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LAW SCHOOL : SECOND YEAR-THE WORK "The second year they work you to death." Although law school's three years will each require you to do a lot of work, it is universally accepted that the second year will be the one in which it seems you will do the most work. The good thing about law school's second year is that you are battle tested; you survived your first year and know what it takes to get law school work done. The first reason it seems like you will do more work the second year is because there is no warm-up period like there is in the first year. Professors teaching second year subjects will not give you a few classes to adjust back into school after the summer break. Each professor will assign large amounts of reading for each class and will expect you to be ready, which you will be because no matter how long you go to law school you will never become accustomed to getting embarrassed in front of your classmates when you are not ready to answer a question. The second reason that the second year is more work than the other years is because of the subjects you will take. Although no law school subjects are easy, many of the subjects taken in the second year are more difficult than the first year courses. Second year is often when students are required to take Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Real Property and Evidence. Real Property is one of the most difficult law school courses, and Evidence is one of those courses that some people will understand immediately while others will struggle with it all semester long. A third reason the second year seems like a lot of work even for law school is because in some classes, especially electives, grading is based on a lengthy written paper. Grading based on a major paper has benefits, but it also major drawbacks. Those drawbacks include the significant amount of out of class research required to write such a paper. Usually there is much less out of class research for final exam classes. Another drawback of writing papers is the amount of time it takes to write and edit the paper so that it is law school quality. Professors in law school expect that any paper submitted by a law student will be meticulously edited and mistake free. This is something that is not required for final exams. For papers professors expect none, or at most one or two mistakes, even if the paper is twenty or more pages long. Anyone who has written a few papers knows that submitting mistake free papers requires a lot of time editing. These websites discuss the experience of being a second year law student. http://www.landlordlawyers.com/lawschool.htm http://www.thevault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=351&article_id=14236641&cat_id=2612 Other related articles on this website include The Law School Experience: Fear, Work, & Boredom, Law School: First Year-The Fear Part I, Part II, and Law School: Third Year-The Boredom. Good luck in your second year! Michael Santana If you have any questions or comments about this article, or want to write your own article about the pre-law or law school process, feel free to contact me.
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