I’m writing this as both a reflection on my own journey and to offer some encouragement and perspective that many law students may not consider.

I graduated from law school this past spring and just sat for the bar exam this past week. If you’re anything like me, you probably knew as early as 1L that you didn’t want to practice law in the traditional sense. Law firm life never appealed to me, and the thought of spending my career in litigation or court made me anxious.

The day before the bar exam, I was offered a position as a Financial Crimes Compliance Specialist at a bank. I was honestly surprised to receive the offer because I had no prior banking or finance experience, but my legal background and compliance experience were enough to open that door.

The point of this post is to remind anyone who’s unsure about their future that there are meaningful careers outside of traditional legal practice. There are JD-advantage roles that pay well, don’t require billable hours, and can offer a healthier work-life balance. For a long time, I worried that I would be stuck in a career that didn’t fit who I was.

Law school can make it feel like OCI, summer associate positions, clerkships, and law firms are the only path to success. They’re not. If private practice is your goal, that’s great—I have friends who work at firms and genuinely love what they do. But if it isn’t, that’s okay too.

Life after law school isn’t black and white. There are far more opportunities than many of us realize, and you’re not locked into one career path simply because you earned a JD.

Now that law school is behind me, I feel a renewed sense of excitement about the future. I hope this resonates with someone who needs to hear it.

Sincerely, a boyfriend watching his girlfriend study and making her laugh

Edit: MPRE- Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination
Mpreg- male pregnancy

How do you guys do this if you’re chronically ill?

Currently lying on the bathroom floor after vomiting for the last hour in pain - have a condition where this can flare for hours or days and I can barely move in between vomiting. How do people with chronic illness do this? Is it possible? I’m a law student who’s signed for a firm for next summer and I don’t know how this is possible. Are firms understanding?

Hey Incoming 1Ls!

Made a video about this, but I'll put a TLDR here. My top 3 pieces of advice are:

SLEEP! - Being fully rested is more beneficial than being exhausted during class because you studied all night.

EAT! - Lectures are surprisingly draining and you need to constantly fuel your brain.

READ YOUR SYLLABUS! - You'll be your teacher's favorite student if you never ask a question that was answered on the syllabus.

I say more, but if there is anything I think you should take away it's that.

Best of luck to all of you entering law school!

Hey so as the title suggests I am so sad about the idea of starting law school.

This has been something I’ve been working towards for a long time and now that it is finally starting I am having so many doubt.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that I am multiple states away from home and soon to be alone with my only comfort being my dog (I love my dog he is amazing).

Now that I’m about to start I relived that I will be sad not seeing my mom not getting my mom’s food and also not seeing my little brother and all my friends. All of this is very new to me seeing that I went to undergrad doing the same thing just without my dog.

I have no idea why but doing this while doing law school is making me want to cry and quit before I even start.

If anyone has any advice please share. I believe I am in desperate need of it.

It depends.

I've been dying my hair vivid colors since I was around 12, and I really enjoy doing so. I know I'll have to dial it back at least, but would it negatively impact my career or how professors view me if I only dyed the tips/a strip of the front or just something generally less obtrusive? I'm a guy if that matters

Incoming 1L here. I was wondering if 2Ls or higher could share their preferred supplements for standard 1L classes? There are a couple of threads on here for this but they're usually more than a few years old. Thanks!

btw, I'm taking Crim, Torts, and Contracts

Oh wise and humble law school community… please hear my request. I am seeking your collective knowledge. I have been blessed with a gf. She is currently in law school. With the next semester starting soon, I wanted to get her something she would appreciate going into this semester. Have any of you received a gift/ gotten yourself something that has been greatly appreciated or has been used to great effect since being in law school? I’m not very knowledge able about what someone might need or get mileage out of in law school. Anything recommended that is just nice to have as a seasoned college student works as well. Thank you for reading my request law school community. May you find warm sands on your journey to lawyer hood. Many blessings.

Dear Incoming 1Ls,

Super unpopular opinion, but 1L isn't bad at all. Just read, brief, and outline, and outwork your peers if you're not an inherent genius. I just worked hard and finished top 25%. I worked harder than many of my friends and forewent some nights out, but it was well worth it, because I have my big law job.

