Law Schools

An Argument For Why Telling Students To Treat Law School Like A Job Is Bad Advice

That advice doesn’t give the full picture of what is actually expected of a law student in terms of time, dedication, and mental toughness.

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Have you ever heard the advice, “treat law school like a full-time job”? Well, I have. Frequently. I used to think this was really good advice and have even given it myself on occasion. However, after spending a lot of time teaching in law schools and talking to law students, I actually think it kind of sucks.

Now, to be fair, I don’t think people who give this advice have ill intentions or are trying to mislead the person they tell it to. Let’s start by discussing the ways law school actually is like working a job.

  • You should expect to spend a lot of time doing it. When I think of a full-time job, I think of the way a person spends most of their time. And that is true of law school, you should definitely expect to spend most your time doing it. But, as you’ll see below, I think this gives an incomplete picture of the time expectations on a law student.
  • You should act professionally while you are there. This is the biggest point in support of treating law school like a job. It isn’t really “school” so much as it is the start of your professional career and you should treat it as such. Remember, your classmates become your colleagues, bosses, opposing counsel, and the judges hearing your cases (the horror!).

But, here are the many ways this piece of advice misses the mark

  • It woefully underrepresents the amount of time that law students are expected to dedicate to law school. The last time I checked, a full-time job generally requires about 40 hours of time per week. In contrast, the average law school week is about 60 hours. I am in the business of knowing law students, and I have yet to come across one that only spends 9-5 Monday through Friday on law school related tasks and is happy with their grades. Sure, there is always an exception (and I’m sure if you are it, you’ll let me know in the comments on Facebook); but, generally speaking, law school requires much more than 40 hours a week, and it doesn’t seem fair to set students up with the wrong expectation. Maybe the advice should be, “treat it like a full-time job with mandatory, unpaid overtime every week”?
  • Most jobs don’t feel painfully similar to high school. I have consistently heard from students attending many law schools that law school feels eerily similar to high school. I call it the “section effect.” Students are arbitrarily separated into sections, so they are generally sitting in class with the same group of students all day, every day. This division also tends to dictate social groups outside of the classroom. This causes cliques to form and gossip to fly at the high school-like lockers the law school also provides. This effect is amplified by the presence of on-campus housing or the school being located in a small town. At least at work, even if you have a gossipy environment, you can escape it at the end of the day.
  • It doesn’t factor in the amount of emotional warfare you go through in law school. Law school is super stressful for most students, and chances are you won’t be as emotionally invested in a job. Hopefully, you will be passionate and invested in your job, but the situation is different when you are getting paid versus when you are laying out $100K+ and aren’t sure how, or if, you will make that money back. Also, while there may be some competition in a work environment, hopefully there is more of a team feeling than in law school when you are competing against your classmates for grades.
  • Law students really have like five different “jobs.” They are pulled in a million different directions. Not only are they expected to do their 50-60 hours of class prep and attend classes each week, but also find time to apply for internships, jobs, join student organizations, write onto law review, try out for a trial competition team, become a teaching assistant, go to networking events, and I’m sure many other things I’m forgetting. This is different from working because you usually have one or two main roles to fulfill in a job.
  • Performance expectations are clear in a job. When you apply for a job there is a job description that tells you what the job entails then you go on an interview and you find out even more about what your roles and responsibilities will be. After you’re hired, you go through training and find out exactly how you will be evaluated and receive feedback. This is completely different from law school. In law school, you show up on day one and get thrown into the deep end of the pool without any guidance. It is a giant cluster-you-know-what. Chances are, you have no idea what you are doing, what your exam will be like, or how to be successful.

Overall assessment: while this isn’t, by far, the worst advice I’ve heard given to law students, it isn’t the best either. It doesn’t give the full picture of what is actually expected of a law student in terms of time, dedication, and mental toughness. I won’t be giving this advice anymore, will you?

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Kerriann Stout is a millennial law school professor and founder of Vinco (a bar exam coaching company) who is generationally trapped between her students and colleagues. Kerriann has helped hundreds of students survive law school and the bar exam with less stress and more confidence. She lives, works, and writes in the northeast. You can reach her by email at info@vincoprep.com.

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