When I got up from my seat at the finish of my first law school class, I left a faint outline in sweat where my hands had been. How had I gotten so worked up? I had never been afraid of a classroom, why was I afraid here? Why was I literally sweating?

It all started after I got into law school and decided to spend the summer goofing off. Half-way through my "vacation" a packet arrived at my door containing a reading list and a sample case. A seed of worry took root.

Inside the packet was a reading list. The novel One L jumped off the page. A friend who just graduated from law school explained that the book was a Harvard law student's account of first year law school. I went up to the local library and pulled a copy off the stacks. As I quickly flipped through its story of competition for grades, popularity, and honors, I got scared. I started to second guess my decision to go to law school. But that was Harvard. I was going to a good law school, but it wasn't Harvard. Surely, my school would be different.

I looked over the sample case included with the packet. It involved a complicated question of "jurisdiction" whatever that was. [see the civil procedure section]. I didn't understand most of the legal terms. I worried a little more. Nevertheless, I rented a house at school, packed my things and moved.

Every law school first year student goes through a protracted orientation. In some schools, mine for example, your future professors use this introduction to scare the hell out of you. They want to express that law school is hard but you'll succeed if you try. This is generally true. Ninety percent of the students in my class graduated. Everyone was nervous -- would I be one of those ten percent that quit or failed?

During orientation the professor running orientation questioned the audience of three hundred new students in the Socratic method. He used the sample case sent to us that summer.

I hadn't really read the case. I hadn't done my homework. I hadn't felt like that since grade school. But other students seemed to be answering the questions with ease. That really scared me. How did they know the answers? How could they know? Even if I had read the case I couldn't have answered like that.

In reality, none of the first years knew. The students participating in the Socratic dialogue where second years. If I had known the first day questioning was staged, I wouldn't have worried so much.

While information will dispel most fear in law school, there will always be situations where a little fear is justified. In every law school a few professors have achieved cult status. These teachers are the most demanding and if you attend their classes unprepared you risk public humiliation.

My first year a cult professor taught contracts. When my professor walked into to the classroom I always felt like I was cresting the hill of a roller coaster. For me the first encounter with this professor was pretty scary. She didn't waste any time in finding an unprepared student and crucifying him.

After orientation we broke up into our different sections to attend our first class. I took my seat in the auditorium and nervously waited for what could certainly be complete humiliation in front of a hundred smart people.

The professor came in and closed the door behind her -- there would be no escape. A hush fell in the room. She placed her materials on the podium and coolly assessed the class, scanning back and forth, assessing weaknesses. The appointed hour had come. Looking down, she quietly gathered herself.

When she lifted her gaze to start the class, the door opened. Some dumb bastard was late and stupid enough to come in anyway. The student searched the auditorium for a seat as he made his way up the stairs. All seats but a few on the top row were taken. It was a full house. The professor's icy stare followed the tardy student from the door to his seat at the top of the auditorium. Soon, all was, once again, quite on the Western Front.

The professor gripped the podium to start class a second time. In a controlled voice she said:

First year contracts had begun and it was all uphill from there.

If called on, I knew that I would meet with complete humiliation.

She picked the late student. Lesson learned: never come to class late.

"Thank you God," I exhaled, and then asked myself, "how will I survive three years of this?"

After class, I raced down to the bookstore. I shelled out $300 on books and another $300 on supplementary materials such as prepared outlines , nutshells, and canned briefs which I hardly ever used. But sitting on the bookshelf, or supporting the wobbly leg of my desk, they somehow made me feel better.

I returned home at 5:00 P.M. scared, exhausted, and hungry, I collapsed on my bed. For diner, I prepared something inedible and then sat down at my desk to read property which was incomprehensible. Johnson v. M'Intosh, a ten page single spaced, 1823 Supreme Court opinion written in what, at the time, I presumed to be middle English.

What?! Three sentences and forty minutes later I turned for guidance to the "discussion and questions" section at the end of the opinion. "For those students interested in further reading on the origins of property law consult. . ." I closed the book, frustrated and defeated. I went to bed. Civil procedure and torts could wait until the morning. The alarm went off at five A.M.

Waking up at five feeling panicked and rushed, I began a pattern of poor preparation, lack of sleep, anxiety, and simple ignorance that would sustain me well into the second semester. I opened my torts book, not knowing what constitutes a tort. I cracked civil procedure completely in the dark about the subject matter of that course - a position I would comfortably occupy until a revelation mere days before the final exam.

