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Post 1L Flashbacks

By Useless Dicta

I had dinner and drinks with some of my clinic colleagues this evening. Everyone was reminiscing about the horror that was first year. Two of my girlfriends (who are 3Ls- so a year ahead of me) were talking about how horrible their experience was, their section was super competitive, no one wanted to help anyone out and they never even thought about being friendly in a social type atmosphere. My first year experience was similar, although I don't think my 1L section was as bad with the competitive stuff as the previous year's section that my friends were in, it was still cutthroat and full of drama. 1L for me was utterly miserable, and the class content and the challenge of being in law school had little to do with how miserable my 1L year really was.

Just as we were all getting into the full swing of bashing 1L and bitching about our miseries another 2L clinic student piped up and started telling us about his section. Apparently the other two 1L sections last year were not only friendly but basically pretty cool. They helped each other out, they passed outlines around without worrying about who got a hold of them, they planned weekend picnics that everyone (and not just a select few) was invited to attend. Overall it just sounded so different from my 1L experience and the 1L experience of my 3L friends that for a moment I almost wondered if my 2L classmate was talking about an entirely different law school.

What was 1L generally like for everyone else? For me it was a horrible reincarnation of the worst elements of high school, but it sounds like this is not necessarily always the case. I don't know why it never occurred to me before that maybe my horrible 1L experience was unique, that maybe even within the same law school the experience of others was totally different, but apparently I've been living in a bubble for awhile now.

Anyways, just something that I have been pondering for the better part of this evening while I procrastinate with doing my Evidence outline.....

Full post as published by [ Useless Dicta ] on November 20, 2007 (boomark / email).