Lawyers and students who aspire to be lawyers and since they have joined law school will eventually become lawyers represent a gamut of emotions: They are withdrawn, demonstrative, discreet, garrulous, sensitive, indifferent. The grueling and tough can mean many things for different students. It can be full of discomfiture, awkwardness, tiredness and fatigue, loneliness, struggle, contrast, hesitation and misgiving - and the practice of law contains rudiments of those same characteristics.
The pressures of Law School, especially during the first year, break and torment the toughest of students. Late nights and overwhelming work pressures are difficult for many to take. It is at such times that students don't know which way to go. Caught between their ambitions and plagued by self-doubt that joining law school was a wrong decision they buckle under the extreme pressure and that is where things start to go wrong.
You will find the study of law is an endless well and can easily absorb your every waking moment (it may pervade your dreaming moments, too!). Success in law school depends upon an unreasonable commitment to the study of law, a commitment that looms over law practice, too.
The pressures of study, the emotional abrasions of examinations, and the sheer amount of time required of you will have a marked effect on your personality. Your moods will range from despondent to angst-ridden to suicidal to elated.
Free time is suddenly a rare commodity, and those unoccupied hours you can squeeze from a rock will be tainted by thoughts of assignments and examinations.
If you and those close to you are going to survive these pressures, remember that although law is more than a career, it is not a way of life. It should not replace your personal relationships and those aspects of your being that existed before you started law school. You must rein it back continually to make sure that the law keeps its place.
It is at such times that the students must get hold of themselves and set aside their personal torments and show strength of resolve and belief in their earlier decisions and seek expert help and counsel.
Something will have to give while you are in law school. Cut down on soap operas, skiing in Switzerland, football, Proust, video games-whatever occupied your time before you set to work learning torts and contracts. Consider carefully what's going to have to go, and make sure you're aware of the consequences if among your sacrifices are personal relationships or activities vitally important to you.
Statistics show that the average age of law students is now higher than it once was; many more students are married or have permanent attachments. Similarly, statistics show that there is a high degree of divorce among law school students.
Nonetheless, it won't take more than two weeks for those close to you to realize that you're a lot less fun to be with than you used to be (when you're around at all and not lost in the Library or in your bedroom with the door closed, poring over some legal tome).
You need not sacrifice much study time to guarantee that the study of law not topple your personal life. But some of it will have to go. When you do stop studying, you should come to a complete stop. Leave the books, cases, issues, holdings, and rules all behind you. Don't let the rule against per petuities or the defenses to slander slowly dissolve your nervous system while you are out to dinner; you might even have fun in spite of yourself.
Apart from preserving your personal life, there are two other benefits from stepping away from studying at times. First, doing so allows ideas to gel. Legal study is a creative process, a problem-solving process. You're continually wrestling with obstacles-not only legal problems, but difficulties in organizing your outline, coming up with topic headings, budgeting your time, and the like. Any creative activity needs a certain "baking" period, during which your thoughts have a chance to rest and solidify.
Don't overreact to your situation. Correct your perception of what you think law school is like - it is certainly not the prison that you think that it is. It is the platform for a future career that is going to be rewarding and invigorating. Remember it is not something that all can do and calls for special skills.
Never allow poor grades to disturb you or assume that they are a yardstick of your potential. If you have been ranked lower in class, it only means that there are others who are better than you, but that does not make you bad, does it? Permitting your grades to define you is unwise, imprudent and downright silly.
Don't put additional pressure you on by trying to appear like a lawyer all the time and no, not all lawyers are detached, scheming, calculating, avaricious and heartless. These are not attributes that a lawyer needs and such lawyers are only seen in films and on television. Lawyers are human beings with families and children. Moreover, they are doing a great service to the world by making the world a lot more safer by ensuring that the wrongdoers are punished for their offenses - it is a noble job and you should feel proud that today's labor and rigor at the law school will give you an opportunity of becoming a contributing member of the society.
If you are having serious trouble trying to balance your personal life with the pressures and demands of law school don't hesitate to reach out for help. Most law schools have a counseling center, go an meet your Dean, talk to your professors.
Birds of a feather tend to flock together. Don't surround yourself with people who are feeling as despondent and melancholy as you are. People afflicted with self-doubt will only enhance your wrong perception even further. Make friends with students who are at the top of the class. People who seem content and happy in their surroundings and who seem to have the ability to manage their personal lives and life at the school with a sense of balance that you are unable to create for yourself - these are the people who understand the difference between what a lawyer is supposed to be and what he really is. Befriending such people will help you overcome the barriers in your mind.
Always put yourself before your studies. Care of self must never be sacrificed at the altar of a career that is still some time ahead. Eat well and healthy food should get preference over fast food. Stay hydrated and drink lots of water, go for long walks in the park or where nature is at her best, next to a river, on the hillside, amongst trees, take up a hobby, sing, dance and do exercises - ensure that the you that already exists does not lose out to the yet-to-be lawyer.
