So you're about to become a....

*
... now what?

At least one person has asked me for advice, so I thought I'd foist it on you, the incoming 1L who doesn't no better than to read what I, a rising 2L of unknown (to you) academic merit, has to say about succeeding during your first year in law school. Taking Kristine's lead, I'm going to offer you some advice on how to survive your first year.

1. If you have this book, throw it out. And this one. And this one. And this one, even though it was co-written by my Property prof. I wasted a perfectly good afternoon at the beach reading Law School Confidential, and all it did was make me think I couldn't do the work. There is no need to schedule your days as 18-hour marathons of class-prep, reading in advance, eating high-protien meals in 10 minutes and outlining in September. Law school is hard - it might be the hardest thing you've ever done - but it isn't some sort of superhuman accomplishment. There are more than a million lawyers in America. Nearly all of them went to law school, and a good percentage of them are complete morons (to wit). Just stay focused, keep perspective, don't get too far behind and don't let your own paranoia eat you alive.

2. When you need to be studying, you shouldn't also need to run out and buy toilet paper. In the weeks leading up to orientation, you'll want to get a head start on something, even if you don't have any books and don't know what a tort is (hint: it is a small pastry, and also some legal thing of some sort.) You can save yourself a lot of hassle by going out to Costco or Sam's Club before things get hectic to stock up on printer paper, soap, frozen dinners, spare light bulbs and all the other stuff you don't want to be making errands to buy when you should be in the library. This may seem silly, but I certainly spent weeks at a time not venturing more than three blocks from the route between my apartment and my law school. It's something you can do now, and it gives you piece of mind.

3. Do the reading on schedule, but don't outline until late in the course. It's nearly impossible to catch up if you are more than a day or two behind in a class. This isn't undergrad, and you can't slack off until the week before the final, but you know that already. Still, don't waste your time, as I did, study-grouping in October. You won't get anything accomplished because you have no idea what a study group actually does. Just call it a happy hour and be honest with yourself.

4. When a helpful 1L offers you their old outline, take it, but make your own anyway. You'll find that the process of making an outline brings out the parts of the course you aren't solid on and forces you to understand them enough to make them fit within the framework of your outline. This is where the learning happens. Someone's old outline may help you understand the material, but only in the context of writing it your way.

5. There is no such thing as an ideal outline format. Some people use full sentences, some people use trigger words, some people use pictures. The outline is for you and it isn't graded, so do it to your specifications, not those of your 2L buddy, your study group or your mom.

6. Get out. You need to meet your fellow 1Ls outside of lectures, so you see them as people and don't get quite so furious at them for contradicting your brilliant argument in class. You will probably either work with or against your classmates for the rest of your career, so a little bonding is always in order. Also, don't treat bar review like a networking cocktail party - buy your friends a round of shots and purge your brain of the one word that haunts a law student's days and nights: reasonable.

7. Tread the gunner line lightly. Many of the country's best, brightest and most motivated students go to law school, and when they get there, they often turn from self-starters and overachievers into the slackers in the back of the classroom who want to get out early to smoke behind the gym when in comes to classroom participation. Sure, it's OK to raise your hand once in a while, but if you do it more than once a week, you're a gunner. This term should be reserved for the kind of person who stands up in class to give lectures on the finer points of his or her political philosphy, but most 1Ls expect their professors to have a one-sentence answer to the entire field covered in the class, which they are waiting to grace us with as soon as Mr. Loudmouth finishes asking for a clarification on UCC 2-207. If you want to play word games with your professor, wait until after class, but if you have a legitimate question or statement, don't be afraid to raise your hand. Just don't do it too much, or you'll be branded a gunner (perish the thought).

8. Chill out. Yes, it's hard to know where you stand when your only graded exercise is at the end of the semester, but everyone is facing the same uncertainty. Worrying about it won't make it better.

* A Juan-El. Get it? No? Oh well.