Law school is built up as this big bugaboo, and that can translate into a lot of fear and negativity that colors people's experiences before they even get to their first day of class. That's a shame. Law school is hard, but it can also be a wonderful, intellectually formative experience - and a fun time. My law school experience had its rough patches, but overall, it was a great time.
One big source of the negativity is the unknown. Wherever you're coming from - straight out of college, military, gap year, another career, whatever - law school will almost certainly be a new experience, very different from anything you've done before. It will teach you to read, write, speak, and think in modes and categories that are probably alien to you. That's exciting and fun, but it can also be disorienting and nerve-wracking.
My first piece of advice, then, is to spend some time in the summer before law school getting some baseline familiarity with the world of law/law school - scoping out the wild ride that is 1L year. One great way to do this is talking with lawyers, current law students, and law professors. Make a point to reach out to anybody you know in these categories, asking to chat over coffee or lunch. If your experience is anything like mine was, you'll be pleasantly surprised by just how eager most people are to help.
Books are another great way to scope out the field. Stay away from the sensational stuff - books like Scott Turow's 1L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law are fun, but they'll scare you more than they'll actually help. I read three very helpful books that I'd recommend to any incoming law student:
- Jay Feinman, Law 101: Everything You Need to Know About American Law: My dad gave me this the summer before law school, and it was amazingly helpful. It's written for non-lawyers, but it gives a great overview of the main fields you'll study as a first-year law student: constitutional law, civil procedure, criminal law, criminal procedure, property, contracts, and torts. It's mostly a high-level introduction, but for each field, it delves into one or two legal doctrines and does a good job of showing you what nuanced legal reasoning looks like. It certainly won't teach you all the details you'll need to pass your classes, but it'll give you a great sample, or roadmap, before you start.
- Richard Michael Fischl & Jeremy Paul, Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams: If there's one indispensable book every law student should read, it's this. This will teach you what law school probably won't: how to succeed on law school exams. Law school exams are very different from any test you've ever taken, and succeeding on a law school exam is a skill in itself, distinct from actually knowing the law. Moreover, the learning curve is brutal: your whole grade for each course will likely come from one or two tests, and the curve means you're competing against your classmates. The top grades will go to whoever can master law school test-taking the fastest. The short version of this book is that law school exams are really more like written performances than tests; the point isn't to give the right answer, but to show you can spot salient facts, cite the relevant legal rules, and apply the rules to the facts, often recognizing that the result could go either way. For a much better and more thorough explanation, go read this book. If not now, definitely crack it open before your exams.
- Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action: My civil procedure professor assigned this book as supplemental reading, and I'm so glad he did. It's a wonderfully written true story about a high-profile toxic tort case in Woburn, Massachusetts, in the 1980s. Not only was it a breath of fresh air after reading endless pages of old civil procedure cases; it did a great job of contextualizing abstract legal concepts and bringing them down to earth. I read it during my first semester, but if you're looking for something to start before school, this is a great choice.