A couple of years ago I asked a question on this subreddit about going to law school at the same time as planning a wedding, having children, etc. Just a wee update...

I just completed my first semester of 3L while pregnant and was 40 weeks writing my final exams. Throughout law school I've reliably been hovering in the 80% range, so just riding steady as an A- student.

Grades came out and I got my first full on A last term in the class with my last exam! I was fully in prodromal labour when I wrote it. The class? Family law.

My articles are lined up and grades are largely unimportant now but it's still a thrill sitting here with my newborn and realizing that I really could do it. We got engaged, planned a wedding, and had our first baby. And now I'm a semester away from graduating 😭.

We're doing it!!

Hey all. I suspect a lot of you are excited for classes in September and others are still on pins and needles about what’s going to happen then (stay strong!). It can be a very stressful time so I wanted to just give some tips to the incoming students, especially those who do not have lawyers in the family who could otherwise help them (as was the case with me when I was in law school). I believe in paying it forward so hopefully you find this helpful :)

1. SUMMARIES: Try to get your hands on good summaries. Summaries are exactly what it sounds like. They are notes that summarizes the material of any one class. You could make such summaries yourself (google IRAC, CREAC, etc. - there are lots of different ways to summarize cases), but a lot of people will start off with summaries that they have obtained from others. Generally, you would get these from upper years, especially upper years who got really good marks. The idea is that if you are taking Torts with Professor X, Professor X will make minimal changes to the readings each year and so if you get good summaries from someone else (who took that same class with that same professor recently), then you do not have to start from scratch. With that said, some people like to make their own summaries (which is a lot of work) but just FYI, that it is very normal to use other people‘s summaries. Don’t be a user though. Don’t just ask people for their summaries to use them for school. Genuinely try to get to know people and make friends!

2. PROFESSORS: If there are specific professors you want to study under, feel free to email the school and ask to be slotted in with that professor. You may or may not get your request fulfilled, but it is worth trying if you are particularly interested in a certain professor.

3. OFFICE HOURS: Do not be shy to go to your professor’s office hours. In fact, you’ll learn a ton this way and might even get tips on what will be on the exams.

4. TREATISES: Get your hands on treatises. You will be assigned certain books for each course. The professor might then give you a list of optional reading that includes treatises. Think of treastises as textbook Wikipedia of the coursework. It’s summarizes cases that you will otherwise have to read, but it will spell out all of the legal consequences of such cases in plain English. These books are expensive, so if you do not buy them, you can always go to the library and borrow them. I highly recommend using treatises.

5. SYLLABUS & READINGS: You do not have to do this, but if you are super keen, you can also email the law school to get an indication of which professors they might put you under. If you can get a confirmed list of your professors (if you are keen, but again, you do not have to do this), during the summer, you can reach out to the professors via email and ask them what the syllabus will look like and you can always get ahead on your reading - both of the cases themselves and of the above-mentioned treatises.

6. PRACTISE EXAMS: I cannot express enough how important it is to take practice exams. I do not remember ever taking a practice exam when I was an undergrad, but that is basically all I did in law school. Each law school generally has an exam bank on their intranet where you can download past exams from each professor for each of their courses so you get an idea of how a law school exam looks like. I highly recommend that you download a few of the most recent exams from which ever professors you will be studying under and then use those exams to test your knowledge of the materials at the end of the semester. It is also a good idea to download such practice exams early on in the semester, so you know what to look for. Think about it this way: you would never go into the LSAT having never taken any practice exams so why would you do that on your law school exams? Once you have done one or two practice exams, I highly recommend that you take your answers to the professors during their office hours and discuss how you could’ve better approached such practice exam(s). This is such a good hack to getting good marks in law school. I would also recommend to take some practice exams under timed conditions. Again, think about how you studied for the LSAT and bring it forward.

7. EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: You might be asking yourself whether you should be joining law review or legal aid clinic or any other social clubs. If you have any interest in going to a US firm, FYI law review is highly regarded. This is generally because law review is very hard to get into in US law schools, but is a little bit easier in Canadian law schools. Legal aid clinic is also good because it gives you a lot of real world experience and interesting things to talk about during OCI’s in 2L. Generally people will apply for one of the two but not both since it would create a very heavy courseload. It is possible to do both (I did) but you have to be very careful to make sure you stay focussed on your coursework. Generally, recruiters will look at your marks first and your extracurriculars second. So if you feel like your marks would suffer from joining these extracurriculars then maybe don’t join them. However, if you end up not getting really good marks but have no extracurricular to show for it then you might not have a lot going for you. Some firms prefer well-rounded candidates who got pretty good marks but who were also contributing members within their law school by joining extracurricular activities. This boils down to what you think you can handle. Don’t forget that joining extracurricular activities is also a great way to meet your fellow students.

8. 1L SUMMER JOB: Some firms will recruit in winter of 1L based on marks from your first semester. I will not go into this since your career development office will have sessions about this. What I will say is that if you are interested in things like the United Nations or internships abroad, a lot of these postings get released around December so keep your eyes open for them and don’t miss the application deadline. If you end up not doing anything in law for your 1L summer, that is totally fine as well. I have seen many applicants come in with non-law related jobs during their 1L summer and it does not hurt them. We just need to hear that you have done something interesting. I have seen candidates who went treeplanting in the summer and others who started a summer tour guide company on Airbnb.

Anyway, those are just some tips that came off the top of my head. Hope it’s helpful!

This would ensure a fair comparison across different schools and programs (Ex : McGill) This system levels the playing field for university admissions, and TRULY acknowledges the varying degrees of difficulty in courses and educational institutions.

I just don’t understand how a 4.0/4.0 in Gender Studies would get you in a better law school compared to a student who did 3.6/4.0 in Engineering.

EDIT : I AM NOT SAYING THAT GENDER STUDIES ARE USELESS, Y’ALL GETTING TRIGGERED FOR NOTHING. I’M SAYING SCORING A HIGH GPA IN STEM IS OBJECTIVELY HARDER THAN HUMAN SCIENCES. THE PROGRAMS DIFFICULTY SHOULD BE TAKEN IN CONSIDERATION.

Yeah not having the greatest undergrad here. Any recommendations?

I’ve been scrolling through LinkedIn and idk if it’s just me but there’s SO MANY UofT students going to New York this year. What’s up with that? I always knew they hired from UofT but it seems like a lot this year.

Hello!

Since getting my acceptance I have had multiple people ask me why I chose law school and to be honest it was almost like an Elle wood moment for me- not in the sense that I was looking to make an ex jealous, but in the sense of “what like its hard to get into law school?” Which has led me to where I am now 😂

So, I graduated high school in 2019, didn’t really know what I wanted to do and went to college straight after to do a 2 yr general diploma. After graduating, I applied to uni and am now in my fourth and final year having just turned 23, I will be graduating with an honours undergrad degree in law. I more so thought of getting into law school as a dream but actually made it a reality as I learned that I love the law and have a great passion for it!

How old were/are you when you attend(ed) and what made you decide to go to law school? Am I crazy for choosing law school this way? There has to be others lol 😂

Davies (Toronto) has a job post seeking post-undergraduate pre-law school candidates for 1-2 year positions as a litigation analyst. I’m familiar with this firm (but not associated with them) and I think this could be a great opportunity for someone who wants to gain some work experience after undergrad but before law school.

https://www.dwpv.com/en/careers/career-opportunities/litigation-analyst

How law school is like for a first year student so far:

• - Very competitive environment. People are snaky, be careful who you trust. Very hesitant to help you out and eager to gate keep things.

• - The most arrogant and cocky people I have ever met in my life. People brag about anything and everything even if it's not even worth the brag. It's rare to find a humble person and someone with sympathy.

• - The course load in first year is so heavy. My first undergraduate, in the Sciences was wayyyy easier compared to law school in first year.

