A Wilderness of Mirrors: Navigating 1L Fall

By: Harry Thomas

The gauntlet of your first semester as a law student can seem like an endless labyrinth. Most 1Ls are entering a new campus, discipline, and environment with no prior experience, all while expectations academically and professionally reach new heights. These are only a few of the hurdles a first-year law student faces in their “wilderness of mirrors.” T.S. Eliot first coined this phrase in his poem Gerontion which was later used by the CIA Chief of Counterintelligence James Angleton to describe the cold-war.[1]The phrase was used broadly to describe the confusion and chaos of a cold-war society.[2] While perhaps dramatic, comparing a law student’s first semester to this specific thematic idea, for many, this parallel is what walking into law school can feel like. This blog post seeks to provide guidance on your 1L fall semester from your first day in August until your last final in December.

Shocking as it may sound, nearly everyone is nervous on their first day of class or orientation. You are not alone. Whether it is deciding where to sit, who to sit by, or even what to wear, every small decision feels like an immensely difficult choice. The good news is, you’ve likely had twenty-plus years to practice making these choices. The key advice: don’t change who you are and be yourself. No one will look down on you for wearing a t-shirt instead of a polo or button-up on your first day, and vice versa. Introduce yourself even if it seems difficult because more likely than not, whoever you talk to will probably be feeling the same way you are. There’s also plenty to talk about, including your first assignment or reading.

Do your reading for the first day. Don’t worry if it is hard to understand; most of your class likely had problems reading a case for the first time. Legal reading, while not an entirely different language, requires a very different lens than most students are used to applying. A case from two hundred years ago might not provide clear reasoning for students on their first day. Even as a third-year law student, this is still a struggle I have at times. Don’t panic. Know that legal reading takes time and effort to reach even an intermediate level of understanding. Similarly, and perhaps much more difficult, is explaining this reading in a cold call.

Your first cold call won’t be perfect . . . and even if it is, you’re probably still going to be stressed before and after. Nearly every student I know left the room after their first cold call and asked their friends if they “thought it was okay.” Professors may have different methods, some cold calls lasting all class while others last only a few minutes. The best thing to do is to be as prepared as possible and rely on your notes and briefs. Good notes and briefings similarly can also feel impossible, but is something that takes time and practice. Even seasoned law students can struggle to brief cases or falter during cold calls. All you can do is try and keep learning to get better. Chances are, one cold call won’t impact your grade or legal legacy in any substantive way. The first real challenge, however, comes from your midterms.

While most first-semester classes may be graded entirely on one final, a handful might have a midterm worth some portion of your final grade. The purpose of the midterm is not to stress you out or to determine the top student in your class. A professor gives you a midterm to let you sharpen and hone your skills before taking an exam worth most or all of your grade. A midterm is a benchmark for your academic performance; it likely won’t even impact your grade as much as you think. Still, study as if it were an exam and take it seriously, but don’t let your legal career rest on one midterm. There are three potential outcomes, and each is a valuable data point: (1) you do well and your study habits are working, (2) you do okay and see room to improve, or (3) you do poorly and know you need a new way to study. I was in the latter camp and was incredibly thankful to learn this lesson before taking my first final. Finals season in law school is when pen meets paper, and you put everything together.

November through December is probably going to be difficult. Studying for a law school exam is not like studying for an exam in undergrad. You might have to make alternate Thanksgiving plans or tell your family you will be studying during most of your time at home. Condensing the seemingly cosmic volumes of reading from each class throughout the semester is tedious, painstaking, and time intensive. Fortunately, other 1Ls before you have survived their first finals season, and so will you. I would provide two main pieces of advice. First, try to do some work before you get overwhelmed close to finals. You should at a minimum start creating review documents or outlines for courses by late October. You absolutely do not need to have the whole course memorized in August and September, but this way, in November and December, you are not too far behind to catch up once exams approach. Second, truly lock in. You need to accept that the three weeks before your exams should be mostly devoted to your studies. Take time for your health and sanity. Call your family and friends to take breaks, but don’t waste energy on activities that aren’t worth that lost time. You will have plenty of days to relax and do whatever you want when you are done. Hopefully, while you feel great about your exams and finishing your first semester.

Trust me, it is not easy to navigate and come out on the other side of the wilderness of mirrors: 1L fall semester. I failed numerous times. You can ultimately still succeed and do well. Even if your first semester is not perfect, which almost no one’s is, you have five more tries. Make the most of your first semester and learn all you can—not just about the law, but about yourself: how you study, take exams, and manage your time. 1L fall is not about being perfect or first in your class, so stop worrying about making mistakes or saying all the right things. Learn, and don’t take your first semester for granted.

[1] T.S. Elliot, Gerontion, Collected Poems: 1909-1962, Poetry Foundation (1920), https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47254/gerontion.

[2] See Arthur Redding, A Wilderness of Mirrors: Writing and Reading the Cold War, 51 Contemporary Literature 867 (2010), https://muse.jhu.edu/article/424086/pdf.