Law School Doesn't Teach You to Practice Law. Here's What Does

Hello and welcome to Sidebars. I'm attorney James Bogutte. I'm a practicing attorney and co-director of education at Access Legal. This is a series where I talk about all things related to the legal profession with a particular focus on the access to justice issues and the small shifts attorneys must make to succeed in the modern era. I don't know it all, but I've seen a lot. Working for years with clients that need representation and attorneys that want to grow their businesses. Join me as I share my experiences, both good and bad, to ultimately help attorneys like you reverse the access to justice trend, grow your practices, and of course, help more people. Let's learn a little bit, have a few laughs, and help evolve our profession. It's Sidebars with me, Attorney James Bogutte. Thank you for joining me today. Today, I'm going to be giving you the real law school survival guide. This is going to go all the way back to people even considering becoming attorneys and those of you that are in the pipeline to start law school. Let's start from the beginning. Keep in mind that the legal profession is a service profession. So. When you're getting into this, your primary priority needs to be helping people. If you're not in this to help people, you might be in the wrong place. Wealth and prestige should be a distant second to being a public servant and helping as many people as possible. So what's the first step for qualifying for law school? You have to take your LSATs. This is another area that should not be causing you a ton of stress. The aim of LSATs is very straightforward. It's to test whether you enjoy doing logic problems, because that's what this profession is. It's to test your propensity for that problem-solving skill set. And if either of those first two things are lacking, again, this might not be the profession for you. The LSATs are just... to determine whether or not your thought process matches what you're going to be doing every day as a lawyer otherwise don't stress it's just an aptitude test you'll be fine if you're meant to be doing this with a little bit of practice you'll pass those you'll qualify for law school no problem once you get into school you need to determine what type of path you want to take this is something no one ever talks about yeah you can take the academic track That's what most people are going to tell you, that's what a lot of the focus is for law school. During my orientation training, I heard a really interesting conversation happening behind me, and it was a guy whose older brother had gone to law school. And his comment was, yeah, my brother said it's about 20 hours difference of work per week between an A and a B. And I found that to be pretty accurate, actually. So you just have to make a determination. Are you going to try to qualify in that top three? Because the top three is really the only thing an employer is going to care about. Nobody cares if you finish seventh or eighth in your class. If you're going to go for that top three, great. Just be prepared to put in the time and effort. Another path that you can take is the moot court route. And this is an incredibly effective and useful path if you're going to be a litigator and be in court regularly. Right. You're learning skills that most attorneys don't learn until they graduate and actually get a job, which isn't the most effective way to impress your employer is learning on the job. So I love the moot court practice because you get tons of litigation experience before you ever actually start working a day. It gives you the ability to network with judges and other legal professionals. They see you at work, you develop credibility, you develop a reputation for your work, again, before ever actually being a licensed attorney. Probably what I would argue is the most effective path to take is internships. During your summer semesters, if you can fit it into your schedule during your actual academic year, try to get into as many internships as possible. Does it help if it's in the area of law you'd like to practice? Yes, of course. But a lot of times you're just not going to know until you're actually out in the world. So any internships you can get, judges, large law firms. Government agencies, legal aid, all of these things are going to benefit you greatly and offset any deficiencies you might have in these other areas. So what if you finish 35th in your class? If you've been working with moot court judges and other attorneys, you're going to have networking skills and a reputation that will lend to job offers moving forward. If you're... Interning. Obviously, you're going to be in front of judges. You're going to be working with law firms. A lot of times those turn into employment opportunities after the fact. So it doesn't have to just be all about grades. There's no one way to do this. You can have a combination of a couple of those different approaches. Obviously, if you're finishing first in your class and you're on the moot court team and you have an internship, you're going to get yourself a good job at the end. You just need to have a plan. Have a plan to supplement your academic career so that when you come out, you have a better opportunity to get a job. That's obviously the purpose, right? You want