To be transparent, it has been 2 years since I’ve graduated law school and although many things have changed since then (not to mention of course, 2020’s pandemic), I think it would be a great idea to create a few short and sweet posts about my law school experience and tips that I think would be helpful for any student entering law school this year. I am writing this now as I am not too far removed from this process to make my information totally obsolete. Also, the practice of law and legal education had changed very little over the past years. Absent the pandemic, we would have been carrying on with our antiquated ways. The pandemic has forced us to adapt quickly.
Hopefully law students reading this will find it useful or if nothing else find humour in the pre-pandemic ways we did law school “back in the day”. Anyways so here’s my start kit list:
I think it is so important especially today as more and more courses are being administered online, to have a reliable computer. Of course this doesn’t mean you necessarily have to go out and buy a new computer for law school (especially if you already have a good working one) but you need to make sure your computer is in good working order. You will use your computer to write your exams and take notes. Nothing is more scary than having your computer shut down in the middle of class only to lose all your notes or even worse having you computer shut down during an exam forcing you to write the remainder when you were ready to type the entire thing. Long story short, make sure your computer is in working order and reliable.
Nearly every Canadian course that I took during law school had an open book exam and while yes, you are able to use your computer (usually) to write the exam, the materials that you will rely on (i.e. your class notes) are to be in paper form. We had printing available on campus where we would pay per page to print things out but truthfully these materials were often hundreds of pages and printing this much adds up! I bought a cheapo HP printer which needed ink every 100 pages (so brutal). In my second year I ended up getting a laser printer from Costco and the toner lasted until the end of the bar exam it was great and totally worth it. No more last minute trips to the on campus library to print things.
It’s important to have a good large backpack for all of your books. I would often have to spend an entire day at school and if this was the case I would pack a lunch and snacks so I would need a backpack that could hold all of that. In addition, the textbooks (for courses that required texts) were so heavy that it was very difficult to walk around with a tote bag of books (personally).
You don’t need an expensive one if you aren’t able to afford it but its important to have one with a professional fit preferably black or navy that you can wear to your first year moot, OCIs and the articling recruit. I don’t think its necessary to have more than one but just make sure it is something you feel good in and can be used over and over.
Of course this is not an “essential” but let me just tell you law school is stressful (not as stressful as the real world so buckle in) but it is important to start getting into good habits of de-stressing. For some it is partying, for me, it was working out. This helped me throughout law school as it was something I enjoyed, something I did mostly by myself and really helped me relieve stress and maintain balance in my life. I had a gym membership but also lived by the water so I would make use of the Riverside trail regularly – biking, rollerblading and just going for walks.
Stay tuned for more law school posts in honour of September (back to school season). Hoping I am able to bring some value to all the law students out there that are beginning or returning to law school this year!
