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I'm a current applicant for next Fall 2015 and am looking or hoping to get engaged soon. However, I've only heard through this board and others of how difficult 1L is. So my question is this for those law students and others who want to chime in: better to get married slightly before law school starts or maybe during winter break of 1L? Any rationale or feedback would be appreciated.

Edit: Thank you to those who have responded. If I were to expand the possibilities to get married sometime before law school (less than 6 months), winter break of 1L, or just after 1L would any responses change?

Don't get married

Ever

Not married, but whatever's going to distract you less. 1L's important.

Winter break is likely a bad idea, unless it's at the very tail end of the break. You're going to have a fuck ton of random stuff to do the month leading up to the hitchin' and you might end up sacrificing wedding stuff or your grades (or both). I'd vote for before 1L; that'd be a fast turnaround from not being engaged right now though.

don't do it. but if you're gonna do it, I'd suggest doing it before law school starts. I've seen plenty who were successful who got married right before law school. (I think the percentage would be probably around 70% not getting divorced/cheating)

I would say get either married early summer before law school or hold off until after the bar. If you can't wait, then after 1L year is doable. If you wait until after the bar, ideally, you know you have a job and can feel better spending a little extra cash on the wedding versus when trying to save for law school or trying to avoid taking on more debt during law school. Either way, make sure that your prospective spouse knows what he or she is getting into. Law School is very, very hard on couples and communication is key (especially when the student literally cannot pay attention to the very deserving significant other all while the significant other is doing laundry, cooking meals, making the bed, etc.).

I'm always amazed when people talk about law school's effect on marriage like law school is entering a gulag. It is not that big a deal.

OP, if you're someone who's going get really into wedding planning, doing it all before LS is probably better - otherwise probably spring of 2L (that would spread out the planning far enough that it shouldn't interfere with 1) 1L exams and 2) 2L job searching. Or maybe during 3L. But if you're not that into wedding planning and mostly have to agree with stuff/show up the day of, winter break 1L would probably be doable.

1L year might not be the best idea because you're probably going to be stressed about grades and stuff, and adding that to marriage stress might be a lot to handle, but beyond that, do it whenever you want. I think 3L year is probably the smartest time if you plan on doing it during law school, since you'll have more time to devote to planning and may have a nice chunk of change from the summer to either add to the wedding budget/honeymoon, but that's just practical stuff.

Pre-law school or anytime after 2L summer. (Maybe 2L Spring break too.)

Weddings tend to become larger time-sucks or sources of drama than you think. 1L is the most critical year, and you can't predict how it will go, so it's best not unnecessarily add to your stress.

As for law school being tough on relationships . . . Pfff. If you find it hard, you are in the wrong relationship (or aren't ready for one). In the ranking of stressful life events my relationship has had to endure, law school wouldn't even come up as a contender. Sure, there were a couple of weeks where I was a basket case, but I knew that it didn't entitle me to be a selfish jerk and my spouse cut me the appropriate amount of slack.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I'm always amazed when people talk about law school's effect on marriage like law school is entering a gulag. It is not that big a deal.

OP, if you're someone who's going get really into wedding planning, doing it all before LS is probably better - otherwise probably spring of 2L (that would spread out the planning far enough that it shouldn't interfere with 1) 1L exams and 2) 2L job searching. Or maybe during 3L. But if you're not that into wedding planning and mostly have to agree with stuff/show up the day of, winter break 1L would probably be doable.

^ Solid advice. I had a friend though who got married around early-mid October of 1L year. He ended up being top 5%ish of the class, so things seemed to work out for him. Granted, his wife was definitely doing the lion's share of the planning. If you are the type who needs to micromanage and make sure every detail is "just so," then I'd either hurry up and get it taken care of, or put it off (even a good chunk of planning) until after 1L.

TooOld4This wrote:As for law school being tough on relationships . . . Pfff. If you find it hard, you are in the wrong relationship (or aren't ready for one). In the ranking of stressful life events my relationship has had to endure, law school wouldn't even come up as a contender. Sure, there were a couple of weeks where I was a basket case, but I knew that it didn't entitle me to be a selfish jerk and my spouse cut me the appropriate amount of slack.

Yep. If your relationship fails during law school it is almost certainly not because of law school.

Got married during my 1L spring break. Ended up with better grades spring semester than fall semester.

It's not as bad as people make it out to be.

I got married over Columbus Day weekend 1L year. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. My wife definitely handled more of the wedding planning load and it was basically one weekend out of town. We then did our honeymoon over spring break. Overall I'd say it was a welcome distraction from law school.

Got married a few years before law school.

Planning a wedding is a complete pain in the ass. Would recommend summer before rather than during for that reason alone.

lhanvt13 wrote:don't do it. but if you're gonna do it, I'd suggest doing it before law school starts. I've seen plenty who were successful who got married right before law school. (I think the percentage would be probably around 70% not getting divorced/cheating)

You must hang out exclusively with shitty people because 30% divorce/cheating rate is way higher than the married folks I knew in law school.

Biglaw_Associate_V20 wrote:

lhanvt13 wrote:don't do it. but if you're gonna do it, I'd suggest doing it before law school starts. I've seen plenty who were successful who got married right before law school. (I think the percentage would be probably around 70% not getting divorced/cheating)

You must hang out exclusively with shitty people because 30% divorce/cheating rate is way higher than the married folks I knew in law school.

