What the Study of Law is all about

Having successfully surmounted all the hurdles in being accepted at a law school in this highly competitive age, the student has the capacity to succeed at the school he attends. Many students, however, spend their first semester, or first year, struggling to determine exactly what the study of law is all about. Law school presents an inherently different type of challenge than college, and the differences between an undergraduate education and a legal education have become even more accentuated with the increasingly open-ended nature of academic requirements at many colleges. The transition from college to law school can therefore, often unexpectedly, be a difficult one.

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During this inevitable period of adaptation to the law school world, it is all too easy to get off on the wrong track and never realize it until first semester exams are approaching, or over. It is ironic that during the very period when the first-year student is attempting to discover the correct approach to the study of law, the academic record he achieves and the mastery over the courses he attains can have a critical impact, if not the most important impact, on his early legal career. The period when the student is most likely to be overwhelmed or mystified by the law school experience is also the period when success in law school is most important.

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If the student wishes to secure a law-related summer job after the first year, first-semester grades can be a central consideration. Students seeking a summer position after their second year of law school go through the interviewing process during the autumn of their second year, and again must depend on their first-year grades. Because law firms often like to see how a student works during a period of summer employment before deciding whether to hire him as an associate after graduation, a summer job with the law firm or type of law firm the student wishes later to join can be an important prelude to a legal career.

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First-year grades are customarily the exclusive means of determining who will serve on the law school's law review, which in turn can be a major factor in determining who will be offered the most attractive jobs upon graduation. Of equal importance, it is the traditional first-year courses-contracts, criminal law, evidence, property, and torts-which will be the building blocks of many other law school courses and which almost all states now emphasize on their bar examinations; thus, the necessity of a thorough mastery of first-year material is obvious. Finally, as grades are the only type of information a law student receives about academic performance, they can have a marked effect on the students attitude toward law school and his own legal abilities, and so, on future performance.

Recognizing the importance of the student's first-year success, there should be no mystery about how to apply oneself immediately to the particular demands of law school. Yet it is the rare student who enters law school with the knowledge of what a legal education requires and the rare professor who will take time to cast any light on the proper techniques of studying law. Indeed, law professors often seem to consider the tribulations of the first-year student a necessary initiation rite, although it is difficult to justify the potentially high costs of the initiation dues in relation to what the student gains from the experience.

It is essential that the student knows what to expect from law school before commencing the study of law. By dispelling the clouds which have traditionally surrounded the student's introduction to the study of law, the student's transition into the law school environment will he eased and, rather than fighting his way through a maze of uncertainty and stress, he can immediately bring his talents to bear on the work at hand. While consistent hard work is the only foolproof formula for achieving the best record of which a student is capable, by understanding the general techniques of studying law-information that most law students eventually pick up on their own, but often not soon enough to benefit their first-year experience-the student from the first day of law school will better benefit from the effort and energy he pours into his work.

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