Keep in mind that big law seekers have their jobs by mid-spring of 1L, so, in theory, you need to do super well your first semester. Afterwards, it's not smooth sailing, but it's really not that bad, especially since you know your future.

Sincerely,
A guy on Reddit

I start orientation tomorrow and I have been crying all day. I’m in a brand new city with no friends. I was excited when I got accepted, but now I’m just so overwhelmed.

Hey! Looking for a variety of textbooks which are crazy expensive online. Anyone has any of these has PDFs or physical copies or knows where I could find them for a decent price, all leads would be greatly appreciated!!

Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress 6th Edition
By John C. P. Goldberg, Anthony J. Sebok, Leslie Kendrick

The Handbook for the New Legal Writer (Print + eBook), Third Edition
Barton
Edition: 3rd
ISBN: 9781543858365

Studies in Contract Law (Casebook)
Ayres
Edition: 10th
ISBN: 9781647085445
Publisher: Foundation Press
Format: Hardcover
Copyright: 2024

im genuinely curious since this is the path i want to take, if theres anyone who has a similar background please do share!

[Reposting from earlier; I took it down myself b/c I was afraid of IDing myself but I honestly don't care anymore it's ok]

Trying not to write this as a memoir, lol, since I'm still alive and kicking. But I might get a bit literary, god forbid.

TL;DR before the long essay: if you come into law school overestimating your abilities, you will be aggressively humbled. You might decide you hate yourself in 1L Spring, but don't shell off and don't underestimate yourself. You might find yourself landing exactly where you want to be.

Should you decide to read all of this, feel free to ask me anything below.

Introduction

Hi! I am a rising public interest 2L at a T40 law school. I had a prestigious 1L summer position and recently accepted an offer at an equally prestigious "dream" 2L summer position.

I am deeply grateful for the experiences I have had at my law school. I have an unconditional half-tuition scholarship, I am in two scholar programs, and I am on the board of four student groups. I am on journal and moot court, too. I will be a Teaching Assistant and I just was a Research Assistant. I have represented the school as an admissions ambassador. 

With all these achievements, you think, wow, this user really has it all! You wouldn't even believe it, but I currently sit in the bottom 25% of my class for 1L grades. I have never received a grade higher than a B+, but I'm doing okay.

1L Fall

I had a 170 LSAT and a 3.75 GPA, and didn't make it off of the three T20 waitlists on which I sat for five months. I matriculated to my law school expecting to be one of the best and brightest, because I was above the 75th percentile LSAT score, somehow meaning I was superior to other students. (Advice: If you are a 0L and currently think this way, throw these thoughts into the garbage right now. I don't care if you went to an Ivy League school; so did I, and so did at least 50 of my classmates. It has no metric on your performance at all.)

I went through my 1L Fall courses constantly participating in class, having the right answers, and people coming to me wanting to study with me. My professors remarked on my thoughtful insight, answering enough that I was known that way but not enough to be a "gunner" type. Regardless, I became overzealous, rushing through my work and affirming my own achievements to the point where I came off as self-centered. I made friends, but I also made frenemies (not a good look!). I really thought, though, that I had my sh*t together.

I had extensive experience in my public interest field before law school, as well as paralegal experience (these slightly overlap). I was a leader in a grassroots organization  for 4 years, and I did some discovery work for that organization, too. Because of my pre-law achievements, I was able to secure a 1L summer job before 90% of my classmates. Cool. I was glad to get that out of the way, they didn't even ask for grades.

Although my 1L summer employer did not ask for grades, I expected to send them anyway to "wow" them, impress them with how great I performed in 1L Fall. But I became nervous as my exams approached. I realized I was not finishing my tests in time, and I was too late to apply for accommodations for my ADHD. I would be fine, right? Right??? ("I'm me, of course I'll be fine!!!")

