When people told me as a 1L that law school would fly by in the blink of an eye, I never really believed them. It sounded like a tall tale at the time, when I was still trying to figure out whether Quimbeeing cases was worth it (spoiler alert: Quimbee is always a good choice and will save you so much time). But now as a 3L, I have to say that law school did indeed fly by–and as the end of my law school career approaches, I have much to reflect on.
The First Year
I look back now on my 1L and 2L years with a sort of reluctant fondness. 1L year was full of trying to find a place to belong, trying to find personalities to mesh with and people who understood my background and my way of thinking. It was a tumultuous time of adjusting to a new environment, and learning to study in a completely new way. In hindsight, I came in as a relatively naive person, overly optimistic and blissfully unaware of the burnout-inducing environment that was to come. No one in my family is a lawyer, and at the time I didn’t realize just how much connections matter in this field. Everyone talks about how hard it is to get through the 1L doctrinal classes, but people are more reluctant to talk about the other psychological factors that go into 1L year. Being graded on a curve creates an unfairly competitive environment where students become reluctant to help each other out. I was fortunate enough to be in a section that ultimately supported each other (shout-out to section 2!!!), but it is easy to see why people can become rougher around the edges when so many jobs depend on 1L grades.
I also really appreciated something else about 1L year that may be a bit controversial–the fact that we were transported back into a high-school-like setting again, taking the same classes with the same people 5 days a week. As adults, it is incredibly hard to find and maintain friends, especially once we are out in the workforce. When I worked as a paralegal, my day consisted of workout, work, dinner, sleep, rinse and repeat with the occasional outing on the weekends, and it became increasingly difficult to find times to hang out with my friends. But within the confines of law school, we 1Ls were transported back into earlier days–complaining about homework, eating lunch together, and studying for tests. A lot of people say “law school is like high school” like it’s a bad thing–but for me it was the last time I could really feel like a kid again. And that’s not so bad when we have the rest of our lives to be responsible adults!
The Second Year
They say you’re worked to death during 2L year, and I fulfilled that stereotype, testing the upper limits of how much I could handle. I wanted to put my softer skills to the test–skills that I had to fold away during 1L for the sake of studying. I think the year took a lot more mental energy–the first year, my sole responsibility was to go to class, read, and outline. 2L year was where a lot of my non-academic skills came into play. I took on many responsibilities, such as being the President of APALSA (which, to this day, is still one of the highlights of my law school career), two clinics (Compassionate Release and Immigration), working as a TA, and writing for the blog, all while juggling classes. Through these experiences, I learned to lead an Executive Board and work with others, maintain professional lines of communication with clients for clinics, and organize my time to make room for my personal life as well.
2L year teaches you to be on your own, but also work with the community at large. Interestingly enough, although I did not experience severe burnout during 1L year, 2L year was where I truly crashed and burned. Halfway through the year, I found myself relying on the fear of letting others down in order to motivate myself to do things, rather than doing things for the sake of doing them. I knew a lot of people were depending on me, and I wanted to put my best foot forward. But this came with a lot of anxiety, lots of sleepless nights, and a lot of second-guessing my decisions.
As the leader of APALSA, I felt particularly responsible for the BC Law Asian-American community. I wanted to provide a safe place for all AAPI students, take care of our students after mass shootings in the news, make sure APALSA 1Ls were on the right track for OCI, and also create other job opportunities. It was only when my clinic professor told me that she noticed I took on too much without asking for help that I realized why I was so burned out: I put a lot of responsibilities on my own shoulders, even when no one expected me to be perfect, and I refused to seek help because I was afraid of burdening anyone else.
But I found that fear to be unfounded. The people I worked with were more than willing to help cover me for all the areas where I wasn’t able to give 100%. My clinic partners were happy to take over certain parts of memo writing and client communication; our Eboard was happy to help with outreach to law firms; and my friends were always willing to share their notes when I could not focus on reading. I felt so grateful to be surrounded by such kind hearted colleagues, and it made me realize that leaning on others is not a sign of weakness, but rather strength, because it takes a lot to ask for help.
Ultimately I took 2L year as a lesson in knowing when to ask for help, learning how to recover from burnout, and knowing my upper limits. Practicing attorneys struggle with burnout all the time; the work lawyers do can be very emotionally draining and mentally taxing, and it is often difficult to gauge when to turn off the brain from work. I think that stacking on so many responsibilities gave me a taste of what it’s like to be a practicing attorney, especially one who is involved with work other than billable hours. I’d imagine students who took on extracurricular activities such as law review, mock trial, or UCC Digest can relate to the feeling of wanting to do the best job possible and not let their teammates down, but at the same time struggling with balancing all other parts of their lives.
The Third Year
3L year has been a completely different experience. With no more responsibilities other than my own schoolwork, I now have time for the other parts of my life that I neglected for two years. They say during 3L year they bore you to death, but this has been the most fun I’ve had since entering law school. It’s easy to forget that there is a life outside of law, especially when this field demands so much of your mental and physical energy. I’ve been able to reconnect with friends outside of school, rekindle relationships, and go to events. It’s also nice to see old section mates who also feel a similar amount of freedom (other than the impending doom of the bar exam looming over our heads, but that’s a second semester problem).
I want to savor this feeling, because I recognize that it’s the last year before we head into our careers as full-fledged lawyers. For most of us, this will be the last time we get to be students, where our main responsibilities lie with regulating ourselves rather than worrying about how our actions impact our coworkers and clients. This year, I hope to recover and double down on the lessons I learned from both years.
As a 3L, my advice to 1Ls would be to enjoy the moment, as difficult as that may seem. I always try to glean a lesson from hard times, and my personal motto is no matter how hard things may get, there’s always a lesson to learn and a light at the end of the tunnel. This is most likely the last time you will be a scholar, and it only gets worse from here! So here’s to all my classmates: let’s enjoy this final ride together. See you on the other side of the bar exam!
Seung Hye Shang Yang is a third-year student at BC Law. Contact her at yangben@bc.edu.
BC Law: Impact 