A day in the Life as a 1L - by Olivia gee

7:20 – After snoozing my alarm once or twice, I get up and get ready. I’m exhausted, but I know I have to be on the road before 8:00 AM.
7:55 – I grab a granola bar and leave the house in time to beat commute traffic, which somehow gets ten times worse by 8:00. During my drive, I listen to podcasts and mentally recite the issues and rules of cases I had to brief for today. My professors occasionally cold call—not to embarrass us, but to make sure the class discussion isn’t dominated by a few confident voices.
8:15 – I arrive at the off-campus parking structure, four blocks from the law school. My dad used to park in this same structure when he was earning his Bachelor’s Degree here!
8:35 – After buying a very large coffee and putting my books in my locker, I make it to my first class (Property) just early enough to complain with my seat neighbors about the amount of reading we were assigned. In class, we discuss the “dibs doctrine” and the varying degrees of property rights. One of our assigned cases for today was Popov v. Hayashi, and my classmate suggests that the Court could have deferred to standard MLB rules to determine whether the plaintiff had achieved full control over the ball in question. Seriously, my peers are so cool and smart.
9:50 – I fill up my water bottle during passing period and walk to our next class, Civil Procedure. Two classmates and I quickly discuss the plan for completing our group project over the weekend. Because I have experience writing Complaints from my time at the CRJC, I offer to get the ball rolling for us.
11:05 – I amble downstairs to our final class of the day (Torts) and grab my book from my locker, which always takes a few tries to open (thanks for nothing, high school). This is a much smaller class than the other two, so I prepare to participate plenty without fear of embarrassing myself. Today, we have an exercise in representing the two parties in a case we had read for today. One of my classmates and I spar over our hypothetical clients, but resolve later to make up over beers the next day.
12:25 – I dawdle outside the classroom with my peers, making plans to attend office hours, study together later, or meet up for Bar Review (a schoolwide weekly bar crawl).
12:45 – There aren’t ever any classes scheduled during the next hour because so many affinity groups, clubs, and journals host lunch meetings. On most days, I’m attending one of these meetings to score some free Thai food and learn something new, but today, I attend a Lexis training (no Thai food, but there is pizza!). All 1L students are required to complete a Lexis or Westlaw training by the end of this week. It’s boring, but I’m inspired to earn my daily search points and get free stuff.
1:45 – The bulk of my day is done and now I can focus my attention on reading and case briefing. I usually love to work in our gorgeous law library, but if I’m feeling restless I’ll sit in the lounge adjacent to the law school’s café, so I can get up and chat with people as needed.
6:00 – Hopefully by this point I’ve finished enough work to leave a casebook or two in my locker. I’ll most likely have to take at least one home anyway, though.
6:20 – I arrive home and recap my day with my boyfriend, which mostly involves telling him what kind of free lunch I got today and whether any of my friends were cold-called.
7:30 – We eat dinner and watch TV while I work on some reading that requires less focus (sorry, Legal Research & Writing).
10:00 – By this time all of our shows are over and I’m back to my desk, concentrating on case briefing for a little while.
12:30 – Ideally, I’ll be showered and in bed by this point! Because I try to get so much of my reading finished on campus, I can usually get nearly seven hours of sleep. This also allows me to keep a full day open on the weekends, although that could change when I eventually join a student-led pro-bono project later this semester!