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Can anyone provide some insight if they had a job outside of school their 1L year? I think it would be manageable to work 15 hours a week- just curious if anyone has done it and cares to share their experience.

I started working 10-15 hours a week at a small law firm mid-spring semester of 1L year and kind of regret doing so. Don't know if there's a direct correlation, but that was my worst GPA of law school (currently a 3L). Most people work during 2L and 3L year, but it's harder 1L year when you're working and all of your classmates are using that extra time to study. I think it's possible if you have really good time management, but I often came home from work and was too tired to study.

If you really want to work, I'd suggest waiting until spring semester until you know how your grades are from your fall classes. If you are absolutely desperate for some extra cash now, see if you can get a work study position in the library or somewhere that allows you to study while you work.

As a 1L, you should also be using your free time to get to know your classmates and have some fun outside of law school!

harut44 wrote:Can anyone provide some insight if they had a job outside of school their 1L year? I think it would be manageable to work 15 hours a week- just curious if anyone has done it and cares to share their experience.

I worked 20 hours a week at my old job (non-law) in order to get severance pay at the end of first semester-- it was busy, but my grades were fine (top 10% that semester). Just had less free time, and had to stay on top of everything. It's definitely do-able.

I think the general TLS advice is to focus on your grades.

Working now, but it's a university sponsored fellowship. Which makes it slightly different - for example, I am not required to work at all during the 3 weeks leading up to finals. Don't really have much to report yet as I'm only one week in. I'll let you know how it goes.

7 hours a week. Was doable, but cut into social and sleeping time some.

Worked 15 to 25 hours a week during my 1L year. This absolutely helped me obtain a job post graduation. ITE I think anyone helps their post-grad employment prospects by working during 1L.

I picked up an in-house gig halfway through 2d semester of 1L (15hrs/wk) and my grades were better that semester because of better time management. That being said, I wouldn't advocate working 1st semester because there's potentially a learning curve when starting ls

I worked 10-15 hours per week throughout 1L with no problem but I am single and have no life. I also have a biglawl job with no debt, so now I have a very nice life!

For those who didn't say, can you please share what types of jobs you had, and how you found them? I know how to look for jobs, obviously, but I'm wondering how you found part time gigs worth having that fit with your schedules.

kinda depends on what other outside-of-school activities youre doing. Also depends on your schedule. TCR is don't work at all but based on my schedule I could probably work an 8 hour shift on Friday (no class) and maybe 3-5 hours on Saturday if I wanted to. There is no way in hell I would do this but I could see someone doing it and still performing well. In general though I don't think it's recommended.

People I know that worked 1L fell into two categories:

1) On campus or similar gigs (legal aid groups, pro se aid workshops, ministerial work for a county atty office) with very low time commitment (they clock in, clock out, do not think about work at home)

2) Previous full-time jobs that gave them tuition $ to stay with the company and work PT (not to be super pessimisstic, but one person was able to go right back to their FT position after bombing first semester... they paid maybe 4-5k out of pocket after scholarship and tuition help from their company).