Law School will present you with opportunities. Many opportunities. From your first day of stepping into your faculty’s law building you will have the chance to engage in a whole host of extracurriculars.
Interested in a certain area of law? There’s (probably) an association for that. Want to get your feet wet in legal practice? There are clinics for that. Looking for a great way to improve your legal writing and research skills? There are research assistant positions for that! The list goes on and on and on, but rather than to give you a summary of everything law school has to offer, the aim of this article is to provide you with a framework for navigating the excess of choice you will be confronted with as a law student.
If I could give a prospective law student one piece of advice when it comes to planning extracurricular involvement, it would likely boil down to Nike’s slogan “Just do it.” While I admit it may sound a bit trite, I believe there is a case for why these three words are a great guide for choosing what to engage in while at law school, at least initially.
Firstly, many, if not most, law students enter first year without knowing which area of law they want to practise in. This is perfectly fine, and I wouldn’t stress if this is where you find yourself. This phenomenon is not surprising if you break it down, but for the sake of simplicity, I will just say that the reason for this is most likely a lack of exposure. In my experience most law students come to law school with a vague idea of what it is they would like to focus on, and even the students with a more specific idea tend to venture off towards entirely different avenues.
So, given that lack of exposure is at the root of the conundrum many law students find themselves in, the “Just do it” mantra can provide a palatable solution. It’s a starting point and one which encourages you to get over a significant hurdle to finding where you want to end up. It encourages you to get the ball rolling. After all, the first word in the slogan is practically screaming at you: Just do it already, would you?!
Once you take the first step in a direction, often times opportunities will open up to you which you never anticipated prior. Start accepting some of those unanticipated opportunities and you will quickly find yourself picking up steam and inevitably carving out your own path. That path will contain a number of forks in the road, those forks representing your decisions in favour of one opportunity over another. Eventually, you will find (probably, and hopefully) that the path you’re on is reflective of your values, interests and desires. This is more likely to be the case when you consistently take on new challenges and are rewarded with multiple choices of direction, as a variety of choice means an increased chance of finding something that resonates with you.
I am not advocating for a blind, shotgun-like approach to extracurriculars and internships. If there is an area that you are keen on pursuing by all means direct your attention there initially. What is important, however, is knowing that hitting the nail on the head the first time around is a rarity. Consequently, getting that hypothetical snowball rolling and keeping an open mind to whatever opportunities come your way is greatly advantageous in the long run. So, when you start 1L and see an opportunity float into your inbox that makes you think, “Hmm, that seems interesting, but I don’t know whether this is the best place to start” — take Nike’s advice: Just do it.