{"id":28593,"date":"2019-08-21T08:46:45","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T13:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=28593"},"modified":"2021-08-22T09:40:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T14:40:54","slug":"advice-to-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2019\/08\/advice-to-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice to Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
John Kircher teaches a law school class, 1986<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Law school is a wonderful experience. It\u2019s terrifying, I have to admit, but it\u2019s an opportunity that few people get and it\u2019s something that shouldn\u2019t be taken for granted. Coming into law school, I heard many a rumor including things like: you won\u2019t have much, if any, free time; the workload is unlike anything you\u2019ve ever seen before; and on-calls are really, really scary. If I could send a message to incoming 1Ls and my pre-1L self from right now, there are a couple of things that I would tell myself. The main thing that I would say is that all of those things are true, with some caveats.<\/p>\n

In the beginning of 1L year, I found myself with little to no free time. Days were spent in class and nights were spent doing the reading assignments for said classes. (Side note: don\u2019t use the word “said” to refer to something. It\u2019s old \u201clegalese\u201d and it\u2019s out of fashion. While I\u2019m at it, forget how you thought attorneys spoke and wrote. You were wrong.) At first, I had no idea what I was doing. I read the cases, briefed the cases, and hoped to god that I got the right things out of those cases. Those three things consumed most of my time every day during the week and weekend. This is exactly what I feared law school would be: a never-ending stream of work that I didn\u2019t know what to do with. However, as time went on, I started to understand what I needed to look for in cases and how to be more efficient with my time. It wasn\u2019t an overnight process, but the saying that \u201cpractice makes perfect\u201d applies directly to law school. If there was one thing that I could tell myself prior to the first day of class on this topic, it would be to remain patient. Learning \u201chow to law school\u201d takes time and the assignments will be hard to get through for a while.<\/p>\n

The next thing I heard about law school stems directly from the first one. The workload was supposed to be unlike anything I had seen before. There are no qualifying statements about this one. The workload is large, and homework will take longer than it used to. If I could do one thing to quell the nerves about this rumor, it would be to ask myself a simple question. Isn\u2019t that exactly what you were looking for? It\u2019s law school. It should be challenging and time consuming. You\u2019re here to learn how to take complex problems and put them into simple language. People are going to trust you with their potentially life-altering problems in the future, so the least you could do is do the work required of you to learn how to handle those problems. The workload is large, but the work is rewarding and it\u2019s what you\u2019ve been looking forward to for years.<\/p>\n

The last rumor about the dreaded on-calls requires the most qualification. On-calls are really, really scary. At least, the first few are. The first week of law school I was called on in back-to-back classes. I don\u2019t remember a word that I said, and my heart raced faster than it ever had for those 10-15-minute time periods. However, after those first two, things got easier. If I could tell myself one thing about on-calls, it would be that it\u2019s alright to mess up. Nobody will think that you\u2019re an idiot because of it. Everybody will be in that same situation at least once in law school, and your classmates will pick you up. So long as you do the assignments and try to comprehend what\u2019s going on, you should be fine. If a professor asks a question and you have no idea, that\u2019s okay. Try to work through it, but if you ultimately don\u2019t succeed that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll be a failure as a law student or lawyer. On-calls are scary, but if do your work, everything will be fine.<\/p>\n

I would close by giving myself a couple of pieces of advice. First, things are going to be uncomfortable and confusing for a while. The people who can help the most with that are your professors. Those menacing figures who stand at the front of the classroom and make you go through those previously mentioned on-calls are there to help. They\u2019re professors for a reason. They\u2019re intelligent and want to help you learn what the law is. Go to their office hours and ask questions if you have them (If Professor Oldfather is still offering pretzels, take him up on that for me. I regret not doing it at least once). Second, Marquette is a special place. The law school environment is crazy competitive, but the Marquette community knows how to take a step back from that. Most people will be really nice and willing to help. That isn\u2019t the case in some other law schools, so be mindful of it and learn to work with your classmates. Lastly, enjoy it. You put in the work to get here, so take some time to appreciate the process. 1L year is hard, and there are always bumps and bruises along the way. Things do get better, so don\u2019t take the rumors too seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Law school is a wonderful experience. It\u2019s terrifying, I have to admit, but it\u2019s an opportunity that few people get and it\u2019s something that shouldn\u2019t be taken for granted. Coming into law school, I heard many a rumor including things like: you won\u2019t have much, if any, free time; the workload is unlike anything you\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"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":[34,48,122,352],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","category-marquette-law-school","category-public","category-student-contributor","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28593","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\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28593"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29683,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28593\/revisions\/29683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}