JOURNAL OF A LAW STUDENT: THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW.

“I’m studying law at university”, or even “I’m applying to study law at university” sounds great, doesn’t it?

1. There is a LOT of reading:

However, whilst we have all heard a little about studying law at university, whether through family, friends or films, it is difficult to know what it really does involve – and there’s no shortage of stories out there, from the mostly accurate to the utterly fantastical. This article should debunk a few myths, confirm a few and make sure you know what you are signing up for when you fill in that application form! It also includes a little advice to help you settle into law student life that bit quicker. Law is a great subject to study at university but it does have its challenges: here’s what you can expect.

Don’t underestimate how much reading law students have to do.

Just to get the scary one out of the way first, it is difficult to explain how much reading a law degree involves other than to say that there are a lot of law books! Law students get a reputation for clocking up the library hours because each week you need to learn what the law actually is and academics’ opinions of it from scratch, and neither of these will be particularly short. There is definitely an art to managing the reading lists and you will get all the advice you need from older students when you first arrive, but it does take a while to get used to the pace of learning. That said, by the end of your first term you won’t believe how quickly you can pick up the key themes of an article or find the important passages from a case. Just be ready for the inevitable long nights when you need to stay up getting through an endless reading list. They do happen but they are (almost) only as common as you want them to be; you are never set more work than it is feasible to do if you manage your time well. Self-imposing a schedule for getting reading done, plus whatever other assignments you have been set, is a habit to get into very quickly.

2. There is no single ‘AHA!’ moment, but it does all come together eventually.

Certain areas of law, particularly contract and environmental law (I'm in year 2) and maybe tort, deal with different types of human action but are so similar in places that they often ‘run out’ just as the other one starts. As you usually learn only a few topics at a time you may not understand one fully until you have covered the next one. It is absolutely normal to feel a little like you’re in the dark to begin with, although universities try to organise the courses so that the first year exams at least can stand on their own. 

3. There is a rat race, but you don’t need to join it (straight away).

Don’t let competitive classmates scare you!

4. You NEED to sweat the small stuff.

There will be a lot of reading to do, and it will require close attention to detail.

The ‘sharp mind’ you need for university study comes in different varieties, and each degree demands a particular mix of certain skills. Law requires both absolute command of the details of legislation and cases, and a wider view of how different areas interlock and what they (aim to) achieve. This is shown most clearly in the two main types of examination question. Problem questions require you to apply the law to very specific (and sometimes outright preposterous) factual patterns and explain why in this specific set of circumstances a piece of legislation or principle of law would/could be applied in a certain way. Equally if you don’t know part of the case law in an area that can lose you marks or narrow down the number of questions you could potentially answer. Essay questions require you to make a broad point using specific examples, so you need to have a whole arsenal of examples to hand.

Basically, you need to remember a lot of things! And you need to be prepared to sit down and learn cases. It is absolutely normal to have legislation and case summaries stuck up round your wall during exam season. But because all this knowledge also needs to be grounded in the wider picture for the purposes of essay questions this isn’t just an exercise in memorising names, which makes the process a lot easier. 

5. Everyone is going to ask you for legal advice. And you won’t want to give it.

Computer science students get just as sick of being asked to repair everyone’s laptops.

Somewhat ironically, the more law you know the less confident you become definitively stating what the legal position in a certain area is. You are, after all, focusing on the more controversial and uncertain areas of law so it is easy to forget that some are actually quite simple and clear-cut. There also comes a week where you learn about liability for giving advice and accepting responsibility for it being correct. It’s fairly well-accepted that casual remarks in social situations don’t come within this category but as soon as law students learn these cases they immediately stop wanting to give any form of legal advice!

All this of course assumes that you know the area of law your friends are asking about in practical detail in the first place, which usually isn’t the case because law degrees are more theoretical than practical. No matter how many times you try to explain this to your friends however, you will still be asked. It’s something you will find frustrating, but it won’t stop you from asking the medical students about your twinging knee so it’s just something to resign yourself to, I’m afraid.

6. It can be absolutely fascinating — especially when you think it won’t be.

Land law is less glamorous than human rights.

Perhaps the really big thing to know about a Nigerian law degree is that there are subjects which (i) you have to study (ii) you expect you won’t enjoy. This is an unfortunate side-effect of the fact that law degrees are at heart vocational and so you study certain areas which are crucial to the smooth functioning of society but aren’t considered too glamorous. It’s worth noting that some people do come to university with a professed love for commercial law and that’s great, but it does seem to be the norm to start university dead set on being a human rights barrister. However, because you have to learn these topics in significant depth you do find yourself getting far more interested than you ever plan to. What can seem like a fairly technical subject such as land registration is actually vitally important to individual people when you think about it — many cases on the topic end up with someone being evicted from their family home, or allowed to stay despite the aspiring purchaser having no idea that they had a legal interest in the house as it was not entered in the register.

There is a frame of mind to adopt here, and it’s absolutely central to ensuring that you enjoy studying law. Find the interesting element of something which doesn’t originally appeal to you — there will always be one, often the ‘human interest’ or political angle. Make as much of it as is possible as interesting to you as is possible. And resign yourself to the fact that you’ll just have to learn the rest!

7. Being a law student is what you want it to be.

The flexible hours of a law student give you opportunity to get involved in student societies. Here, students at the University of Pennsylvania celebrate Hey Day.

Perhaps I’m giving the impression that law students spend their whole lives in the library learning statutes back to back (front), and that when they do emerge it’s to go to networking events, apply to careers or to sit exams. This just isn’t true. As with any other subject, university is exactly what you make of it and that will invariably (and should!) involve meeting some of your best friends and many of your future colleagues, getting involved in as many societies as you can make time for and having the odd quiet night in. There is a core amount of work which has to be done, but as a humanities student you’re in the enviable position of being able to manage your own timetable to a certain extent. Make the most of it! Specifically for law students, there are also plenty of extra-curricular activities which can be really rewarding for yourself and others. If you’d like to get involved in pro bono work then most law schools have a scheme running, really do make sure you try some mooting (mock appeal trial, where you pretend to be a barrister) because even though it’s quite scary it does wonders for your public speaking, and make the most of any opportunity to get the sort of legal experience you’re interested in during the holidays. There is no single ‘law degree experience’, much as there’s no single ‘university experience’; choose what you want to make your priorities over the five year period, as long as you always make time for your work.

Like any subject at university, studying law has its ups and downs. However, if you’re interested in the subject and able to motivate yourself to work sensible hours then there are definitely more positives and it is a fantastic subject to study for five years.