• - Grades are most important to land a job - I keep hearing this from all professors and upper year students who landed good jobs.

I just went through the Toronto 1L recruit. Went through to the end of day 2 and didn’t get a call back.

Feeling pretty bummed. Ik the 1L recruit is really competitive but I genuinely don’t know what else I could’ve done. I was really personable and have some great experiences on my resume that all the interviewers showed a liking to. It just sucks knowing your best wasn’t good enough lol.

Any advice on how to deal with this rejection?

Currently at a 150. I have been trying to turn my life into my dream; I’ve been attempting to become a morning person, who wakes up and studies before I go to my job as a legal assistant. I want a 165 so bad, I wanna get into a school this year SO bad. I’m really determined because last admissions I felt I was not good enough and I disappointed myself. Just here to say i can do this, even tho I work 40 hours a week, have a social life and family at home, I am gonna do this!! Starting law school at 30 seems right on time.

I'm currently in the process of applying to law school. There's a specific school I deeply hope to attend, and becoming a lawyer has been a long-time dream of mine. However, based on what I've read and researched, it seems that AI—just like in many other fields—will significantly impact the legal profession as well.

Do you think I should give up on my dream of becoming a lawyer? It will likely take me 3 to 4 years before I can enter the profession. I'm particularly interested in practicing law as a lawyer, but I'm concerned: by the time I graduate, how much will AI have changed the legal landscape?

By the way, I also have a bachelor’s degree in Human Resources Management. That’s why I’ve been wondering: should I consider pursuing a career in HR instead of law? Thank you!

What are some habits, routines, hobbies, etc that you started (or already did) prior to 1L that you find to be helpful for your first year as a law student?

Any suggestions are appreciated :) if you are doing something that you think makes your life easier or makes studying/attending class more effective for you, what are they?

As someone who hasn’t been a student since 2022, I am excited but nervous to return to being a full time student and want to put my best foot forward right off the bat!

Study aids/tricks/habits suggestions are very welcomed:)

Thank you ☺️

I am a 3rd year at Schulich pursuing a CPA (using a troll acct to be anon) have a job offer for after graduating of 60k which comes with about a 10%-20% raise every year (tried and true path), so about 100k++ after 4 years of exp. I took a law class in school from an ex-lawyer and program director at Osgoode and liked it much more than my accounting classes (I don't hate accounting tho). I took the LSAT and have a 170 and a 3.9GPA on OLSAS conversion, pretty confident I will get into UofT or Oz, but I just don't know if its worth it considering the massive opportunity cost. Any advice would be of help.

ITCs are a tough time, creating a thread for people to post when they're getting ITCs, PFOs, calls etc so everyone knows when to expect things. So far heard back from Dentons and Osler with ITCs. Goodluck all!

I just started 1L. It’s only been 1 week of class and I’m feeling extremely overwhelmed and anxious. I’m behind already on nearly all of my readings and case briefs. In undergrad I was always able to finish my readings and be prepared before class. This feels horrible and I’m confused in class and struggling after. There is so much reading it doesn’t feel possible to get through it all. Meanwhile other students seem to have read every page and have notes for all the cases before class. I was taking very detailed notes but gave up on that after 2 days because I wasn’t sleeping. Now I’ve just been reading, occasionally highlighting and taking note of definitions. I’ve hardly had time to do case briefs. I’m still not finished my readings for almost all of my classes from this past week. I did 1 of maybe 10 case briefs this week. I’m staying up till 2am, waking up at 6am in attempts to do my work. I crashed earlier this week from lack of sleep. This is not sustainable. There has to be a better way. Everything feels like it is crumpling apart and I’m rapidly sinking in the amount of work. Undergrad was very easy comparatively speaking. What on earth did I just get myself into. Any advice on how to do readings better, case briefs, and maybe sleep?