Something inside of me resisted giving in to the conformity of law school. I knew I was wasting energy in "doing it my way", yet I hated being immersed in the law. I felt it was dehumanizing. I refused to learn how to brief cases and when the time came at the end of first semester, I refused to to learn how to outline my classes. I didn't feel the need to outline because I was so ignorant of the issues in the cases to begin with. I had never briefed a case, how could I even begin to see "big picture" of each class.

I didn't understand that first year law school is in many ways a socialization process, a boot camp. The professors are trying to get everybody in the class to speak the same language, to read the same way, and to think the same way. You will become a new creature.

First semester's end approached rapidly, and for me that end looked like an oncoming freight train. I was tied to the tracks.

Making matters worse, I got my first paper back in Legal Writing, a C-. I deserved the low grade because I didn't write in the proper legal format. I hadn't received a low grade like that sense the rebellious year of fifth grade. "What did everybody else know? How could I work so hard and still not understand?" Up until this point, I hadn't felt stupid - wasn't everybody else struggling too? The grade was reality. Of the 70 students in my section, I was 3rd from bottom. This grade was only the beginning of a string of humiliations.

Thanksgiving break didn't exist. Until Christmas vacation, I worked 15 hour days trying in vain to catch the rest of the class. Instead of outlining, I tried to summarize my notes in their margins. Instead of living in fear the past three months, I should have been working in a study group, hammering out what I didn't understand, briefing cases, and outlining. Instead of finishing an outline and studying, I was scribbling incomprehensible blurbs in the margins of my class notes. My confidence and concentration melted away, and I went into my first semester exams so ignorant that I thought I still might be able to wing it. When I was finished I couldn't tell I had passed or failed the exams. Intuition pulled my expectations towards the later.

Criminal law is, mercifully, the only permanent grade first semester. When I got my report card, I was not so surprised to find a C- inside. At my law school, a C- is effectively an F. I was at the bottom of my section. When I returned second semester, I checked my rank in each class. I was horrified to discover that my highest achievement first semester was fifth from last in Torts. January was a low point.

Then a gear shifted for me, and at some unidentifiable time in deep Winter, I realized that law school should not be attempted "my way." I discovered that there is a method to law school -- the same method I describe to you in this site; You brief cases and make outlines. I started listening to others who were trying to help me. Arrogance fell away. After earning a C- in Criminal law, there was little left to be proud of.

I stopped pretending I knew what was going on. It was obvious I didn't know, why put all that energy and worry into faking? I no longer cared who thought I was stupid. I only wanted to learn. I wanted to learn how to read cases. I wanted to learn how to brief. I wanted to learn how to outline. I wanted to learn how to write. I wanted to learn how to take notes. And I wanted to learn how to take exams. I began to listen. I didn't get A's in any class first year. My rank after first semester precluded me ever entering the top 10% of the class, but I did remarkably well for the year earning two B's, two B-'s and one C.

Second semester was different. I got into the grove and worked smart and hard. But the work never diminished in scope. By the end of the semester I was exhausted.

Legal Research and Writing haunted me. I never got the hang of writing in the CIRAC style and struggled with the appellate brief. It was an awful assignment that year based on my worst class, criminal law.

I was now trying to juggle an incomprehensible legal writing assignment, preparation for class and the tedious construction of outlines. Then suddenly panic set in. No matter how hard I worked, the brief wouldn't come together. I just didn't understand legal writing and if I didn't get at least "B" on this paper, I was doomed to a C- ; as if my grade in criminal law needed company. I was working myself into a frenzy.

As the semester ended I was worried I wouldn't be able to finish my appellate brief. What I had completed would have to stand - I had outlines to finish, other classes to work on. Then something wonderful happened. My research partner helped me finish my brief. He unselfishly helped me finish my brief by helping with corrections and offering insights. Remember, he had just as much work to do as I did, yet he spent hours helping me.

After the appellate brief, I worked very hard on my outlines and finished most of them.

My confidence level had markedly increased and I found exams to be a pleasurable, yet stressful experience. On the whole, I am proud of what I achieved second semester.

My first year was a wonderful experience. I learned invaluable lessons about my capacity to work and my capacity to understand complexities. I learned my biological limit for stress. I learned how to work with and listen to other people. And, by the end of first year I felt I had started to "think like a lawyer."

If you are lucky enough to get into law school, remember a few things: You wanted to be here; You are truly privileged - many people wanted to sit in the seat you have and didn't make it. If the law school didn't think you could do the work, you would never have gotten in. Finally, almost everybody in your class feels just as tired and pushed as you do.