Myeh, my school + near by schools + friend schools. Friend's school was particularly bad.

As people have said, it's the planning that's the problem, not really the wedding itself. IMO (and I speak from some experience, having gotten married at one of the times I discuss as inconvenient as far as my spouse is concerned and it did affect their performance), If you're going to be heavily involved in the planning and it's going to be a large affair, then:

When To Do It:

• Sometime before starting law school
• Sometime after October of 2L year but by the end of 3L
• Sometime at least 5 months after the bar exam

You probably also want to avoid having the actual ceremony during summer after 2L (except maybe the last couple weeks when SAs have wound down anyway), but you can certainly be planning it during that time.

TooOld4This wrote:Pre-law school or anytime after 2L summer. (Maybe 2L Spring break too.)

Weddings tend to become larger time-sucks or sources of drama than you think. 1L is the most critical year, and you can't predict how it will go, so it's best not unnecessarily add to your stress.

As for law school being tough on relationships . . . Pfff. If you find it hard, you are in the wrong relationship (or aren't ready for one). In the ranking of stressful life events my relationship has had to endure, law school wouldn't even come up as a contender. Sure, there were a couple of weeks where I was a basket case, but I knew that it didn't entitle me to be a selfish jerk and my spouse cut me the appropriate amount of slack.

Agree, especially with the bolded. Of course, everyone is different but I would have found it difficult to handle wedding planning along with 1L studying.

McAvoy wrote:

TooOld4This wrote:As for law school being tough on relationships . . . Pfff. If you find it hard, you are in the wrong relationship (or aren't ready for one). In the ranking of stressful life events my relationship has had to endure, law school wouldn't even come up as a contender. Sure, there were a couple of weeks where I was a basket case, but I knew that it didn't entitle me to be a selfish jerk and my spouse cut me the appropriate amount of slack.

Yep. If your relationship fails during law school it is almost certainly not because of law school.

Along those lines (and admittedly slightly off-topic), I was asked to participate in an orientation panel for significant others (both the students and their SOs were invited) this year and these were the two main things that I wanted to make sure were mentioned. Since I actually typed them up (to run them by my SO), I might as well share them here:

1) Prepare your SO for when you’ll be less available / unavailable:

Law school, especially 1L year, follows a very predictable pattern that can usually be laid out even before the semester starts. Share this pattern with your SO at the beginning of the semester.

Specifically, if you treat school as a job (which I highly recommend, and by which I mean get to campus no later than 9 M-F (even on days when your first class is 11), leave no earlier than 6 or 7 (or 4 on Fridays, even though you only have class until noon), you will be working on school full-time 5 days a week and a max of about 5 hours on weekends for most of the semester. And in doing so, you will have a fairly normal schedule and will get your work done during the day, leaving the evenings open for family time. There are, of course, the following exceptions (for fall semester):

Exception 1: The 10 days before your memo is due (tell them the date).
Exception 2: Every day (Sat/Sun included) from the Sunday after Thanksgiving through the last day of finals (again, be sure to share actual dates).

Spring follows a fairly similar schedule.



2) If you have kid(s): Schedule your finals help in advance.

The easiest way to go about this is to arrange either (a) a grandmother/aunt visit (explicitly for the purpose of helping with the children) during the roughest part of finals, or (b) a trip by the SO and kids to see the grandparents or other family. The advantage to the visit to you is that this often also means meals when the student gets home from the library; the disadvantage is it requires you to have a guest room or for the grandmother to pay for a hotel.

We have done both of these and it was incredibly helpful to both the student and the SO. The student doesn’t have to feel guilty about staying that extra time at the library when it’s really necessary to cover the material, and the SO is not beaten to death because they’ve been a single parent for 2-3 weeks. The visit *to* the grandparents’ house was longer than the visit by the grandmother, but we supplemented the grandmother staying with us with a couple days or evenings of temporary nanny help (by hiring a couple of our friends’ babysitters and nannies for a few hours).

If family is out of the question and the money isn’t there to hire nannies, the SO can arrange dates with friends to come over two or three nights during that time span (be sure they know why they’re coming over so that they're actually willing to help). By doing that with a handful of friends, you’ve covered a lot of hours.

Just put a sign around your neck that says "Likelihood of me being able to afford [useless but wildly expensive bauble that is highly valued by your significant other] = 100%." Every time your significant other bothers you during study times, sigh, erase the current percentage, knock 5% off, and then say "yes dear?"

kalvano wrote:Just put a sign around your neck that says "Likelihood of me being able to afford [useless but wildly expensive bauble that is highly valued by your significant other] = 100%." Every time your significant other bothers you during study times, sigh, erase the current percentage, knock 5% off, and then say "yes dear?"

Stealing this idea.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I'm always amazed when people talk about law school's effect on marriage like law school is entering a gulag. It is not that big a deal.

Agreed, especially if your spouse has also been to professional school/worked a demanding job and gets it.

I'd recommend not getting married during school, though: wedding planning is insane.

Got married before law school - so we could actually take a somewhat relaxing honeymoon. 1L is important, you should absolutely help your significant other with planning the wedding, and you should make sure you have the time to deal with starting the marriage off right as well as doing well in law school - don't mix unless you have to.

Thank you to everyone who's replied. Greatly appreciated.