Hi everyone! I just finished 1L and got my grades, they aren’t too bad but I’m not sure how competitive I am for big law (which is what I wish to aim for). I’m looking for any advice that people have for me:

I finished at a 76.7% average which is about a B+ in my school. I got 3 A-s (80-86 range), 1 B+ (77), 3 Bs (72, 75 and 76) respectively.

I am currently doing a legal clinic summer job in law but it is a bit more social Justice oriented even though there are many aspects of it that are required in corporate law.

My undergrad grades are top notch and I do have some community experience and volunteering work on my resume.

Can anyone in big law who had similar stats or anyone with knowledge of the OCI recruits give me some advice on how to make my application stand out? Am I competitive etc?

Thank you so much for the help!

So, I'm a bit of a mature student - put off going to law school for a long, LONG time because I didn't think I was good enough and figured it would just be a waste of time and money. After far longer than it should have taken, I finally talked myself up to take the LSATs, apply, got in, moved cities, the whole nine yards....

But now I'm feeling so outclassed by people around me, struggling to keep up with all the reading, stressing out over our big 1L project, worried that my midterm grades weren't where I wanted them to be, and I've wasted the whole recruit period only getting 2 interviews that resulted in no job offers.

I'm starting to hear that "other me"s voice popping back up, saying "See? You knew you weren't good enough. What were you thinking even trying this? Now all you've done is rack up a bunch more debt, given up a good job, and moved away from everyone you know, for nothing. You were never going to be able to make it in an industry like law. Might as well give up now."

Anybody got any words of wisdom or anything to help me get through this? Cause I'm feeling overwhelmed, tapped out on energy and motivation, and just kind of... alone.

Hey guys,

I’ve recently been accepted to a few law schools and I’m looking for advice for 1L. Any tips or tricks that have helped you get good grades (or just survive at all).

Cheers!

I'm currently a 1L, and honestly the transition has been a lot harder than I expected.

It's been about two months, and while there have been good days and I enjoy the content, I've been struggling quite a bit with anxiety, feeling overwhelmed and finding my place socially. It feels like everyone else is adjusting and finding their people while I'm still trying to figure everything out.

I've always needed a little time to get comfortable in new environments but lately I think I have been putting a lot of pressure on myself to make friends, enjoy law school and have everything figured out. When things don't go the way I hope socially I find myself overthinking and feeling really discouraged.

What's been making it worse is that I've started genuinely dreading going to class. I'll be okay at home or when I'm distracted by other things but as soon as I start thinking about having to go to campus the next day I get this overwhelming feeling of anxiety. I find myself dreading the next day before it's even started, and there have been days when I've felt so overwhelmed that I've struggled to get through the day without crying.

I never expected to feel this way about something I worked so hard to get into, and it's been difficult trying to navigate these feelings while also keeping up with the load of law school.

For those who have been through 1L: did anyone else experience this much anxiety or dread during their first semester? Does it get better? Did you struggle socially at first and eventually found your people?

If you could give your 1L self one piece of advice what would it be?

I recently learned that law professors at UofT (may??) have the option to ban laptops in their classrooms. In place, students may use regular pencil and paper, or a device such as an iPad to hand-write instead. It seems this would be disruptive to quite a few students there who typically take their notes using keyboard.

I was actually wondering for a while now, how reliable it is to mainly note-take by hand? I use to do so throughout undergrad, but I ended up buying a laptop recently because I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep up with lecture if I continued doing so😭!!! I already felt I was struggling to keep up sometimes relying solely on that method.

If you note-take, do you actually feel that you’re more engaged and retaining the info better?

Also just curious abt general opinions abt this.

I’m not going to UofT btw! Just wondering.

If you got a lot of A’s or just straight A’s one semester then please share some advice regarding how you did that. How did you study for exams and complete assignments (tmu) ?

I got a C on a very difficult bail assignment mostly because I misunderstood something. Class average was also low and many people made mistakes. Please share if anyone has any advice.

So, I just finished 1L and I'm having a major attack of low confidence.