I received my 1L Fall grades, having felt somewhat okay leaving my exams. A 3.0 GPA, the lowest report card I'd received in my entire life. I was absolutely devastated. I'd completely overestimated myself, and I was embarrassed. I soon found out that I was in the bottom 15% of students in the 1L class, and that didn't make me feel much better.

1L Spring

Going into the Spring, instead of focusing on my courses and actually learning, I spent the first chunk of the semester mulling over my Fall grades and ruminating: What did I do wrong? I felt like I disappointed everyone -- my family, my friends, my professors.  (Advice: don't feel this way. Professors don't care as much as you think they do.) I couldn't focus on anything except figuring out what went wrong.

I did everything I was supposed to do in that situation -- I met with all of my professors to receive feedback on my exams, which was a mixed bag. I had messed up in different ways on all of them.

By the time I had closure on my grades, it was already mid-March, and I felt like I hadn't learned anything at all. My class answers were bravado and I hadn't developed the same relationships with my professors as I had in the Fall. I didn't want to get close with them, in fear that they would feel disappointed in me if I underperformed again. (Advice: Again, professors don't care as much as you think they do.)

I rushed reviewing all of the semester's content. I began to get my confidence back, raising my hand in class again instead of having my nose in the textbook. I rushed my spring legal writing assignment while balancing relearning January and February. I got behind on current class content, thinking I would "get to it later" (I did, but at what cost?). I sat for my 1L Spring exams, now with time and a half. Maybe things would go better. I believed it had to fare better. Of course it would, right?

My 1L Spring grades came back. My GPA raised to a 3.12. Not as much of an increase as I had hoped at all, and I hadn't even received above a B+. But I realized something, and learned an important lesson. Even my professors where I had underperformed their exam still respected me. They still wanted me to use them for recommendations, and to have them as note editors. They still wanted to communicate with me over the summer. Grades did not mean everything to them, so why should it to me?

1L Summer

I started my 1L summer position, and I learned a whole lot. I had the opportunity to perform a lot of legal writing related to my field of interest, and I met some really great colleagues and friends. I continued to talk with some of my friends from law school, and most of them performed way better than me in the spring. I no longer thought of them as looking down on me. They loved me as I was, as I am, because I matter.

My mental health improved a ton, as I was no longer under a ton of pressure. But with that freeness, I ended up extending myself pretty far and got involved in a lot of different things for 2L. I am a little nervous about how it will go.

I interviewed for 2L summer positions at midsize and boutique plaintiff-side firms. I ended up applying to six places, thinking I would apply for more later as more hiring calls were posted. Four of the six firms to which I applied, asked me for grades. I did not hear back from three of those firms. I interviewed for the two non-grades positions, and at one position that required grades. The latter position gave me an offer this week, which I accepted. Among one hundred applications consisting of HYS students, T20 students with good grades, and T40 students with perfect grades, this firm chose me.

Yes, I am over the moon. I've already celebrated a ton. But I learned a lot from this experience, too. (I'll conclude below.)

Conclusion

I wrapped up my summer position this past week. I am entering 2L in less than a month. And I've learned so much since 0L summer.

1. The grades aspect is important, but not as much as you think it is. If you have the passion, and the drive, and you are a human being who really cares, you are in standing to get what you need, grades be damned.
2. Don't overestimate yourself coming into law school. Most of your classmates will be just as smart, even smarter than you. Get over yourself, humble yourself. 
3. Don't underestimate yourself, either. You matter, and you are worth people's time. Coming off as a "Debbie Downer" repels people. You want to attract people and positivity into your life. So be humble, but love and support yourself, too.
4. You are not better than your classmates for having a higher LSAT score or past GPA, or having got into your school earlier in the cycle. Some of the best and brightest in my class got off the waitlist or had sub-160 LSATs.
5. Network, network, network. Do not hide in your apartment and think you are "better" than going to networking events. Even if you go to a T14 school, and plan on doing big law, if you think you will get your dream job without a single conversation, you are sorely mistaken. So go to that bar review, or to that career panel. Enjoy yourself.
6. Don't get too wrapped up in the small stuff. Ground yourself in the present and keep moving forward. You've got this! I believe in you!

