Law School: Behind The Scenes, Part 3

Reading

The reading that they assign in law school really isn't that bad. Every night I get anywhere from 3 to 20 pages of reading per class, though it's rare for me to have more than 40 total pages of reading on any given night. For those of you who are familiar with social science classes (and their thick-ass readers), I would even go so far as to argue that I have less reading in law school than I did as an undergrad.

So what's the big deal about the reading? Well, unlike classes in undergrad, there is a much higher expectation (and thus a lot more pressure) to actually do all the reading. At UCLA, I could get away with only doing half the reading (or sometimes none of it at all). As long as I went to lectures and the review sessions before tests, I was fine. Here in law school, the professors assume that you've done the reading in preparation for that day's class. They jump straight into the material without any sort of summary of the reading or whatnot. As a result, it's actually in your own best interests to get the reading done so that you actually know what the hell they're talking about.

I have 2 "heavy" textbooks (1 each for Crim and CivPro), and a little reader thingie for Contracts. I usually do the readings out of at least one of the heavy textbooks at school that way I don't have to lug both textbooks home. Thus, most afternoons after class, I stay in the library to do it.

Coming into Boalt, I thought I was going to be something of a pitiful law student, since I read kind of slow. For me at least, I read slow because I have to read the same page at least twice in order to understand what's going on. To my relief, I found out that most of the people here are just like me - they're all equally freaked out about their slow reading ability too.

In order to get the readings done, I block off at least 3-4 hours per night so that I have enough time to get it all done. It seems like a lot of time at first, until you realize that, living alone in an apartment with no TV far from downtown Berkeley means I really don't have anything better to do. I'd hate to imagine how the parents and the married people in law school handle the reading...

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Next time: Grades Grades Grades... the fire beneath law students' feet. If they're so freaking important, why Boalt doesn't have them?

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