I’m a rising 2L. I have applied for moot court, law review, and the journals and did not get into any of them. Grades are average. Top 38%. Feeling down because I am trying my best but it just seems like it isn’t good enough.

I do have experience in a firm and am currently a summer clerk, but having the extra curricular could have helped with reaching the credit requirements and a resume boost.

Someone please tell me it’s still worth it. I feel like a loser.

Every week, some magnificent issue of law appears and I see a million people commenting their legal take. I have seen maybe a dozen people with no legal background talking about the applicability of the Israeli ICC warrants and the Rome Statute

Man… I applied to a bunch of clerkships. Circuit, district, state Supreme Court across mostly less-geographically competitive areas. My GPA is pretty good, T6, and after all of this, not a single bite— even for courts where my clerkship office said my gpa should’ve made me highly competitive. I’ve poured over my materials— I couldn’t find a typo in my materials and everything looks good… what went wrong? Should I have gone out of my way to get my recommenders to put in a call for me beyond the few chambers I was excited for? I’m super bummed; I knew this process was competitive but given my grades and school I thought I would get at least a bite at one of the less-competitive courts :(

Towards the end of 2L, I started to think, if I’m this burnt out now, what is 3L going to do to me? I have a job lined up at a firm after graduation, which I’m sure is aiding my burn out at this point, but I feel like I’m going to absolutely crash and burn at some point when it comes to law school.

For additional context, I absolutely hate the law school I’m at, and wish I’d gone elsewhere. Once I graduate, I probably won’t think twice about that place. I think this is another catalyst in my burn out.

So, am I doomed? (To save the smart commenters, obviously I know if I put in the work I’ll be fine, but hearing the moniker 3LOL, and being told “3L they bore you to death”, I wonder if will really feel a decline in my performance.)

ignoring you guys and forcing myself to accept that 25 hours/week of bluebooking is worth it

Hi all,

My first day of 1L is August 17th and I’m very excited but also a little nervous. I am 5-6 years post undergrad and have completed my Master’s in Public Administration last year. I’ve been working the last 5 years and am sacrificing my job to be a full-time day student for law school (money is not an issue for me). Any advice that any of you have for an incoming 1L student? Anything that you wish you would’ve known or wish you would’ve done? Please share! Thank you kindly :)

For reasons that made sense at the time but now seem inexplicable to me, I enrolled in Business Orgs, Federal Courts, and Evidence + 2 seminars and my GPA is probably cooked, but I’ll get three heavy lifts out of the way this semester. Honestly looking forward to it, but there’s still time for the dread to creep in. Anybody else play their 2L fall a bit more strategically, or is drowning just part of the journey?

Anyone ever notice that many phenomenal legal minds in the U.S. have a U.S. Bachelors and JD but in between (or sometimes after the JD) earned a masters from Oxford? Examples:
D. John Sauer

Stephen Breyer

Elena Kagan

Neil Gorsuch

Byron White

David Souter

John Marshall Harlan II

Cory Booker

Bill Clinton

Sarah Harris

Jack Goldsmith III

Virginia Seitz

Nicholas Katzenbach

Steven Engel

Karl Thompson

Any reason for this?

I knew it was gonna be hard, but damn I didn’t expect it to be this bad. I finished 1L in the bottom third of my class. I was rejected from every clinic I applied to (and now all of them are full, so I can’t even try for ones I’m not interested in), law review and secondary journals, moot court, and now for being a TA for our legal writing program.

I had dreams of clerking and being able to make a big impact on the world through my legal career, and it feels like every door to those dreams has been slammed in my face. It took months to find an internship for this summer and the program ended up being so poorly managed that I won’t even leave with a writing sample after 2 months of begging for legal work to do.

I’m just so tired of it all. I’ve given it everything that I have and it’s been so hard seeing it amount to essentially nothing. I feel lost right now, and the dreams I had coming into law school no longer feel feasible. Does anybody have any advice for how to keep moving forward or find new dreams after facing this much rejection?

I am in NYC and in a situation where I have the option to stay in my current apt with two close friends (non-students), 7 min walk from campus, very spacious common spaces and bedroom, with my own private bathroom in my room, but very much on the pricier side, OR move into a 2 bed student housing apartment that is muchh cheaper, 15 min walk from campus (or one subway stop), just as spacious as my current place (w some more natural lighting actually), and I share a bathroom with one person (business student).

cost-wise, the student housing is def better, but I have really loved living with my friends. I know that it's good to have friends and social time during the chaos of 1L year, but I also worry that I would be paying a ton just to end up spending most of my time locked away in the library. even if I moved out, I would still be able to hang out with my friends since they live by campus. and I prob won't have the time to hang out with them in our apartment like we usually do anyways. but again, ppl have told me that it can be a game changer to live with friends during law school. and moving is a hassle.

I've heard mixed opinions so wanted to hear your guys' thoughts. how much time do you actually end up having to socialize in 1L year? do you find that living with friends affects your academic performance? do you prefer to have separation, where you can visit friends when you want but don't live with them? or do you think that living with friends has been significant in helping you get through law school?

