“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” ― Ferris Bueller
In the throes of 1L year, while dealing with difficult material, a new learning environment, networking events, and perhaps feeling completely overwhelmed and lost, a law student is likely to hear a common refrain. It often goes something like, “I know this is rough, 1L is so tough, but it gets so much better in 2L.” And like most aphorisms, it contains a nugget of truth. In many ways, the law school experience changes fundamentally between your first year and your second. The classroom experience becomes less intimidating and more familiar. You can choose your own class schedule and have agency over the areas of law you wish to study. Even more importantly, for some, you have the chance to partake in experiential learning opportunities, such as clinics and externships, which are not available to 1Ls.
However, all this optimism cloaks a different danger, a somewhat self-imposed one, but an issue that can generate similar feelings in the 2L as those felt by the beleaguered 1L described in the opening paragraph. They are overcommitted once again, but in a different way. Between running most of the student orgs, taking on a heavy class load or the workload of an externship or clinic, Law Review and the UCC Journal, networking, and much else besides, there is no shortage of opportunity to overload yourself as much as a 2L as you did as a 1L. It comes in a different form because you have the agency in this case, unlike during 1L when most of your commitments are foisted upon you, but in some ways that makes it more insidious. Like the call that’s coming from inside the house, once you know it’s happening, it’s probably already too late.
In general, students find themselves in this position of overcommitment for all the right reasons. They want to make people happy by saying yes to things that get offered. It is flattering to have your fellow students vote you into a position of authority. Student org leaders aspire to those positions to run them in ways that serve the needs of other students. They also feel a sense of duty to grow student organizations and maintain the principles and morals that they represent to the BC Law community. There is prestige, which in some cases can be a bad thing to chase, but in law school, it’s kind of the name of the game, in working on Law Review or the UCC, or any other journal. Students who join clinics are passionate about their mission and are deeply committed to working for their clients. And with classes and externships, it’s a desire to learn as much as possible in these three short years or, in the case of externships, to accumulate significant work experience so that they can hit the ground running once their time at BC concludes. These are all admirable goals. The problem is that they cannot always co-exist, and some of these goals must be sacrificed to fulfill others.
Real dangers exist in trying to do everything and, equally, in never saying no to anything. To the first danger, overstretching your capacity can mean sacrificing the opportunity to dive meaningfully into one or two things and maximizing your return on those time and energy investments. It necessarily leads to the sacrifice of diving into any pursuit to the fullest, because the logistical challenges simply will not allow it. Time, reflection, and deliberation are the tools required to achieve understanding of a topic and to effect real change. Every lawyer should develop those skills, because without them, how can you possibly provide effective counsel? Here, in law school, is the place to hone those abilities, and it seems impossible to do so if the burdens on your schedule mean you hardly have time to eat or even sit down.
To the second hazard, everyone needs to learn how to say ‘no’ even to something that sounds exciting or to someone they want to impress or that they care about. One of the classic tropes about lawyers, in big law and public interest, is that they are overworked, overburdened, and overstressed. As a result, we know that this profession comes with a serious risk of burnout and future addiction issues. I am not suggesting that saying ‘no’ to things is a cure-all for this, or even realistic in all scenarios. However, learning how to skillfully and judiciously refuse someone is crucial to navigating any professional path, particularly that of a lawyer.
These are not habits to carry into a law firm or a public defender’s office. It is undoubtedly harder to say ‘no’ to opportunities in the working world than it is in places like BC, where people genuinely have your best interests at heart. In most professional contexts, it’s difficult to find others who care about your well-being enough to dig past the superficial exterior. Moreover, you may find bad actors who exploit your willingness to accommodate to the furthest extent they can. Establishing a line where you can articulate why an additional case, project, deal, or whatever does not serve your, or the firm’s or company’s best interest, is a vital skill. In the working world, saying no in the wrong way can be hazardous, but here at BC, you can learn from those mistakes, if you make them, without worrying about it tainting your professional reputation.
More importantly, you can learn that an honest admission that another commitment is one too many is not something to fear. The danger of overpromising and underdelivering is real, and more often than you’d think, an honest accounting of what work you can realistically take on is a welcome one. Law and law school want you to push your limits, but everyone has a limit. It’s okay to accept that.
Ian Hurley is a second-year student at BC Law. Contact him at hurleyia@bc.edu.
BC Law: Impact 