Law According To A King... Living The Life Of A Law Student

Today marks one year since my very first blog post on Boris Johnson's decision to prorogue Parliament. My predictions and legal judgment, in that case, missed the mark entirely, leading to a later post in which I analysed the Supreme Court's decision that unanimously held the prorogation of Parliament wasn't just unlawful, but null and void entirely. 

I started this blog to help deepen my understanding of the legal world, improve my exam grades at law school, and explore new topics that my course didn't cover. I have achieved all three of these. The past year has seen me write posts on the liability of Willy Wonka, the Black Lives Matter movement and the US Constitution's Commerce Clause. I have covered the laws of property, tort, contract, constitutions, and intellectual property, and improved my exam average by a solid 1%!

This blog, which I initially only shared with close friends and family, has surpassed all of my expectations, from 1 view per post to over 100 views, and now I have secured a training contract, and am looking forward to completing both the LLB and the LPC/LLM, I think this is the perfect time to take this blog more seriously, as more than just a learning tool for me, and adapt it into something which can educate others as well. 

In this spirit, I am excited to announce the launch of the Law According To A King Podcast, in which I shall be interviewing practicing lawyers, academics, law students, and others, to gain new insight into the world of law, and provide a learning tool for others. Each blog post, published fortnightly, will be paired with a podcast episode that will aim to examine new areas and provide a new, invaluable perspective on the topic, and I hope you subscribe, download, and enjoy!

This blog post, to celebrate the anniversary of Law According To A King, will take a look at my own journey, an average day in my life at law school, and see what makes a good law student.

My journey

I grew up in villages in the English countryside, isolated from the legal capital of London. Despite my intentions to study in the US (and receiving several scholarship offers from American universities), I was unable to afford the fees and instead chose a London university with a strong international reputation and a course that looked interesting. When deciding which universities to apply to, I knew that every law degree is comprised of essentially the same modules which you have to complete to qualify as a lawyer in the UK, and so I focussed on other attributes, such as mooting opportunities, research quality, and the environment. The university I chose fit the bill entirely. 

At university, I made a good group of friends, felt comfortable with my studies, and was taking Spanish classes every Wednesday, alongside participating in mooting competitions - something I really enjoyed. However, in early March of my first year, I developed a neurological condition that left me disabled. My attendance dropped dramatically, I studied from my hospital bed, and struggled a great deal with depression and anxiety. My friends and family helped where they could, but the responsibility was on me to pick myself up every morning. As a result, my exam grades weren't as high as I hoped, and so I started this blog to push me to work harder and learn new things. 

Since then, I have applied for around 20 mini-pupillages (work experience in barrister's chambers), and completed four in criminal, family, public, and commercial law chambers. I have worked on an international research project, completed a vacation scheme at my dream law firm, and have been offered a training contract there. It was disheartening to be rejected from a dozen mini-pupillages, and about 10 vacation schemes, as well as numerous other opportunities I applied for, but it has clearly worked out for the best, and just shows that even when life goes in a completely different direction, there are still so many possibilities, and you will find yourself on a new, better path before long. 

I will graduate in 2021, complete my LPC with an integrated LLM in 2022, and complete my two-year training contract (and hopefully qualify as a solicitor!) in 2024. It is odd to have the next four years of my life more or less planned out after so much uncertainty, but I am really looking forward to carrying on this journey, and seeing where else it leads. 

The average day in the life of a law student 

Every weekday, I wake up around 9am, shower, and have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, listen to a podcast, and catch up on some reading for the classes I have that day. I make sure I have lunch to eat between classes, and double-check I have packed my water bottle and my laptop charger. I usually have a class around midday (in first year, I had four 9am lectures, but thankfully I only have one in second year!), and so I travel to campus, which takes around 40 minutes. 

My classes will either consist of a one-hour tutorial, a two-hour seminar, or a one-hour lecture, and class sizes vary considerably from three or four people in a seminar to over 200 in a lecture hall. All my classes, excluding lectures, have around one to two hours of pre-reading and questions to prepare, and because of the varying class sizes, it is impossible to know how likely it is you will be picked on to answer a question - as such, I always prepare as much as possible, but depending on the week, I might only be able to skim the reading and jot down a few thoughts as answers to the questions. It is always excruciatingly awkward when someone who hasn't prepared is called on to provide an answer, and so it is always a priority to make sure I at least know a little about what is going on. 

My classes rarely are back-to-back, and so in the gap (which can between one to three hours), I head to the library, eat my lunch while watching some Netflix, and then put my head down and do some more work in preparation for my classes. The library gets pretty busy, and so it can take a while to find a seat, but despite this, I still find it the best place to get work done. I get distracted very easily, and so a quiet place with a good work ethic makes it harder for me to procrastinate, and I tend to get a lot more work done in the library than I would at home. Still, if I'm not in the mood, you could probably find me just bingeing Netflix until I leave. 

After my last classes of the day, I head home and call my parents on the way, or listen to a podcast. Any law student's schedule is quite busy (as long as you head to class!) and so it's important to find time to talk to your parents - who miss you while you're away from home - and enjoy yourself. After a particularly hard day, I will just listen to some good music. When I get home, the first thing I do is dump my stuff on my bed and go chill with my friends for a couple hours. I have dinner around eight in the evening, so before then I'll just hang out in my bedroom and watch Netflix or read a book, and afterward, I'll finish up any work I have left to do (particularly for my extracurricular activities) and go to sleep around 1am.

