A Non-Trad's Advice for Non-Trads

When I first thought about going to law school, I searched for blogs about non-traditional students – hoping to find someone like me who actually made it through without losing their mind. I wanted to find someone who would tell me what it was really like to go to law school while working full time and having a family.

I found some good ones, but not many. (Note - there are more now than when I started.)

Since I don’t have children, I didn’t fit into the law-mom role (although I feel like it when I’m taking my little dog into the vet for the 500th time the week before exams.) And I’m not a energetic recent-undergrad who’s only been out in the workforce for two years.

No, instead I’m 36 with a husband of four and a half years (our length of marriage - not his age), a former good-paying career that I left, and a semi-crappy current job to pay the bills.

I have a ¾ scholarship at a non-Tier 1 school. I go to law school in the evenings and on weekends. I have older parents and in-laws whose health needs are not always easy to manage. We have a mortgage and car payments.

I am not on law review (but I am on a law journal) and unfortunately, I’m not in the top 10% of my class (nor am I in the bottom 10% either). I don’t have plans to work in a top law firm with 1,000 other attorneys. I also don’t want a job where I have to work 90 hours a week. I know that will mean less money, but I'm okay with that.

Essentially, I am a mid-life, middle of the road kind of girl.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my life or anything. I’m happy being me. But I sometimes don’t fit into the molds that exist at law school. And when I looked for blogs about people like me, I didn’t find many. That’s why I started this one. Whether or not it's helpful to anyone else is debatable, but sometimes it's helpful for me.

If there is anyone else out there who is mid-life / middle of the road, like me, here are a few tips on law school that might help you make it through:

1. Juggling a full time job, your life, and law school is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or is in serious denial.
2. Law school is temporary. It lasts three, maybe four years maximum (if you are going part-time). You will get through it. Remember that when you feel overwhelmed.
3. You can’t do it all. If you think you can attend law school classes, study, do internships, law review/journal, work, 30 hours a week with your family, time with your friends, grocery shop, and have a life - you are wrong! Something has to give somewhere. But don’t worry; laundry and dusting are way overrated anyway!
4. Time management is the only thing that gets you through. That, and denial.
5. Make time for your family – they are the only support you have to keep you going when you feel like quitting. Note: your family and friends do NOT understand how much you have to do, but smile at them anyways when they tell you they do.
6. You will be tired a lot – get used to it. Caffeine helps, so does sleep.
7. Don’t lose your sense of humor – you’ll need it when you feel like you’re cracking up.
8. Make friends in law school – you’ll see them more than your family anyways for the next four years. Plus, they'll "get" all your law school jokes.
9. Study – this isn’t undergrad and the reading isn’t easy. Legalese is a new language. The first year classes are NOT the hardest, even though they feel like it at the time.
10. Do what works for you. Everyone will give you advice, but you’ll eventually figure out that no everyone knows you better than you.

If nothing else, hang in there!

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

Yesterday, I was a judge.

Okay, not a real one, and no, I wasn't impersonating one either (like a felony fraud type of thing.)

But for Inns of Court, our team had to put on a skit about a trial and I was selected to be the judge. Funny enough, on our team, we have a real judge, but she wanted to play defense counsel so being as I was the one with the least experience, I was selected to be the judge.

All my job entailed was to start the trial, have counsel present themselves on record, handle housekeeping, swear in the witnesses, and rule on evidence / objections.

It was the evidence / objections part I had trouble with. You see, I haven't taken Evidence yet. I found out on Tuesday night that I was going to have this role. While I didn't freak out or anything, I did go straight home and look on the web for our state's court rules and rules of evidence - just to get an idea of what I was supposed to do, so I wouldn't look too stupid. Amazing what you can find on the web.

So, since a measely law student can't possibly learn everything in one evening, our team's actual judge wrote me out a cheat sheet.

The verdict on my performance: Ehh. I messed up the oath once, I took a few too many things under advisement, and I'm sure I made a wrong ruling a few times despite having a cheat sheet, but the Inns of Court group as a whole was kind. I am definitely not ready to be a judge, or even a lawyer for that matter (at least until I get a few more law school courses under my belt).

