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When Someone You Know Heads to Law School:
Advice for the Family and Friends of Law Students

by PASS Professor Sara J. Berman-Barrett

So Your Daughter or Son is In Law School? Congratulations!

We parents of young children long to be in your shoes. We are doing homework every night, with first and second graders, trying to install enough discipline in them to open the University doors, and trying to put away as much money as we can just hoping for the privilege of helping to pay the obscenely priced tuition.

So, we're looking to you with a "We're not Worthy" nod of congratulations. Your kids are there! Job well done, Mom and Dad.

But what now? How can you understand what your son or daughter is going through if you never went to law school yourself? How can you help??

If you have friends or family members in law school, here is a year-by-year breakdown of what you can do, and what you can expect.

First Year of Law School: Basically just say, "Goodbye," (and send money.)

First semester: Just stand off at a distance, and be there to receive tearful phone calls, mid-December when finals are done, or after the New Year when grades come out. Your "Star Student" who is used to getting A's on everything (or s/he wouldn't be in law school) is just one of many bright shining stars now. And, those tears will fall when they spot their first C grades! In many law schools, students not-so-fondly refer to the bulletin board where grades are posted as the "Wailing Wall."

You can just listen with an empathetic ear, or tell them that old joke one of my first year law professors told me and my UCLA Law School classmates. ("A" students become law professors; "B" students become hard-working decent lawyers; and "C" students become millionaires!)

Second semester: This is the time that law students focus on jobs and work experience. Help by offering meals when they come to visit, sending care packages with blank resume paper, and lots of stamps in them — and be prepared to hear about the rejections and acceptances, and mass interview scenes that make Hollywood audition "cattle calls" appear low key.

Second Year: Say hello again, and send more money. The most intellectual of the crowd will suddenly find a new home in what is called Law Review, slaving away at editing, researching and writing for so many hours you either won't believe it or your head will spin. All the other law students will come up for air, for a while at least, and find that those first year goodbyes did not mean adieu but au revoir. Enjoy the respite while it lasts!

Third Year: Prepare for an extremely anti-climactic graduation, (and to send lots of money). The year will be fairly peaceful, though there will be angst about job prospects yet again, what to do after graduation, and The Test that Must Not Be Mentioned — The Bar Exam!

Realize that graduating from law school, while a milestone to you, is a false start at best and at worst a cruel joke, for the biggest hurdle is yet to come. There's just one more "little test" — but for nearly all of us veterans it was and remains the most challenging of them all.

Bar Results: Now prepare to party. (And, some day, maybe they will send you money!) The other half of you may need to consider an investment in paper products — tissues precisely. Offer many boxes, and the Pep Talk of a Lifetime. Assure them that with perseverance and dedication, they will pass the next time around.

All joking aside, law school is a tough time for even the heartiest of souls, and the support of family and friends during the grueling years of study is one of the greatest gifts that can ever be given.