depends on your background. I'm guessing Patent2014 was a STEM student. First semester of law school can be a little rough for us since we never really had to write exams in UG. Took me a semester to learn how to study for LS.

Regardless, 14 hour days as a 1L are not sustainable. And 25-30 pages of reading should not take 3 hours.

[cron1834]

My typical day goes from 8am-9/10pm, but occasionally cut it short for an intramural or bar review. Classes will consume a few hours but then reading/briefing for each class usually takes ~3hrs, so that tacks on another 8hrs/day. I know many law schools give out less reading than mine on average, though. I usually have 25-30 pgs/class, which is 3-5 cases, and have on average 3 classes/day. Then you need to review your brief before class, so that takes a bit as well.

no

you do not need to do anything close to this much work

Yeah, wtf? Where on earth do you go to school?

[star fox]

My typical day goes from 8am-9/10pm, but occasionally cut it short for an intramural or bar review. Classes will consume a few hours but then reading/briefing for each class usually takes ~3hrs, so that tacks on another 8hrs/day. I know many law schools give out less reading than mine on average, though. I usually have 25-30 pgs/class, which is 3-5 cases, and have on average 3 classes/day. Then you need to review your brief before class, so that takes a bit as well.

Are you reading every case 5 times?

[snow24]

I'm wondering what I can expect on my first day of law school? I'll more than likely be attending Indiana Maurer and have always wondered if law school is as horrifying as people make it sound on this site. My guess is that the answer falls somewhere in between. I know my first year will be extremely work intensive but how difficult is it to keep up/ get good grades? For example, how much reading should you do a night to stay on track?
Any feedback much appreciated

It'll be exciting like any new experience, but the novelty will wear off a few weeks in and it'll be just like any schoolwork.

[thebobs1987]

Law school is pretty chill, you'll have tons of free time punctuated by days (maybe weeks around finals) of busyness.

Most of the scariness/intensity of it is self-imposed or comes from listening to people like one of our friends here in this thread. Just don't believe the hype and you'll be fine.

This

It's ridiculously easy and laid back IF you're making good choices in attending in the first place. If you're going to Indiana with the expectation of transferring/getting biglaw, you will be stressed and miserable - furthermore, you're playing against really bad odds. You have a 90%~ chance of failure if you consider biglaw your only opportunity for "success."

and this