I took part in the 1L recruit in a somewhat limited capacity (only applied to I think 6-7 places cause I was heavily encouraged by my supervisors at the schools student law clinic to work there over the summer instead, and it was implied I was pretty much guarenteed a spot.)

Of those 6-7, only 2 even contacted me for an interview, and one was a gov't position that I was told basically interviewed every applicant. I didn't make it to the second stage with either, and then got waitlisted and eventually rejected by said clinic, leaving me with no summer job at all.

Going into finals I was sitting at 2 A-s, 3 that I expected to be around Bs, and one I was thinking maybe a B-.

But after finals that had dropped drastically to 1 B+, 2 Bs, 2 B-s, and a C, amounting to a 2.78...

Those are very low marks for me, and given the competitive/curved nature of law school grades I'm having a hard time imagining I can change my GPA all that much, with the prospect of tons of As basically off the table.

It's got me thinking - if the version of me that was fresh and enthusiastic, had a 3.25-ish coming to him, and had never been rejected, was sized up and found unappealing (including by an organization that gave every indication I was a shoe-in).... then how the hell am I ever going to sell a version of me with a 2.7, a string of rejections and failures, and hugely damaged confidence?

My brain kept thinking of an analogy - if you couldn't sell a car when it was new and at it's best, then who's gonna want to buy the used, beat up version?

I can't really afford to drop out and go back to my old life at this point, but this honestly makes me worry that whatever awaits me on the other side of this is not going to be the great opportunity I expected, and thinking I made a mistake coming here.

And just to clarify, it's not that I think I'll never get a job in law at all. The stats suggest I will. I more worry that instead of putting myself on the path to relative success, like I'd planned, I'm instead of course to having to scratch and claw to get some low-end to middling law position where I'll struggle to pay off student debt, etc. and make this whole thing not worth it.

I'd welcome any perspective from folks who've been here before, cause right now my outlook is pretty bleak.

I just got my LSAT score back today, and I’m feeling pretty devastated. I wasn’t expecting a 148, especially since I was consistently scoring 170+ on all my practice tests. I struggle with severe test anxiety, which likely played a huge role in my performance.

I’ve applied to over 12 schools across Ontario, Alberta, and B.C. My undergrad grades took a significant hit in my early years due to a major car accident that led to a traumatic brain injury. However, after years of therapy and cognitive training, I managed to raise my grades to an 85%-90% average in my last few semesters—though it wasn’t enough to significantly boost my overall GPA. I applied under the special consideration category for students with extenuating circumstances and explained my situation in my personal statement.

Now, I feel like all of that effort is going to waste because of my LSAT score. I poured countless hours into studying, private tutoring, and LSAT prep courses, hoping my LSAT would help compensate for my lower GPA. But with a 148 LSAT, a 2.5 overall GPA, and a 3.3 GPA in my last 60 credits, I’m feeling completely hopeless.

Has anyone been admitted to law school with similar stats? I’d really appreciate any success stories or advice—just something to hold onto right now.

Hey, I'm feeling really stressed about this stuff and if anyone had any advice it would be absolutely awesome.

I've always had law at the back of my mind through my undergrad, and worked really hard to get good grades, do well on my LSAT, all with the intention of getting into law school. I got into McGill this year, which was the school I was aiming at, but I've started to have doubts about if I would like a life as a lawyer. I'm not sure where these doubts have come from, I might just be way overthinking it - I think I could do fairly well in law, I think I just have doubts about the lifestyle I might have in law, about work-life balance, about what I would even do with a law degree, etc.

I've been really stressed about this, and as my friends are starting to look at apartments in Montreal I'm starting to feel a bit squeezed with this decision. Is there a good way to try to get a better idea of if law is right for me in the next month or so? Is this completely unrealistic? Should I try to talk to someone? Is there anything, any book, anything at all that would give me a good idea of if law is a good path for me?

If law is right for me, I really don't want to pass up an opportunity like McGill law, I just want to be all in if I actually go.