"First-year exams." Even now, those words can send a shudder up the spine of any licensed attorney. Although some schools have finals after each semester, all except one of the first-year final exams might be in the spring and covered a year's worth of material. Even midterm exams controlled only a small percentage of the year's final grades.
Imagine this. You worked as diligently as you could all year, but your outlines are just two thirds done, and yes, there are some cases you have not read. Exams are spread over several weeks, and you hope you still have time to get everything done. You go into seclusion and begin a study frenzy-thinking law, breathing law, even sleeping law-for days and nights on end. Then the time comes for your first exam. You pull on your lucky tennis shoes, pack your lucky pens, and reread your outline while you walk to class. Exams and blue books are passed out, and the room monitor announces that you can begin.
Most law school exams take 3 to 4 hours and require essay-type answers. A single exam question may be more than one typewritten page long. When the monitor eventually calls time and demands that everyone turn in their blue books, you realize that even with the 4 hours allotted and after having set a land speed record for pen against paper, you ran out of time before completing your last answer. You go home, totally drained, for a few hours of rest and begin studying for the next exam. Repeat four times, and you will have made it through the first year of law school.
Final exams are exhausting in every way-mentally, emotionally, and physically. You put everything you have into them because they are the one chance you have to prove yourself. Until grades come in, you have no way to judge how you are doing. Every student in the class is accustomed to academic success. If they were not, they would not have made it to law school. Past laurels are of little use, and relying on them is a mistake. However bitter a pill this is to swallow, by definition one out of every two students will be in the bottom half of the academic class for the first time.
Every effort is made to preserve privacy in grading. Grades may be posted by Social Security number or by randomly assigned test number. Our TQ wisely warned us not to do postmortems after exams and to talk about grades as little as possible. Comparisons can cause hurt feelings, possibly your own. In the microcosm of law school, class standing can seem like everything to the vision of law school success. When you face this prospect, it is wise to remember that law school achievements do not dictate the success of a law practice and have little, if anything, to do with personal worth. Maintaining a healthy sense of proportion is essential.
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Nevertheless, the hard fact is that grades do affect recruiting success. Most law schools have placement offices that bring students together with potential employers. If grade point average is not the first thing an employer looks at, it is probably the second. In an employer-competitive market, major law firms pursue the most promising students during their first year of school. These students will be interviewed during the spring of their first year and offered summer jobs based on their backgrounds and first-semester or midterm grades. For most students, on- campus recruiting is an adventure reserved until the second year. Those students who do not take full-time jobs should consider attending summer school. Summer school is a chance to bring those grades up before the all-important start of the second year.
Second Year (You want me to make decisions about the rest of my life now?)
The second year of law school reintroduces you to the concept of choice. There will be more decisions to make than you will know what to do with. You are on your own. In the second year, you begin to pick your own curriculum, allowing yourself to study areas that interest you or spark a career specialization. You can select subjects that vary from advanced constitutional law and federal courts to environmental law and land-use planning to the taxation of oil and gas and bankruptcy law. A full-time schedule includes five classes that each meet for an hour, three times a week, and last for only one semester. Classes will contain a mix of second- and third-year students, with no differentiation. In making your course selections, seek guidance from other students about the courses and the professors. Also seek guidance from practicing attorneys about what areas of law have promising futures, both short-term and long-term.
Classroom instruction may seem geared more toward giving a substantive understanding of the subject matter, but your study schedule will be as vigorous as it was during the first year. You still must worry about outlining and about final exams that will be just as long and just as exhausting as they were at the end of the first year. You still must worry about grades. Ninety percent of the class will be trying to bring their grades up, and the other 10 percent will be trying to keep their grades up. However, during the busy second year of law school, students manage their academic efforts while they also begin other law school activities, take part-time clerking jobs in the community, and begin to interview for full-time summer jobs. Remember, you don't have to do everything at once.
One of the activities available is work with student publications. Many law schools have one or more publications called law journals, some of which have national reputations. Membership on a law journal staff may be earned through making very high first-year grades or by participating in a writing competition. Students who accept an invitation to join a law journal staff will have to fulfill certain writing requirements. Generally, they will have to write one or more publishable legal articles. Student articles of exceptional quality will be published in the journal along with articles solicited from practicing attorneys and judges. Third-year journal members may serve on the editorial board, handling duties related to the content of the journal or editing papers and working with non-staff authors.
Participation on a law journal can be time-consuming, and some students will pass up the opportunity even after being invited to join. Many attorneys who look back on journal work feel that it improved their research and writing skills, gave them experience in supervising the work of others, and impressed potential employers. The decision about whether or not to join should be made with the following considerations in mind: the reputation of the law journal, the amount of time membership requires, the comradeship of the journal staff, the extent of your prior writing experience, and your desire to pursue other activities.
Mock trial and moot court competitions offer students the opportunity for advocacy experience. As the name implies, mock trial simulates a courtroom trial, with student teams representing either the "plaintiff' or the "defendant." Other students play the roles of witnesses. Cases are presented before a 'judge" who presides over the trial and rules on evidentiary objections. The judge is usually a practicing attorney who, at the conclusion of the trial, will critique both teams and declare a winner. Moot court is much the same, but it simulates argument before an appellate judge who reviews the decision of a lower court and listens to presentations of opposing counsel on both the facts and the law.
For the winning team, participation in an oral advocacy competition can be very time-consuming. When a mock trial or moot court team wins, it advances to the next round of competition. In addition to preparation and practice time, a successful team may compete three or four nights each week for a month. As a team advances in the competition, it may have the opportunity to present its case before real judges. Teams at the top of their school's competition compete with one another for state titles, and state winners may compete for national honors. It is not uncommon for local practitioners or competition-sponsoring law firms to donate cash or other awards for the winners. Points accumulated along the way also may earn students membership in organizations such as the Order of the Barristers, a national organization of student legal advocates.
Again, if you are willing to devote the time required, the experience gained can be invaluable. Many top student competitors get their start during the second year of school, but novice competitions are available to students who want to participate but prefer to wait until their third year. A friend of mine who won her school's mock trial competition commented that the personal feedback from the judges who critiqued her was immensely more valuable than any lecture on, or even demonstration of, advocacy skills.
