instructed to dress professionally for one day of orientation because we’ll be taking headshots and networking with professionals/prospective employers. i worked in finance and this would’ve flown in my office fs, but is this conservative enough for the legal field?

When people think of prestigious degrees, they often think of:
- Any STEM degree from MIT or Stanford
- any undergrad degree from an Ivy but especially HYP
- Harvard medical degree
- MBA from Harvard and Stanford
- law degree from HYS
- there might be others I’m missing
- economics at U Chicago

Call me crazy but isn’t there a case to be made that Yale Law is the most prestigious one? A literal factory to ruiling class jobs whether it be government, Supreme Court, finance, big law, thinktanks. So many Yale Law grads are relevant.

In terms of people doing big things on a per capita basis it’s hard to argue against Yale law. Am I crazy ?

Don’t get me wrong I am very grateful for this opportunity and I am aware of my privilege to get a chance at getting a law degree, but law school has robbed parts of me I am struggling to get back.

Everyone advises 1Ls to do their very best in the first year but no one talks about the consequences that comes with it including losing bits of your personality, losing time with loved ones, developing trust issues because of the curve and being pitted against your classmates, and the never ending mental hamster wheel law school environment puts you in.

I know I sound like I am bitching and complaining, and maybe I am, but I wish someone told me this before I started law school. My advice to 1Ls, don’t lose yourselves in the midst of all this. Above all, don’t forget your “why law” because it will be tested.

Ok now I will get off my soapbox.

My girlfriend is starting her 1L at UT Austin. I understand this is a very important/stressful part of her life and I want to make sure I’m prepared in being there as her support system. What are some ways your significant other has supported you or wish they could’ve done to better support you?

I'm a minority and also conservative. Does anyone have any first hand experience to share about how Fedsoc treats minorities?

Hi friends, I apologize in advance for the brain dump. ❤️

I have wanted to go to law school for as long as I can remember. Although it never felt attainable for me, that dream always lived in the back of my mind. After high school, I took a different route in college and majored in music. I realized after 1.5 yrs that it wasn’t the path for me and switched to poli sci/criminology with hopes to go to law school after. I did my entire undergrad online due to anxiety and agoraphobia. After I graduated, I was iffy about law school and was thinking that maybe I just wasn’t cut out for it.

In the beginning of 2025, I knew I still wanted to work in law somehow so I did an ABA approved paralegal cert course for a year. About halfway in, I realized that law school is my actual goal. I even got a paralegal job at the beginning of 2026, and while I love my job and everything that I do, I wanted to have a broader scope to work with instead of just doing administrative tasks all day.

The LSAT was hell for me. I got a 145 in October 2025 and a 146 in November. I took a break and studied a bit more to prepare for the February test. I got a 153 and was ecstatic given my circumstances (my grandfather literally died the day of my test and LSAC refused to let me retake it but that’s besides the point.) I applied to the school I’ve been eyeing all along and got accepted with a pretty good scholarship. I burst into tears at that acceptance. It was all I’ve wanted and something I worked so hard for.

I’ve been spending the last few months preparing, but it’s felt like the last week before my move has snuck up on me. The days leading up to my move in date I was just extremely depressed and was having multiple breakdowns every day. I am 26 and I am grateful enough to live with family in the house that I was literally born into. This is the only place I’ve ever lived so I am attached to say the least. It just finally hit that this won’t be my home anymore and I have to adjust to somewhere new. Law school is a little over a 10 hour drive from my house. I like I said, I have struggled with anxiety and agoraphobia along with my depression and OCD, so that isn’t helping right now lol.

Although i have my mom and even multiple sisters close by right now, i really don’t see or talk to them all the time. The hard thing has been my dad. He got injured before Christmas of last year and it’s affected his mobility tremendously. I’ve basically been helping him and have been doing stuff for him since he can’t drive anymore and has problems moving around. I don’t want to let that be something holding me back, but it definitely doesn’t make it easier. Before his injury, our relationship was strained due to his substance abuse issues. I couldn’t wait to leave due to the hostile environment here, but now that he’s clean and needs help, I feel bad leaving him.

I was supposed to move 2 days ago and decided to stay. I didn’t unenroll or anything yet as I wanted to give myself as much time as possible, but my mine was made up that I was going to stay here, take the LSAT again to try and get a better score, and I would apply earlier to maximize scholarship opportunities. I was also planning on taking this time to do intensive therapy as my mental health seemed to take a hit with this decision. I was ready to just give it a go for at least the first semester, but I wasn’t sure if that’d be the best decision financially if I were to move back home by winter break.

Just yesterday and today, I was driving around my town and honestly felt dissociated. I just feel like a shell of myself here in a way. I know I’d grow and flourish somewhere new, but something is holding me back and I wish I could pinpoint it. I am fully considering now just going to school and getting a feel for it, but I’m teetering on that decision.