But as a whole, it was a positive experience. To watch both a real judge (former prosecutor) and a real defense attorney demonstrate a criminal trial was an amazing and to hear them debrief what occurred afterwards was a tremendous learning experience. It's one of the benefits of being in Inns of Court - that I can learn so much from people who actually do these things for a living, not just read about it in a textbook.

The Bluebook - My New Nemesis

I'm beginning to develop a serious dislike of the Bluebook.

For those of you who are not legally-inclined, it's a small blue book of rules that, in theory, explains how to refer your reader to another place (kind of like a book of instructions on how to add links to a web site, except this is for hard-copy legal documents.)

If only it were that simple.

You see, the bluebook claims to tell you how to cite materials, except there's a lot it doesn't cover. Or you have to flip back and forth in the book to figure out how to list an actual citation.

For example, say you want your reader to look at a journal article. Here's how you do it, according to the bluebook:

Section 2 describes whether or not to use italics (not to be confused with section 7 on italics), but section 16 tells you how to list an article from a journal but table 13 tells you how you abbreviate the actual journal name (not to be confused with section 6 on abbreviations) and section 1.5 tells you how to add your own commentary on what you think the article is about and section 3.2 tells you how to point the reader to a footnote in the journal article, not to be confused with your own footnote you are creating. And if the name of your journal is not in table 13, you have to piecemeal it together with hints on certain words the bluebook may or may not give you.

And that's just for a simple magazine article. Don't even think about trying to refer your reader to a 1974 congressional subcommittee report without wearing protective padding, a helmet, and a cup.

After eighteen editions of the bluebook, you'd think they'd simplify the process. But if they did, then you wouldn't need a lawyer to decipher all the legalese just to tell you: Go Read Time Magazine from July 2007.

Conclusion: The bluebook must be written by lawyers looking for job security.

Note: No bluebook was harmed in the writing of this post.... yet....

Dear Adjunct Professor

Dear Adjuct Professor,

While you may only teach one class a term and you are considered to be a specialist in your field, you will fail us all miserably if you don't stop READING YOUR NOTES VERBATIM.

Please try to teach us instead. We find an interactive classroom is much more conducive to learning than having a class of 25 terrified students madly typing away, trying to transcribe what you are saying because you are showering us with your notes like machine gun bullets.

Eye contact would also be welcome, but that's just a bonus.

Sincerely,
Your Students

P.S. Saying "individual" every other word doesn't work well either. Example: The individual walks into the individual's house so the individual can get the individual's paperwork to proceed to the individual's appointment. Just a piece of advice: investing in a thesaurus might work wonders to keep us interested in the topic at hand.

What Happens When Law Students Get Sick

Okay, I'm not dying or in the hospital. I just have a massive cold and tonsillitis, nothing a few days of rest and plenty of liquids can't cure.

The bad thing is that I don't have a few days to rest and recuperate. I can't take too much time off work (already took a day off this week to try to fight it) and I can't miss class too many times. And my weekend is jam-packed with law school excitement. So instead I stuff myself with decongestants and drink plenty of liquids, trying to get as much sleep as I can in the six to seven hours my schedule allots.

When I was in my first term at law school there was a student in my class who had to toss her entire original first term because she was hospitalized for the last four weeks of class. Because she had missed so much time, the school wouldn't let her take her exams. Granted, it wasn't her fault, but she wasn't happy about it.

I guess it could have been worse for her, since it was only her first term that she had to re-do. I doubt she was able to get a refund on her classes though, and they're expensive. I'm sure it's brutal if you get mid-way and have to drop out due to your health (or the numerous other reasons that pop up that interrupt your life.)

Maybe a small cold isn't so bad, even if the decongestant does make my blood pressure rise.

Having a Life? What Life?

My mom e-mailed me yesterday to see if I could come out this weekend to see her and my dad. Unfortunately, I have a Friday evening class (after working all day, of course.) Then I have classes on Saturday from 9 to 5 and friends of my husband's coming over Saturday night. Then I have an all day event at law school on Sunday. So I told her maybe next week I could come out.