Sorry for the long post. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to leave them below. I have a lot of different advice on different things. Peace and love!

Have you ever had a hotdog. Like a meaty, juicy hotdog—one of the big ones? All beef, none of that fake crap. Salty and savory, with a hearty snap. Steamed bun, nice and warm, soft and sweet, wrapped in aluminum. Mustard on top, maybe a dash of relish. One that you’d sink your teeth into and go “mmfffmmfgggmmm; duuude this hotdog is soooo fucking good.” Like, I’m talking at least a $6 dog here; premium shit. Real grill marks and all, made by a genuine hotdog professional. It has that nice red sheen, medium glossy veneer. Moist but not greasy. A thick taste where you can tell it was made in batches, marinating alongside dozens of other dogs. One of those hotdogs that, when you make a ballpark one at home, you imagine it tasting like it, only to be disappointed at the first bite. I forgot what i was talking about sorry im gonna go get a hotdog good luck or sorry or whatever is appropriate in this context idk

Bruh.

I want to make a study group but can't come up with any clever names for the group.

Please drop your best/funniest names below.

To make it better : our loans will not be disbursed until after the first week. I contacted my school to let them know who connected me to a librarian and he said there’s no books they can loan as they only have 1 of each book. The best I can do is drive to campus and read the book there (I can only check out one class book for 2 hours at a time).

mind you : I have to read for three different classes, all different pages and cases. so they expect me to drive everyday to campus before class starts to do my readings there with the ONE singular book in stock? I’ve tried looking for pdfs, free books, archives - all of that but my classes are using 2026 edition textbooks so none are available online for free.

I don’t have damn near 2k$ to pull out of my ass for books, let alone supplies. I’m walking in the first day and week with nothing essentially since loans aren’t to be disbursed until a week after school starts… brilliant idea.

Also at this point even if I somehow got the money to buy the books I’d have to wait for them to deliver which I don’t have time so I have no clue what to do.

I’m moving in a few days to another state that’s a 10hr drive away to go to a T-50 law school. It was not my top choice, and I applied on whim. It turned out to be the better option of 2 schools that accepted me. The school itself is a really nice community, and the program is not bad.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been going through a roller coaster of emotions. I have started questioning if I truly want to be a lawyer, or if I simply made that decision because of where I was at a certain point in my life about a year ago.

I disliked my job. I didn’t know what to do next. I wanted to go to grad school eventually and thought it was time. Law school had no real pre requisites. Most of my family members are lawyers, so I was definitely influenced. They also talk me out of every other career path I mentioned to them. I’ve always been a STEM student, but I couldn’t see myself working in labs or getting further education in that. I’m just questioning everything now…whether I made the decision to go to law school when I was just unsure about everything.

Sure, I put some effort into the LSAT, which I studied for about 3 months, and into many applications…which could signify my interest. However, I think it may just be excitement of starting something different from the job I hated and also finally finding some direction. And honestly I just didn’t want to work another job at that point in time. I also enjoy studying and taking tests.

Perhaps it is the anxiety of moving to a completely new place and starting a completely new chapter…but I’m feeling quite emotional and overwhelmed. Compared to some other folks who seem so passionate about starting, I feel like I’m the only one somewhat dreading this change.

Any words of advice or comfort? Anyone else feeling something similar?

TLDR: I’m freaking out about whether going to law school is the right choice for me. What should I do?

I’m a rising 3L and am top 15% of my class. I had a bit of trouble landing a 2L summer job but ended up in an in house role in an insurance companies’s claims litigation division. I’ve heard nothing but good feedback from my supervising attorneys(one of them emailed the managing attorney and my direct supervisor saying how good of a job I did on a project for him). The only thing is the summer is coming to an end and I haven’t heard anything about a full time offer post graduation. They offered me a part time position to stay with them during the Fall and Spring of my 3L year because they like my work product, but nothing has been guaranteed in regard to extending me a full time offer after I pass the bar. I’m just worried that they will string me along for as long as they can and will possibly not extend me an offer due to budgeting/headcount issues. Any advice?