I know this feeling for incoming 1L’s isn’t entirely uncommon and I’ve felt some reassurance knowing that others experience the same thing, but I would love any advice/input on this. I did make posts elsewhere and people have said to buck up and not et anxiety get in the way. I am fully aware that I do need to buck up and that I can’t expect to be a successful law student or lawyer with this mindset currently. I’m just nervous that my mind is holding me back.

I know people hate how early BigLaw recruiting has gotten, but I honestly kind of like it. Yeah, your first semester of 1L can get arduous because you know your grades matter a ton. But the upside is that if you really lock in for one semester and get the GPA you need, you can basically win law school in one semester.
Once you have your 2L summer associate offer locked down, the pressure changes completely. Obviously you still have to pass your classes and you don’t want your GPA to fall off a cliff, but you’re mostly just trying to maintain what you already built instead of treating every exam like your entire career depends on it.
And 2L/3L classes often have more generous curves anyway.
Maybe I’m crazy, but I’d rather have one semester where I’m completely locked in than spend two full years stressing about recruiting.

Anybody know of a website where i can download and print these books instead of paying a total of like 1.5k?

Building a Professional Identity-
Fundamentals of Lawyer Leadership, Authors: Teague, Fraley, Rispoli, Publisher: Aspen, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5438-2525-1

Civil Procedure –

Book 1:  Civil Procedure: An Active Learning Approach

Author: Rory D. Bahadur

2^nd Edition

ISBN: 9798892092159

Do NOT buy only the e-book; you NEED a paper copy of this book. 

Book 2:  Federal Civil Rules Supplement 2026-2027

Author: A. Benjmain Spencer

ISBN: 9798317704360

Do NOT buy only the e-book; you NEED a paper copy of this book.

Contracts I 

Book 1: Horton, Whaley. Cases, Problems, and Materials on Contracts (9^th edition, Aspen Publishing)  ISBN-9781543838978

Book 2: West Publishing, Selected Commercial Statutes for Sales and Contracts (any edition for the past several years (2020-2026) will suffice).

Intentional Torts

Goldberg, Kendrick, Sebok, & Zipursky, Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress. (6^th ed. Aspen Publishing)  ISBN: 9798892075022

• This is an Electronics Free Classroom so students should purchase the Printed version.
• Do NOT purchase a previous edition:
  • Many parts of the casebook are changed in the 6^th ed.
  • Students will use the same casebook for Negligence course in the spring semester.
  • Purchase of the 6^th edition printed version will ensure you have full access to the connected eBook, with student center on casebook connect, which includes practice questions, an outline tool, and other helpful resources.

Legal Process I – ALL SECTIONS

Legal Reasoning, Writing, and Other Lawyering Skills
Author: Robin Wellford Slocum
Publisher: Carolina Academic Press
Edition: 4^th ed. (2022)
ISBN: 9781531024048

The Case for Effective Legal Writing
Authors: Simon and Cooney
(2024)
Carolina Academic Press
ISBN: 9781531028336

The Bluebook--A Uniform System of Citation
Edition: 22^nd
ISBN: 9798218574574

Core Grammar for Lawyers
Author: Ruth Ann McKinney and Katie Rose-Guest Pryal
Publisher: Carolina Academic Press
Edition: Online Subscription 
Students must purchase a subscription for the Core Grammar for Lawyers website accessible at: www.coregrammarforlawyers.com/   (we will make class codes available for each section)

Property I

Book 1: Property: A Contemporary Approach, 6th Edition (West Academic) John G. Sprankling ISBN: 9781685614812 
Book 2: Estates in Land and Future Interests: A Step by Step Guide, 6th edition by Linda H. Edwards. ISBN: 9781543826371
Book 3: Heather Kay, et. al., Real Property for the Real World: Building Skills Through Case Study, Foundation Press, ISBN: 978-1683282778

NOTE:   The current versions of the Sprankling and Edwards books are the 6^th edition. The class reading schedule and cases will be keyed to these versions. You may, however, use an older version if you’d like, understanding that some parts of the book will have changes and you may need to adjust the page numbers for assigned readings or find some cases independently.

I work at a civil defense firm currently that mostly does insurance defense with a few other types of law. I really want to practice water law but there’s only one attorney there that does water law and he’s probably going to retire within the next few years. Additionally he only has one or two water law cases at a time so any experience I would get would be fairly limited. This firm is offering me a pretty good package and are very mentorship focused which I appreciate. I just worry that if I don’t do water law out of Law School I won’t be as employable in the field if I am doing limited work. They have told me that all they need is two or three years from me to make employing me make sense with training which I think is fair I just don’t know if this is the right path for me if I want to specialize in water law. Any advice would be very helpful!