Good thing it wasn't an emergency.

I think one of the hardest things about law school is that I am so wrapped up in studying or working that I feel disconnected to those people who mean the most to me and who support me. It's not like I NEVER see them, because I do every so often. I just don't see them as much as I used to. And I miss them.

It's not just my parents either. I don't see my non-law school friends very often anymore either, or my brother and his kids, or my in-laws. I'm thankful that I do get to see my husband every day, even if it's just to crawl into bed every night next to him.

I know I need to make more time for them... I'm just not sure how (or where).

I think I'm bored...

I have to say that my classes this term are lackluster. Specifically, I'm taking Administrative Law and Property II, with a sprinkle of Immigration law thrown into the mix.

My professor for Admin law is enthusiastic about his job as an administrative judge. But it doesn't make the reading any less boring. So far, this is what I've learned about Admin law:

Whether or not administrative agencies are constitutional is a matter of degrees. Only two instances have administrative statutes been overturned, and that was AGES ago. So even if they're not constitutional, administrative agencies still exist, so get over it. If you're a Supreme Court judge and you don't agree with it, write the dissent.

So far, I've read 150 pages telling me exactly what I just summed up.

Property Law is equally exciting. Over a hundred pages worth of Bad Landlord/Good Tenant.

Immigration Law so far has covered, in general, who can come into the country and who can't. That means, from what the class has covered so far, that if we as a country want you here, you can come. If not, go home.

Maybe it's the dismal northern weather we're experiencing. Maybe I'm just bored. But so far, I've read nothing but bash-me-over-the-head with the same sentence for 100 pages for each class.

Whoever said the law was glamorous didn't have to sit through judicial review, pages 155-247!

Know the Cost Before You Go

I firmly believe that it's important to know the cost of law school before you take the plunge. Not the, "yeah, yeah, I know, it's expensive..." but to really know.

A $100,000 law school education is not likely to get you a $150,000+ job right out of school, unless you are from a top law school AND are in the top 10-20%.

If you don't fit that bill, you are more likely to come out of law school (unless you had a full-ride scholarship or wealthy parents) with a monthly payment almost as much as a mortgage payment and a job that pays somewhere between $30,000 - $60,000 a year - provided you can find a legal job right out of law school. Can you afford your future student loan payment? In addition to the payment, will you be able to afford to live on your lawyer's salary? It's something to consider before taking the plunge.

I knew that before I started so I made my choice of law schools based on who would give me the most money to go (scholarship-wise) in addition to who had the better scheduling options for me because I work full time.

In addition to scholarships, I made the difficult choice to work full-time while in law school so that I could curb some of the law school loans, which I still need because law school is expensive and I don't have 100% scholarship.

And even with everything that I do, I still worry about finding a legal job when I graduate to help pay back my student loans, especially with our sour economy.

Over at the ABA Journal is an article entitled, "Law Dean Says Schools ‘Exploiting’ Students Who Don’t Succeed". It's an interesting take on the massive expense of law school and who should take responsibility for students who choose to attend law school.

I'm not sure I completely agree with the article's notion that it's the law school's responsibility for our decision to go, but I do think that law schools need to do a better job to make sure we are able to do the job we are trained to do when we leave their hallowed halls.

Places To Study While On the Go

Since I work full time and go to school part time, finding time to study is difficult. Why? Because in addition to work and school, the rest of my life has to go on as well. So the following are some ideas of where and how to fit in studying when you are on the move:

1. At the Hair Stylist: I get my hair colored (I know... big shock to my husband...) so I usually spend a good 1-1/2 hour at the hair salon each time I go. So instead of reading People Magazine or whatever celebrity gossip mag they have floating around, I take my textbook and do reading. I'm not sure if this works if you get your nails done since I almost never do that. It might be too hard to turn the pages?
2. At the Doctor's / Dentist's Office: Again, I'd rather do my reading for class in the waiting room than reading the pharmaceutical pamphlets or leaflets on the newest disease. And let's face it, it's pretty rare for my appointments to ever start on time so I get more bang for my buck by bringing things to study.
3. Getting an Oil Change: I get my oil changed at the dealership because it's cheaper so it usually takes a good 1/2 hour to 45 minutes of sitting in their waiting area before I get my car back. Car & Driver Magazine does nothing for me, so I whip out my textbook and get a good 10-15 pages read. This can also work for tire rotations, getting new tires, or other car repairs where you have to sit and wait.
4. Travelling: Especially if we're headed out of town to visit relatives, my husband drives and I can get some reading for class done (if I don't fall asleep - I'm a terrible co-pilot because I fall asleep within five minutes of riding anywhere.) If we go by train or by plane, I also bring my textbook or flash cards to study.
5. Laundry: Of course, I can do my laundry at home, but I study in between loads. If a law student is forced to use a laundromat, studying while doing laundry there kills two birds with one stone there as well.
6. Lunch Breaks at Work: I study during my lunch breaks fairly often. Since I work at a major university, it's no big deal to see me outside on a bench reading when it's warm, or at my desk when it's cold with my notes spread out. I also come into work early sometimes to do some reading, but it depends on how "awake" I feel in the morning.
7. At the DMV/Secretary of State: In our state, there generally is a wait if you need to renew your license plates or driver's license in person. So taking along a textbook to fill the time is important, especially when you walk in and take ticket #87 and the notice board says "Now Serving #22".

Now, I do NOT take any reading when we're waiting an hour to be seated at a restaurant. I suppose you could, but I usually consider that time to chat with my husband or just relax.

If anyone ever looks at you funny while you're studying at these places, just murmur the words "law school" and you'll get a response like, "Oh you poor thing!" or "Man! Glad it's you and not me!"

New Favorite Way To Waste Time Between Classes

I've recently begun taking my laptop back to class because of the amount of information I need to record is more than my little writer's-cramped hands can handle. I try not to transcribe every last thing and I am pretty good about not checking my e-mail in class more than once a class(which was helpful last week when my later class prof wanted to cancel class due to snow and let me know by e-mail during my earlier class.)

Aside from my usual stops on the web like PT-LawMom and Solosez, during my breaks between classes (and at work while I'm bored) I've recently been checking out a blog called Lifehacker. I didn't realize you could make microwave chocolate cake in a mug or what sorts of time-saver desktop apps you can add to your computer, but it seems Lifehacker has it all!

Okay, maybe I won't be building an office out behind my house using a shed, or create an end table using old magazine, but the wealth of information and tips is so enormous, I can't help but being hooked.

Yes, I should be studying between classes, but hey, without little breaks like Lifehacker, my mind might to numb, shrivel up, and die from exhaustion. One simply cannot live on law school alone!

Advice for a New Criminal Lawyer

Sometimes I find these great posts that I love to share, partly because I'm not experienced enough to say so myself, and partly because I couldn't have said it better myself.

This post, from Defending People, that was recently reposted, is one that I don't have enough experience myself to talk about but I found very insightful.

Advice to a Young Criminal Trial Lawyer

I particularly like the following:

Treat every case like a serious felony case. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but it’s likely the most serious thing that your client has ever faced.

And the following just cracked me up, probably because I agree that law school does not prepare you for the real world:

Law school did not prepare you for this. The rules in the books have little to do with how things are really done. “Mock trial” is to trial as ballroom dancing is to gladiatorial combat.

Not only does he mention the basics of what you'll need starting out, but he also talks about trial strategies and attorney-client relations. If you're thinking of becoming a criminal trial lawyer, check it out.

They're BAAACK!

On Saturday morning, I walked into my 9 am class only to find the most annoying people ever to have graced my previous classes, all together! Add to that mix some new gunners and I'm going to be in misery if the professor doesn't take control of the class.

We've got our East Coast Annoyer from my Con Law class last term with the "Oh My Gawd" voice that you can hear from the first floor. She constantly says politically incorrect things out loud in class.

We've also got the Socially Inept Idiot who blurts out like he has tourette's syndrom in the middle of the professor's lecture from my Professional Responsibility class from two terms ago. He wants to be a Shark and professional ethics be damned!