to be a lawyer, you want to help people, that's how you get there. All right, let me jump in for a second because this comes up all the time. A lot of attorneys want to grow, but they're stuck trying to do it with outdated systems, unpredictable lead flow, and a business model that only allows them to access 20% of the legal market. That's why I want to point you to Access Legal. They work with attorneys who want to modernize their practice, get connected with conversation verified clients, and understand how the fair practice model can unlock serious growth. If that sounds like the kind of practice you want to build while growing your profitability immensely, click the link in the description below and book a call with the Access Legal team. And now, back to the show The next thing I want to talk about is bar prep. Because you're going to go through school, you're going to be doing all these things, and then you're going to notice a very hard shift in your second and third year toward the school preparing you to take the bar. This is something they don't actually tell you when you enroll in law school. Your only purpose for being there is to learn how to pass the bar. Unless you're doing these other things with the moot court and internships and immersing yourself, most of the time you're not going to know how to practice law when you get out of law school. That's not what school is for. You'll hear lawyers joke about it. They don't tell you how to run a business. They don't actually tell you how to practice law. They're helping you pass the bar because that's what affects their enrollment numbers moving forward. So just be prepared for that. All of this is going to be to help you pass that test. Know thyself. You know how you're motivated. You know what works for you. I'll just warn you in advance. Your school thinks fear is the best motivator. Most of the orientation training lectures by your professors, a lot of it's going to be based in fear, okay? A lot of things are going to happen that are going to be frustrating and confusing. The Socratic method you're going to hear a lot about is just really annoying when you're first in law school. It ends up being professors asking you questions. They don't want you to skip to the end where you know the answer. They want to take you on this long journey, kind of embarrass you some of the time. Don't get discouraged by that. Just stay up on your studies. They'll eventually get you to the modern law. They just want to show you how it develops and the thought process behind everything. So don't get discouraged or stressed out about being called on and engaging in the Socratic method. It's going to happen all the time and you're not really going to know where it's going. That's fine. That's part of the process. Quick sidebar, please keep in mind that for most schools, the overwhelming majority of schools, the pass rate for the bar is over 80%. So more than four out of five students are actually passing this test. So you don't need to engage in this amount of stress, have it affect your mental health and have a ton of dread. You're going to be fine. As a quick anecdote, when I I was in school. I had a wife, I had three kids, I had a job, I had a lot going on and I'll never forget we had a panel of four licensed attorneys to come talk to us during our bar prep class and I was just blown away at how narrow this conversation was. It was four former students that did not have kids, Did not have a spouse. didn't work while they were in school and their solutions were like that whole summer i didn't talk to any of my family or friends i just worked that's not always going to be possible for everyone it's not reasonable either can i tell you the truth i studied for the bar on a mountain bike and in a pool while all the other students paid four thousand dollars for Barbary to go spend their summers sitting in a classroom watching a video lecture I spent, I don't know, $1,200 to be able to get that as a virtual study tool, and then I know myself. I can't just sit in rooms, or I start to lose focus. I totally fade out. So I combined it with fun. I can tell you I remember taking the bar and remembering exactly where I was on a mountain biking trail whenever I heard that piece of the lecture. I'm an auditory learner. That's how I do things. So that was very effective for me. Again, know thyself. How do you learn? What's your best methodology of studying? Stick to those things. The school doesn't know you. You are a number to them. You know you. Stick with what you know works and have some faith in yourself. So in conclusion, don't stress about the LSATs. If you're meant to be doing this, you'll be totally fine. Don't stress about academics. If you want to be the top three in your class, great, crush it. If not, you still have other alternatives that will set you apart for an employer. And just believe in yourself, stay calm. And in the comments below, I'd like to know your biggest fear going into school. If you're watching this and you've already gone through school, what was your biggest fear? And for the benefit of anybody that hasn't been through it, did that fear ever materialize? And do me a favor, like and subscribe below. It really helps to support the channel, and most importantly, it helps us get the word out. We'll see you next time.