Law school is hard. In your first year, you\u2019re scared and unsure about what to expect. You know that \u201con-call\u201d is a thing that happens, but you don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s like the movies you\u2019ve seen or if that was just Hollywood. You know you have more reading assigned than you\u2019ve ever had, and you don\u2019t know how in the world you will get it all done. You don\u2019t know anyone, or at least don\u2019t know them well, as you go through the hardest task you have ever taken on.<\/p>\n
Law school is hard. In your second year, you understand the process, but you\u2019re starting to wear down. You have figured out how to read hundreds of pages a week\u2014and mostly retain it\u2014but you don\u2019t know how to balance working and extra-curriculars and dramatic interpersonal relationships at the same time. You\u2019re starting to get worried about having a job after graduation. The rankings roll in and you aren\u2019t sure whether you\u2019re succeeding, based on your own standards or those imposed on you.<\/p>\n
Law school is hard. In your third year, you have a job . . . or you don\u2019t. You\u2019re tired\u2014mentally, physically, and emotionally. You\u2019re so excited to be done, but that light at the end of the tunnel is still so far away, and even that is scary. Sure, you\u2019re ready to be done with law school\u2014but maybe not ready to be a full-time, practicing attorney. You hope the work is done\u2014after all, the three years are up\u2014but you know that practice won\u2019t be any easier.<\/p>\n
Law school is hard. It is frustrating, challenging, infuriating, scary, soul-crushingly busy. It changes people, it changes families, it takes over lives. Research indicates that law students around the globe go into law school with similar\u2014and low\u2014incidence of mental health or substance abuse problems, but leave law school with up to 40% higher incidence of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. See, e.g.<\/em>, Michael Appleby & Judy Bourke, Promoting Law Student Mental Health Literacy and Wellbeing: A Case Study from The College of Law, Australia<\/em>, 20 Int\u2019l J. Clinical Legal Educ. 461, 464-65 (2014); Jerome M. Organ, Davis B. Jaffe & Katherine M. Bender, Suffering in Silence: The Survey of Law Student Well-Being and the Reluctance of Law Students to Seek Help for Substance Use and Mental Health Concerns<\/em>, 66 J. Legal. Educ. 116,136-38 (2016); Patrick R. Krill, Ryan Johnson & Linda Albert, The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys<\/em>, 10 J. Addiction Med. \u00a046, 51 (2016).<\/p>\n Law school is, indeed, hard. But law school\u2014and legal practice\u2014changes lives. Three weeks before spring finals of my 2L year, I was deeply entrenched in the above sentiments. And then I received a text message from the wonderful attorney I worked with during my rising-2L summer. A client I worked with that summer won the first part of her case\u2014on a crazy argument in a brief I wrote that didn\u2019t lend itself to a high probability of success. A client who had lived through unspeakable loss and injury with so much hope, love, and resilience that she will remain in memory as a role model for me for the rest of my career. A client who deserved everything, but expected nothing from the legal system and from this country.<\/p>\n That text message forced me to revisit and revise. Law school is hard\u2014but it was never meant to be easy. Law school is meant to test your resilience, your drive, your commitment. Law school is meant to make sure you are worthy of helping people; people who need you to be at the top of your game at all times. Law school is designed to demand your best, and put you in the habit of meeting that expectation for years to come.<\/p>\n Try to set yourself a reminder: Law school is hard, but it changes your life so you can change the lives of others. For that, it all seems worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Law school is hard. In your first year, you\u2019re scared and unsure about what to expect. You know that \u201con-call\u201d is a thing that happens, but you don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s like the movies you\u2019ve seen or if that was just Hollywood. You know you have more reading assigned than you\u2019ve ever had, and you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,36,48,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","category-legal-practice","category-marquette-law-school","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}