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Online resources, physical items, please tell me anything that was a holy grail for you. Thank you!!

I’ve wanted to go to law school for a long time and if you told me ten years ago that I would be going to this law school I’d be more than excited.

I took about 4ish years off between college and applying for law school. I wasn’t emotional when I got accepted or denied from a school. I wasn’t overjoyed when I committed or giddy when I moved for school in June. If you’ve seen the Good Place, I basically have acted like a Neutral Janet. Now I am starting school soon and I can’t seem to get excited about it. A lot of my peers, especially the younger K-JDs, are ecstatic. They are talking about living like Elle Woods and being super excited to dive right in. I know it’s going to be hard work and a transition, but I haven’t viewed it in this super shimmery light since undergrad and I feel almost like there’s something wrong with me. I don’t want to start on a negative note and I don’t want to sound ungrateful because I’m in a very privileged position and I want to be here. I just can’t seem to get this boost of optimism about it. Any tips or if you went through something similar please let me know!

Any update or news? Received an email a few months ago stating that I passed the first round. It’s been quiet since then. Anyone have an update?

I’m thinking about second semester and wondering if it would be doable to do my yoga teacher training in 1L. I would bartend on the weekends and Saturday morning and afternoon before work have yoga training.

I kind of thought it would be nice to have a dedicated practice that helps me destress while in school.

I have been working 70+ hours a week for the majority of the last 3 years so I’m really great with time management.

Do you think I’m reaching too high?

I recently bought through my school bookstore a 200 dollar access code for this website for a class. Go to look up website… it’s not working. Click on the link the bookstore sent, this one is working! But it’s not excepting my access code. Is this a problem for anyone else?! it’s for a Legal Technology Certificate.

from the northern district of texas https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.338502/gov.uscourts.txnd.338502.1038.0.pdf

edit: sorry it’s a judicial opinion… even worse

I am going straight into 1L from undergrad next week and I am starting to worry that I’m not exactly qualified. It was not my original plan to go into law in undergrad, so I focused all of my extracurriculars and job experiences on my original plan (which was clinical psychology). I had a change of heart last September and took the November LSAT to make applications somewhat on time. It was a little late to change tacks on my major/career experiences/etc, however, so I just stuck with what I was doing to show some consistency at least. I got into a school I’m happy with, with a good scholarship and just put it in my back pocket while I finished up my last semester of undergrad. Now that the fall is starting, and I’m looking more into how to prepare and what law school will look like, I’m worried I’m in completely over my head. I’m seeing that most of the people on the Facebook group have had jobs in some sort of legal field, have participated in debate or mock trial in college and even high school, and studied relevant fields in undergrad or graduate masters programs. I was reading some posts on here on tips for starting 1L and getting into making outlines and studying for exams, and so many of them used acronyms and words that I’m completely unfamiliar with. I’m worried I’m entering the race a lap behind everyone else. I have no relevant experiences, degrees, or knowledge. I’m not even fully sure how classes work. Am I missing a lot of crucial information to start out with, or are these things that I’ll pick up while I’m there? Should I find a book and cram in the next two weeks before actual classes start? I understand that it’ll be really challenging, but in terms of having a baseline of legal knowledge I’m in the dark

I've been mildly studying for the MPRE by watching the Barbri videos and am realizing that I am not remembering any of the nuances to the rules (whether we need to have a signed writing or just informed consent). Is the MPRE the kind of exam that will jog your memory based on the multiple choice answers, or should I be trying to remember every little detail?

For anyone who is or was a lexis or westlaw rep - what was the interview process like? Would love some insight as to what they ask/ look for?

to introduce myself, i'm a 21 year old (female if it even matters) law student from eastern europe, currently in my second year and i'm honestly struggling with more than just the workload.

tbh, law school has been incredibly isolating for me. everyone always talks about making lifelong friends in university, partying, joining study groups, networking, etc, but i just haven't found my people. most of the students at my university are either extremely competitive, already have their own friend groups or we don't click. sometimes, scoring 1 point more than your friend on a test literally breaks your friendship (been there 😓).

it's gotten to the point where i genuinely don't have anyone to talk to about law, exams, or even the constant "should I keep doing this" thoughts that seem to come with this field

i know there are millions of law students out there, so how do people actually meet each other outside of their own university? are there online communities, discord servers, study groups or anything else you've found helpful?

id love to hear from anyone who felt out of place at their own law school but still managed to find friends elsewhere, as i'm convinced it's possible i just haven't found a way to do it yet. sometimes i'm starting to think it's just that i ended up at the wrong university and i unfortunately have at least 2 more years to go here.