And then we have the girl who really Shouldn't Be in Law School who talks more about what she bought at the mall than what's going on in class. She nearly flunked out three terms ago until she withdrew from all her classes to "regroup". I wonder how long she'll last this time. I'm hoping the professor never calls on her because I got tired before of the "I forgot to do my reading" or "Um.... um..... I didn't understand the reading...."

To add to this group, we have two new gunners who I've never seen before. They both seem to think they know the answer if they quote directly from the book, except what they quote doesn't match what the professor asked about. Here's a tip: if the professor says that's not what he asked, don't keep repeating yourself over and over - he won't change his mind, no matter how loudly you say it.

There is simply not enough tylenol to go around on Saturday mornings!

I'm beginning to feel like law school is an in-bred family that keeps rearing its sister/aunt/cousin head.

First Day of School... Cancelled! Almost...

There are days that I HATE living in the North.... for example... the snow sucks....except when it's the first day of class. While my first professor was a die hard and made it to class, the second one only came for the first hour - letting us go early - and the third professor cancelled all together.

I feel like a kid with a snow day! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Class Starts Tomorrow

Classes start tomorrow for three out of my four classes this term.

Nothing like starting a term on a Saturday morning.... with six inches of snow on the ground.... and an alarm clock that won't let me snuggle down into my comforter instead of going out into the brutal cold just to face a class full of law students who equally do not want to be present either.

Boy, I'm pumped... not!

Sedentary Law Students

I was fairly sedentary before law school, but law school has made it worse.

As law student, we lead a pretty sedentary life. For non-trads like me, it's even more so.

As a law student, I spend a lot of time either sitting in class, sitting to do my reading, sitting to type my papers, sitting at the library, and sitting to study.

Since I work full time in addition to school, I get to sit all day at my desk staring into the depths of my computer. Then, after a long day at work, I go to sit in class for another three hours. Okay, we do get the two ten minute breaks in class that allow us to rush to the bathroom, try to beat the crowd, and rush back to class before it resumes, but I'd hardly call that exercise. So by the time I get home in the evening, I'm so exhausted from sitting and working the brain tissue in my head that all I want to do is sit in front of the television and veg out. When the weekend comes, I rush to finish all my housework, then sit some more to study.

My husband (aka Santa) brought me a Wii for Christmas. So that's helped with some of the sedentary behavior in that I have to get off my behind to play some of the games - although Resident Evil 4 is pretty much a sit down game.

Having to get up and move around with the Wii (along with suffering from a sore arm from Wii Sports and Wii Summer Activities) has inspired me to start exercising. I know - gasp - actual movement that doesn't involve moving from the couch to the bathroom and back again.

My chiropractor had recommended exercise for law school since I started. Of course, I ignored that idea mainly thinking I was too busy to fit it in (and being lazy, but that's beside the point).

Then she gave me an article (from where I can't remember) that said that studies have shown that exercise helps feed more blood to the brain and generally helps students have better grades compared to those who don't exercise. It also said something about exercise increasing stamina - something I have little of. Both good grades and stamina are great incentives to exercise, and yet I still put it off.

She even tried to talk me into studying while on the treadmill, but I simply can't read and walk at the same time.

But now that my Wii has forced me to move from my more sedentary state to active involvement (even if it's just so I can beat my husband in Wii Tennis), I thought maybe I should actually start exercising. I was embarrassed that my arm was sore a day after playing the Wii. I thought to myself, "I must be terribly out of shape if I can't even play the Wii without being sore!" Who knew you could get tennis-elbow from a video game?

I'm too poor to join a gym and I hate to exercise in front of other people. So in addition to the treadmill, exercycle and free weights we have at home, which I occasionally glance at, we have On Demand digital cable at home, which as access to Exercise TV. So I started watching the first ten minutes of different exercise programs. Some of them, like the dance cardio exercises, made me freak out because they were so fast. Some of the exercise guru women were manly looking with all their beefy muscles. And some of them had assistant models so skinny that I wanted to feed them instead of exercise with them.

