What, Like It’s Hard? // Lean on your people

I did not grow up in a family of lawyers, and I only really knew one lawyer personally before leaving for college — my old boss at my high school job. She quit the legal field to pursue her family’s ice cream business.

I know more lawyers and law students now than I ever did before. But despite these current connections, I went into the law school process next to blind. I didn’t know up from down, litigation from transactional or torts from contracts. I was lost in a sea of snarky Reddit posts and hyper-competitive peers. This initial blindness is part of the many reasons I approached the digital desk about starting my blog. I wished there had been a tool for me to follow along with so I wouldn’t have been so alone in figuring out if this is the professional path I really wanted to go down.

There are many people like me out there — first-generation lawyers or first-generation professional students. Many people I know who applied to law school don’t have parents in the field or a strong support network from birth — they had to make it themselves.

If there is one thing I have learned from this whole experience, it is the importance of connection. Both with your peers who are in the same situation as you — studying for the LSAT, writing personal statements and submitting applications — and those who are a few years ahead — those actively in school, taking advantage of the programs and services each school offers. Maintaining contact with career lawyers and those a few years out of law school is also important. They’re the people who actually know how their legal education helped them in their careers.

Obviously, this is all easier said than done. As someone who recoils at the mention of the word “networking,” I get it. But without networking, without making these vital connections, you’ll quickly be left floundering. 

If you are a current student, it is certainly easy to meet peers through pre-law events and organizations, and meeting attorneys is simple if you manage to score a coveted legal internship. But these aren’t the only ways to make connections. The simplest? Perhaps. But certainly not the only.

I have two nearly foolproof ways to meet people in the legal field. The first one is pretty obvious — LinkedIn. I used to be a LinkedIn hater, not understanding why I needed it and barely using it when I first created an account. But after having to use it regularly for a leadership position, I grew to love it. LinkedIn is so much more than just job applications and stalking your old friends from high school to see what they’re up to. Look up law schools you are interested in, find alumni who go there and reach out. Look for positions you are interested in holding one day and cold message them, look at the resumes of people who go to your dream schools. Most people are on LinkedIn to make connections — so make those connections! A brief back-and-forth conversation can be eye-opening, and perhaps you can even get a job or a letter of recommendation out of it.

The other way I have met many people in the legal field is simply by asking. If you know one lawyer, ask if they know any others who went to X law school or work in Y field. Even if they’re not a lawyer, many occupations are legal-adjacent or utilize legal services — most people know a lawyer in some capacity, whether it is their parent, friend of a friend or the in-house counsel sitting three offices down. All you have to do is ask to find out

In a profession that feels so devoid of teamwork from time to time, where it feels like possible connections are one-upping you or gatekeeping, work on building a support system and network that has your back. Lean on those who came before you and find ways to make new connections. Schedule coffee chats and Zoom calls, start email chains and work outwards. As much as the advice of your pre-law friend and parent is helpful, sometimes you need to hear it straight from people a few years your senior who have actually been through the process.

The law school process can feel very lonely and isolating, but it doesn’t have to be if we don’t let it.