Friday, October 31st, 2014
University of Toronto Law Student, Class of 2016
“First year of law school was tough”, you’ve probably heard that a million times. For me, the hardest part of first year was the feeling that no matter how hard I try, everyone else is still ahead of me. Regardless of how many hours I spent reading cases and writing case briefs over the weekend and during late nights, I would arrive at class or overhear conversations that indicated to me that other students just seemed to “get it” more than I did. I’ve met a variety of people at law school, some of who will stay life-long friends. I’ve also met people who seem to have memorized the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by the time they were 5 and seem just as comfortable in a suit as I feel in my sweatpants. I’m sure you’ve also met these students, these are the students that just seem like they’re born for law.
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Sunday, October 26th, 2014
Ontario Lawyer, Class of 2010
Law school for me felt like a mental and emotional boot camp. During the first year, law school served to break down everything I had previously believed about myself: who I was, what I was good at, my self-esteem and place in the world. Overnight I went from being at the top of my class and being generally successful at whatever I tried, to being completely average and struggling to maintain a place at the middle-to-bottom end of my class. I went from loving school and enjoying my colleagues, to having almost nothing in common with my classmates and hating the subject matter of my classes. In my first week of law school I felt that everyone I met was better than me at everything: everyone appeared to he fit, happy, healthy, they owned business, sat on multiple boards, ran charities, had kids at home, had 5 years more experience than me, had PHDs… and not to mention pretty much everybody seemed to be related to a lawyer in some way. They all seemed to know the system and had some idea of what to expect from law school. I did not come from an upper class background. I had never even met a lawyer. I had no idea what to expect. And frankly, I hated it. I felt so out of my league.
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