And then I found the set of Biggest Loser exercise programs. Both the Biggest Loser CardioMax and PowerSculpt programs use small weights, are only 22 minutes long, have do-able programs that make me sweat, and don't have super-skinny models. They have regular and plus size people busting their behinds just like me (although I still can't do some of the moves yet.) I figure if they can keep up, so can I. By the time I'm done with each program, I'm sweating like crazy and I feel really good. Yes, I'm sore the next day, but so far I've kept with it. My husband, always encouraging me, even has been doing it with me.

I'm going to try to keep doing it even after school starts. I don't know yet if it will help me have better law school grades, but so far the exercising has helped me relieve a lot of stress that has been building up in my body.

To alleviate sedentary behavior, maybe law school classes should start like Japanese companies with small group exercise workouts before class to everyone feels refreshed and ready to go? A little Tai Chi to clear the mind, reduce stress, and get the blood flowing so we can be Zen with Property Law?

More Law School Loan Forgiveness

Just in case you're interested in going into public service, like I am (although I waver between that and a solo career), there are four newer programs which may help you pay back those hefty law school loans.

Higher Education Reauthorization and College Opportunity Act of 2008

Specifically, the following are newer programs that may apply to you:

• The John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act

Providing $10,000 per year in exchange for a one time renewable three-year commitment for state and local prosecutors and public defenders.

• The Legal Assistance Loan Repayment Program

Providing $6,000 per year in renewable three year commitments to a maximum of $40,000 for civil legal assistance lawyers.

• Loan Forgiveness for Service in Areas of National Need

Providing no more than $2,000 per year for five years for Public Sector Employees, including public interest legal services (prosecution, public defense, or legal advocacy in low-income communities at a nonprofit organization).

• Perkins Loan Cancellation for Public Service

Providing partial loan cancellation for persons in specified public service jobs including federal public defenders.

If you're interested in these types of programs, check out the legislation at:

H.R. 4137

Reasons NOT to Attend Law School

Legal Geekery has a great post (jokingly) about why you shouldn't go to law school. It's funny!

9 Reasons Not to Attend Law School

My favorite is #8 "You're Not That Smart":

This is a time for you to learn that even though you’ve eaten wine and cheese with some of the top particle physicists in the world, there will be a guy in your con law class that makes you look like a frigging idiot. I’m not kidding. You know those guys that walk into Dunkin’ Donuts drooling on themselves and scratching their crotches? That’s what you look like next to this guy (or girl).

Read it and enjoy!

I'd Be Almost Done By Now...

I was thinking about law school last night. If I wasn't working and I did law school full time, I'd be close to being done by now... with only a term left to go.

That's so depressing.

Instead, I work and I have almost two more years to go before I graduate. Has it been worth it? I would have said yes two days ago, until I realized yesterday that I would have been almost done by now. Now I'm second guessing my choices, not the choice to go to law school, but the path of working and going part-time.

I guess I should just stop thinking about it and plow on. But instead I'm going to spend the next hour wallowing and wondering. And then I'll plow on. I have to because I can't change what I did and, to be honest, I really didn't have any other choice but to work. I couldn't afford not to.

And besides, my Federal Admininistrative Law text book is due to arrive (according to fedex.com) today. So there's nothing left to do but pick up where I am and keep going.

Another Year in Law School

Well, here we go again.

It's a brand new year and law school classes start in five days. I had a quiet New Year's at our house so I did spend part of the weekend doing my reading for the first day of school. I'm not sure I'm quite in the swing of things as of yet, but at least I have two classes read so far.

So far, I'm feeling ambivalent. My husband seemed concerned that I wasn't thrilled about starting up classes again. I think maybe I was just spoiled by having a long break between terms. It was so nice to be able to get things done and to have free time to waste away. I had almost forgotten what it was like to come home and have dinner with my husband like a normal couple.

And I must admit that although I love Christmas and all the festive decorations, it felt so good to take it all down and have a clutter-free house!

I'd say I have some grand New Year's resolutions this year, but I don't, other than to try to stay sane between school and work. We'll see how that pans out.