Five Things I Learned in Law School

I graduated from law school this past May.  It was an educational experience, in all the ways it should be, but it also helped me to learn (and re-learn) a few non-legal matters.  Here are five important lessons I learned from law school.

1. Good study habits.  Coming from a small high school, I was at the top of my class and pretty much never studied. I did my homework, to the extent I was graded on it, but I never cracked a textbook just to read for class.  Once I got to college my study habits did not improve any further than cramming the day before exams, and as an English Literature major I developed the nasty habit of procrastinating on most of my papers until literally the night before the assignment was due.  I somehow managed to get all A’s and B’s through high school and undergrad, but when I got to law school I was grossly under-prepared.  My first semester of law school was pretty unimpressive. In fact I managed to get my first “C” ever. And also my first “D”. Ouch.  I thought I’d improve greatly in the second semester, but I basically had a repeat performance. I was so disappointed, I was used to thinking of myself as “naturally smart” and not ever needing to study; I was used to academics being easy.  After a rough first year I gradually turned things around and by my last semester in law school I finished with all Bs–not perfect, but hey this is law school we’re talking about.
2. Argumentation.  This little lesson is a bit of a blessing and a curse.  For example, when my wife and I have a disagreement I often end up talking until my mouth is dry while she quietly waits for me to finish with my exhaustive take on what I think; then she lowers her two-sentence-bomb and blows away all my filibuster.  So being good (or at least fond) of debate doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll win on the home front. On the other hand, my legal education has helped me to see important counter-points when reading/hearing an argument.  The recent presidential hoopla has occasionally been fun to watch just for the sake of riding the fence and taking potshots at the posturing and arguments each candidate makes against his opponent.  Potshots aside, I honestly really enjoy working through the pros and cons of a particular argument and trying to see an issue from both sides, and I think I’m much better at doing so thanks to law school.
3. Patience.  Perhaps nowhere other than law school can you pay ten thousand dollars a year to be poked at and ridiculed in class (the Socratic method of humiliation), take a four hour exam covering every possible detail of the past three months which alone will determine your grade for the course, and then be made to wait two months to find out if you passed. Maybe that doesn’t sound like the response of a man who has learned patience, but trust me, that’s going easy on the experience.  And by easy I mean taking full advantage of the oddities for your reading enjoyment. Sarcasm aside, the way grades are posted in law school really did help me to be patient.  There’s only so much anxiety a person can take, so after the two weeks of finals were over each semester (and for the past few weeks since the Florida Bar Exam) I mentally shelved my law school thoughts for a few weeks; I played video games, I went running just for fun, I caught up on missed movies, I read paperbacks (no John Grisham, thank you), and I trusted that pass or fail I’d still be alive when grades were posted.  I think this is what it means to trust in God that we’ll be taken care of, even when life is hard or bad, because our hope is in something bigger than life itself.
4. Humility. Before law school I thought of myself as pretty bright, like generally one of the smartest people in a room. This might sound a little arrogant, but believe me, I was much worse when I was in high school.  Anyway, coming to law school was a MAJOR reality check, as I went from being in the top five percent to being average at best.  Being “average” is not a bad thing–it’s pretty normal.   But for me this little paradigm shift opened my eyes to how I thought of myself in relation to others. I think most folks value intelligence, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be smart, it’s just that I had an inflated sense of how smart I was.  Now my view is that pretty much everyone I meet is intelligent, even though we communicate that intelligence differently. And at any rate, a person’s intelligence does not determine his worth as a person… And that leads me to the next big lesson from law school.
5. Self-worth apart from externals.  For me, the first year of law school was a weird mix of trying to leave behind the carefree lifestyle of my undergrad years and moving forward with the serious work of a legal education (with an uncertain career looming on the horizon).  I had high hopes for my first semester grades, and even for second semester; but I was so very disappointed when grades were eventually posted.  I had never gotten anything lower than a “B” in my life, so imagine the surprise of my first “C” and then the horror (the horror) of getting the dreaded “D”. Twice.  Needless to say, I was shaken by a lot of stuff that happened during this first year, and I struggled to admit that I needed to know who I was apart from my success or failures.  I’ve been a Christian for most of my life, and one of the things I grew up hearing is “God loves you no matter what.”  I know this is true, but it is sometimes hard to fully appreciate, especially with our culture that so highly values individual merit.  So while the first year in law school is hard on its own, it’s even harder when your grades tell you that you maybe aren’t that smart, and that maybe learning just isn’t your forte, or that there’s something wrong with you.  These are thoughts I grappled with during my first year of law school.  I think I managed to discard the distracting self-doubt questions (no more “D”s after that first year was a huge help too), but there was some value in the experience.  Law school helped push me into a hard, uncomfortable place, one that I had to grow out of, and one that I am, retrospectively, grateful for.

Well there you have it, a list with words, including the words “five things I learned in law school”.  I’ve been wanting to do this list for a while, so I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.