Spencer Soule (B.A., political science, ’19) is a past Honors College Fellow from Little Rock. He graduated in the top ten of his class from the University of Arkansas School of Law this May and just passed the Bar Examination. As he considers next steps and ponders a future career in environmental law and later, academia, he hopes to share some tips to others hoping to jump into the legal profession.
- Change Your Study Habits
Photo by Shepherd Molinari
The first thing I tell anyone who is even thinking about going to law school is that you have to be prepared to change your study habits. Law school is no joke, and classes are nothing like they were in undergrad. Professors in law school usually implement the Socratic method. That means they can and will cold call on you to answer questions about the readings, whether you did the reading or not. What’s more, there are no “easy” classes in law school – every class will be challenging and will require you to prepare well in advance of the final. I generally started reviewing material about a week and a half before a final that I felt good about, and I gave myself at least three weeks if I was shaky on the subject matter (looking at you Property Law).
This does not mean law school is insurmountable or unenjoyable. I liked law school and had a lot of fun while I was there. But I wish that someone had warned me that cramming for finals was not a possibility or that sometimes I would have to reread twenty pages of legal jargon three times before I could wrap my brain around it. Law school can be a good time, but it is not the same as undergrad.
2. Outline Your Notes
Photo by Shepherd Molinari
One way that you may have to change your study habits is by outlining. You’ll hear a lot about this once you start law school, but I think having a basic understanding of what this means prior to starting would have helped me out a lot.
Outlining might look slightly different depending on your learning style and understanding of the course material, but I’ll share how it usually went for me. During classes I took notes by hand. At some point during the week – usually on Friday afternoon – I reviewed my class notes and transferred them into an outline on my computer. This outline was pretty rough around the edges, and often included everything I wrote during class. Then, about halfway through the semester, I condensed my outline by cutting out anything I thought was unnecessary or that I had an especially strong grasp on. I repeated this process and finished my final condensed outline the week before finals started.
Even if this is not the exact method you decide to use, you have to outline in law school. Outlining helps you memorize the material for closed note finals so that you can get strong grades and will ultimately help you study for the bar exam.
3. Take Care of Yourself
Taking a break with my dog, Gus.
You have likely seen movies or television shows that depict law school as a winner-takes-all, hyper-competitive atmosphere where students will do anything to get ahead, even if it means stepping on the shoulders of their peers. While this was not my experience at all, law school students do tend to wear themselves out and push themselves to their limits because of preconceived notions about what law school is supposed to be. Grades are important, but not more important than your well-being.
Pay attention to your needs while in law school. It is so important to get enough sleep, drink something other than coffee everyday, and take time for yourself. I made sure to take at least one full day off a week while I was in law school, so that I could reset myself and have the energy required to be successful. Mental health is vital to your overall well-being, and it cannot be overstated how important it is that you prioritize yourself while in law school.
4. It Will Click
This tip came from one of my professors very early in law school, and it has stuck with me:
When you start your law school journey, you will feel like you have no idea what is going on. There will be days where you think you cannot possibly learn all of the material. Each week will feel like you were exposed to exponentially more information than you were the week before, and it will scare you. You may find yourself playing catchup on readings over the weekends, and you may feel like you are doing everything you can not to fall behind.
And despite all of that, there will be a day or week or month in your first semester where everything begins to click. It may be early for some people, and for others it may be in the final weeks of the semester. For me it happened around the end of October or beginning of November. All the work that I had put in up to that point finally started to pay off. I realized that I was following along with the lectures better than I had been. Reading cases became quicker and easier. Outlining took up considerably less of my time. I felt more comfortable answering cold calls and discussing the material with my peers.
Things will click for you in law school, so long as you put forth your best effort and take it seriously. Law school is hard but it is not impossible.
5. Trust Yourself
Finally, and most importantly, trust yourself. Anyone who makes it to law school is talented and intelligent enough to survive law school. Think about it: at that point you will have graduated from undergrad, taken the LSAT, and applied for and gotten into law school. Those are not easy tasks!
Law school has a reputation for making people feel like imposters. Please do not let yourself believe that you do not belong. You got to this point because you worked hard and put in the effort necessary to achieve your goals. Law school is just one more step on the path to becoming the professional that you want to be. You have what it takes to get through law school, and to be successful along the way. Enjoy the ride, because it will be over before you know it.
You can do this!