The average day of a law student depends entirely on your timetable - I have never had a day off, whereas my friends often do. Wednesday afternoons at my university are dedicated to sports, so I often work on Wednesdays to earn a little pocket money. Every class I attend requires one to two hours of prereading, and that takes up a large part of my schedule, and learning to speed-read and skim is essential to managing my workload so I still have time to write blog posts, hang out with my friends, and do the things I enjoy. Most law students tend to take on a fair amount of extracurricular activities to bolster their CVs, and so fitting these around your schedules is essential to ensuring you still attend class and complete your assignments. In my first year, I competed in mooting events twice a semester, but in my second year, I haven't had the time, thanks to my work on external research projects, and undertaking mini-pupillages and vacations schemes with law firms. 

So that is my schedule, but what makes a law student a successful law student?

Becoming a successful law student

Before I start writing this section, just a disclaimer: I am *not* an exceptional law student, nor am I any more successful than any of my peers. Like any student, I know what makes people successful, but often I don't have the time, or the energy, to make sure I do these things, and so please, please don't break your back trying to be the most successful law student ever, because I'm not, but I'm getting along just fine. 

1. The first thing that makes a law student successful is organisation and preparation. I make sure I put all my events, from society socials to meetings with lecturers, in my phone calendar, colour-coded, and alongside my class schedule. I have a notebook in which I write down all of my to-do tasks, and another notebook I use for general note-taking, and I take these notebooks with me everywhere (I learned the hard way to do this). It is so important not to overload yourself with extracurriculars and other activities, and I know law students are predisposed to do this, but you have to prioritise your tasks and commit yourself to doing a few things well, rather than a lot of things badly. If you're organized and know what you have to and when you have to do it by, you've won half the battle. 

2. It is also incredibly important to attend your classes. There is no substitute for going to lectures and classes because nothing else gives you the opportunity to ask your teachers questions, and work in a productive environment, rather than catching up at home a week before exams. Coronavirus has made this hard, and admittedly, I either couldn't or didn't want to attend a large number of my virtual classes after the pandemic hit, and my grades suffered because of this. 

3. When considering optional modules, applications for work experience or jobs post-graduation, make sure that you focus on what you love. Don't take modules because you think they will be viewed more favourably by employers or by your family. Pick modules that you enjoy - I have chosen almost entirely public law-focussed modules, because I don't want to waste a year learning about things I don't care about, and I know that if I did this, my exam results would suffer. The vast majority of legal practice you learn on the job, not from law school classes, and so as long as you enjoy yourself, enjoy your degree and do well in your classes, employers won't sweat what modules you pick, or what firms you have interned with. Also, in your applications, write about things you genuinely care about. In the application for the firm that eventually offered me a training contract, I wrote about Elizabeth Warren's plans to break up social media companies, because I enjoy the topic, and have a lot to say about it. Recruiters can tell when you don't care about what you're writing about, and it reflects badly on you. 

4. Don't sweat the small stuff. You will get bad grades occasionally, or often, and you will find some modules, some topics, or some periods of time really hard. Focus on yourself first, because if you're not happy and healthy, you won't be able to learn. It's okay to skip classes from time to time, or have a lie-in when you feel like it. Believe me when I say that everyone is struggling somehow, and you're not alone in how you feel. Make sure you surround yourself with a good group of friends, build a strong support network, and keep smiling. Law school is very, very hard. Even if you got straight A*s at A-Level, you will probably find yourself struggling a lot at some point, and it's okay to doubt yourself, ask for help, and prioritise your happiness over grades, internships, or anything else.

5. Be nice. Because law school is so hard, people need to rely on each other, and classes will become infinitely harder if you're a douche to the people you are surrounded by. I found making friends very hard at university, and a friend of mine in third year had to (essentially) force me to talk to people so that I had some friends. If nothing else, you at least have someone to copy notes from when you inevitably miss a class!

I hope that this blog post has helped you, and given you some confidence in your decision to apply to law school, attend law school, or learn about the law in any capacity. University is hard no matter what you decide to study, but something about law school is different, and unless you're happy in what you're doing and who you are, you won't become the badass successful lawyer you always wanted to be. 

Remember to check out the podcast companion to this blog post which focusses on legal recruitment and starting your career as a lawyer, with my guest Morgun Knight-Adams of the Stephen James Partnership, a legal recruitment firm (linked below, and available wherever you get your podcasts from), and please feel free to like, subscribe, share, and comment below to let me know what you think.

Happy One Year of Law According To A King!

Click Here For The Audio Version

The opinions of this article are solely those of the author and are not intended to provide accurate legal advice for anyone to rely on. While the content is intended to be factually correct, the author does not accept any responsibility or liability arising from the use or misuse of this article or any loss/inconvenience/damage stemming from this. Legal advice should be sought from a qualified professional, not this blog. The opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner, and do not represent those of the people, institutions, or organisations that the owner may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated. The views expressed by any podcast guest are their own entirely, and do not necessarily reflect those of the blog owner. The blog owner is not responsible and liable for any discrepancy, if any. Any content provided by this blog or its companion podcast is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organisation, company, individual, or anyone or anything.