For context, I performed poorly my 1L year and am towards the bottom of my class so I'm not thinking about the Big Law hiring timeline. I talked to me career advisor about strategy for 2L Summer hiring and she said that I can focus on getting my grades up 2L Fall because 2L hiring is mainly in the spring. I want to confirm if this is true or not because I have seen discussion on this subreddit about applying now. I have also been told by older students that they started applying for 2L positions in the Fall.

Also, for those who performed poorly academically in their 1L year, was there anything you did to secure your 2L position aside from networking and targeting positions that don't ask for your transcript?

I am very late to the game on applying to 2L summer associate positions and I am aiming to get a paying one. Is it too late? What strategy should I take to get one?

CW: annoying-but-genuine; gunnerism

I am rising 2L ranked top 10% of my class at a T14 and was hoping to clerk federally. Just learned I failed write-on and feeling gloomy. If I do a secondary journal and other extras, and keep my grades up, how are my federal clerkship chances? Am I cooked? I feel a little cooked. And dejected lol. Any advice — on my career trajectory, my resilience, or otherwise — is appreciated

I’ve been trying to get my LSAT score up for two years now and can’t, is this an indication that Law School will be very difficult for me?

Is anyone else experiencing dread about returning to law school and coming out of this summer?

For me personally, there's a lot of frustration with my (T20) law school, a lack of community, lack of extracurriculars going into this coming year, mediocre grades, etc., so much so that I contemplated transferring at one point. But after seriously considering my scholarship and what I wanted from my life and career, I decided not to. But now, after this summer, I'm not so sure what I want...

I entered law wanting to do crim. I spent some time at a PD's office, and loved it, but thought that DA might be as rewarding if you can exercise discretion well. But now I've come out of this summer at the USAO feeling super worried about the thought of doing criminal law. I've realized that while there are great parts to the job, there isn't much that's really "legal" about it per se. You can get tons of courtroom experience, but your legal writing becomes effectively zero, and the only actual issues are questions of fact and whether the judge made a mistake in applying a sentencing factor. Just as concerning is that I've learned I'm not entirely sure that I believe in the U.S. prison system. Unfortunately, these same issues persist on the PD side as well... I want to try something else, but whatever job I take next summer is probably what I'll do post-grad, and either I completely passed up on the firms because I was so bought into doing public interest. Besides, even if I did get some other experience, then that would be the thing I would be signing onto, and while I would love to try transactional, Idek what is left in that arena and wouldn't feel confident signing onto that.

Does anyone else feel like this, and does anyone have advice? I'm not really sure how to turn this around at this point, and I have seriously considered taking a leave of absence to figure out what it is I actually want out of this career, and maybe buy me some time. I'm a KJD and have spent all year kicking myself for not taking time off... Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

This is my last semester and year in law school. Being specifically I’m from the Dominican Republic that means that my country’s legislation is pretty different to the US of others countries that appears in this community.

With that said, I’d like to get your advice guys for becoming a great lawyer and as I’ll graduate the next year I want to work hard on my path with all the things that requires what I want.

If you’re a lawyer which things and routine you can recommend me.

Legal writing 1 credit, Con Law 4 Credits, Trusts and Estates 4 credits, employment discrimination 3 credits, environmental law 3 credits.

Am I overdoing it? 15 credits and 4 finals.

I’m looking for some advice from people who have been in a similar situation.

I recently realized that I’m on track to complete all of my graduation requirements at the end of the upcoming fall semester.

The problem is that I don’t have a post-graduation job lined up, and finding this out has made me pretty anxious. I spoke with my law school, and they told me that I don’t have to graduate in the fall. Instead, I could intentionally delay graduation by taking my final required class in the spring, even though I could otherwise finish earlier. I’m trying to figure out which option makes more sense.

On one hand, graduating earlier seems like it gets me into the workforce sooner and lets me take the bar earlier. On the other hand, staying enrolled for one more semester would give me additional time to apply for jobs, network, participate in OCI or other recruiting opportunities if available.

For those who have been in this position, or who hire new attorneys, which would you recommend?
I’d especially appreciate hearing from anyone who intentionally delayed graduation or who graduated without a job lined up.

Currently trying not to freak out too much so thanks in advance.

New property hypo just dropped

I’m a rising 2L who’s in house this summer at a large company. I had a large research project that turned into a large memo throughout the summer. Today I just got it back and it was lowkey torn apart. Is this part of the normal 1L summer experience or is there an actual gap in my skill set? Gonna go over it with my supervising attorney this afternoon wish me luck.

EDIT: Thanks everyone for the kind responses, just want to emphasize I’m not upset that it’s torn apart, I feel like if they didn’t tear it apart I wouldn’t learn anything. (Excuse earlier tone as I didn’t have my morning coffee yet) Just never did work like this before so I just want to address if it’s a skill issue or par for the course. It seems just mostly writing style with some places I could have pushed research further. Thanks for helping a first gen out :)

EDIT 2: Keeping this post up and not deleting it so future 1Ls can reference it. It was an internal transactional diligence memo and I was actually praised by my supervising attorney. They said “I can run it past 5 different lawyers and get 5 different responses.” It really is par for the course and actually very useful. Do not fear feedback!