Angela Vorpahl: Hey, guys.
Welcome back.
I heard from a lot of you that you're heading into your 1L year of law school and so I wanted
to make this video about all the things that I wish I would've known when I started law
school and specifically, what to focus your time on, how to avoid unnecessary stress and
the mistakes that I made and how to better know the beast that you're about to go to
battle with.
And so if you're looking for inside tips into law school, then keep watching.
Angela Vorpahl: Number one, being cold-called on in class has zero impact on your final
grade.
So don't overly focus on it.
As stressful and scary as movies portray cold-calling to be and how terrifying it actually can be
in real life, it doesn't impact you final grade.
Your grade is only based on a final at the end of the semester and that is it.
So practically speaking, what does that mean for you?
Angela Vorpahl: You're going to be assigned so many cases to read in all of your classes
that it is impossible to memorize all the details of those cases.
You're not going to need to know all the details of those cases for your final exam, so don't
waste your time trying.
Nobody cares how prepared or insightful or intelligent you sound when you're speaking
in class.
They are all to busy being relieved that they weren't the ones being called on.
Generally speaking, the people that talk the most in class, whether that's them being cold-called
on or them just volunteering to answer a professor's question, may understand details of things
really well, but do not put in the time outside of class to study and do well on exams.
So don't let them intimidate you.
Angela Vorpahl: Number two, invest time in making friends in law school.
And this is one of the things that I think doesn't get emphasized nearly enough because,
for example, in business school, people getting their MBA's, this is all they're doing, right?
Is making connections and making friendships because they realize the value that those
connections and friendships can have for them down the road.
But those connections are just as valuable for people in law school because these people
can and will continue to pop back up into your life as colleagues as opposing counsels
as clients as contacts for job opportunities and hopefully as deeper friends if you guys
continue to work together over the years.
Because five, 10, 15 years from now, you guys won't be baby lawyers anymore.
You will be partners in law firms, you will be in-house counsel at corporations, you'll
be business leaders and everyone always prefers to do business with people they know over
total strangers.
And so, that's when knowing people is really going to come into play.
Angela Vorpahl: I know that law school is a ton of work and takes up a lot of time,
but there are definitely moments that you can find to get to know the people in your
class, to reach out, to chat, to learn peoples names, to follow each other on social media,
to go to the organized happy hours.
You don't have to be best friends with everyone, obviously, but when you keep in contact like
that, it creates a possibility to have real impact on each others career trajectories
down the road in a way that's mutually beneficial to both of you.
Angela Vorpahl: Number three, the first year of law school is by far the hardest, but the
good news is that means that it just continues to get better and better and the reason that
it's so hard is because you've never done it before.
You haven't gone through a round of exams yet.
You don't know what to expect in terms of how much reading there is or how long it takes
you or if you're studying methods work or if they're getting you the grades you want.
You don't have any feedback in terms of your progress throughout the semester or how to
improve on things.
And so, you're just at a disadvantage because you don't have that information yet and you
can't have that information until you get that first round of grades the first semester
and really the first and second rounds of grades for your 1L year.
Angela Vorpahl: Another reason why 1L year is so difficult is because all of your classes
will be graded on a curve, which means that only a certain number of people can get A's,
A minuses, B, B pluses, et cetera.
And so you're not only graded on how you do on the exam, but how everyone else in your
class does on the exam, which just makes 1L year inherently much more competitive.
Angela Vorpahl: Another reason why 1L year is so much more difficult is because it's
widely known that your 1L grades are the most important grades of law school.
Those are the ones that are going to determine whether or not you get an offer at a law firm,
which is perceived by many people to be the goal of law school.
And so not only is 1L year more difficult because you don't know what you're doing yet,
it's also inherently more competitive because of the curve and there's also a lot more on
the line.
Angela Vorpahl: Once you reach you 2L year, things tend to calm down a little bit.
You understand how the law school exam system works.
You understand how to study and how to prepare and allocate your time.
A lot of your non-core classes are not going to be graded on a curve, so you can sign up
for classes that tend to have a much more lenient grading system and if you don't get
a job offer with a law firm, you realize that it's not the end of the world, that there
are a lot of other job opportunities out there to pursue.
Angela Vorpahl: Number four, law review is the worst and I hesitated to put this one
on here because I can't actually tell you in good faith not to go out for law review
because for institutional reasons, unfortunately, law review is still very beneficial to have
on your resume.
Law firms look for it.
In fact, some law firms require it in order to get an interview with them.
Judges will look for it on your resume and may even require it to get a judicial clerkship
interview and so it does have a lot of benefits.
It's just that it doesn't give you any practical skills at all.
Angela Vorpahl: You're going to be doing a lot of menial work and it's going to take
up a lot of time.
And so, an infinitely better option, in my opinion, is doing something much more substantive.
So that can take the form of working in a clinic, which is where law students are actually
representing real clients and you're going to learn the substantive law of whatever type
of clinic you're in.
And that can be transactional type clinics or litigation based clinics or joining a mock
trial or moot court team and those are going to be competitive teams that either, for mock
trial for example, are a simulation of a jury trial where you doing openings and closings
and cross examinations and direct examinations of witnesses or you're doing a simulation
of an oral argument in front of an appellate court.
Angela Vorpahl: So any one of those options will teach you actual lawyering skills that
are actually going to be very beneficial and something you can use in practice.
And so if you choose not to go out for law review, or you don't make law review, you're
actually going to be in a really, really neat position.
Angela Vorpahl: And number five, try not to work for a law firm your 1L summer.
And I know it can be difficult to turn that cash down, to turn that prestige down, but
your 1L summer really is one of the only chances you're going to get to have real legal experience
outside of a law firm world because for many of us we're told that getting a job in a law
firm is the ultimate goal, is the only goal.
And so when you have that one-track mindset, you don't ever look around to see what other
types of law there are, what other sectors that you can work in.
That 1L summer is so much more flexible it's so much more open.
It doesn't matter what you do that summer as long as you do something law related.
And so, capitalizing on that time to really use your law degree for something different,
to see what kind of different sectors and types of law are out there is something I
would completely recommend doing.
Angela Vorpahl: For me personally, I didn't get a law firm clerkship that first summer
and I instead interned for a non-profit that worked mainly on asylum cases and I interned
for the district attorney's office doing misdemeanors and felonies.
And I loved both experiences.
I never would've even thought to have worked in those areas if it weren't for that summer.
Angela Vorpahl: If you guys are headed into law school, let me know in the comment section
below what year you're heading into and what tip you think you might actually employ while
you're there.
I'm also going to link over here the two videos I made on how to study for law school and
how to take law school exams.
So hopefully those help you guys out as well.
And as always, if you like the video, give it a big thumbs up, share it with someone
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Thank you guys for watching.
I'll see you in the next one.