1L Class Schedule

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Hey, friends! Something super exciting happened today - I got  my class schedule for my first semester of law school! We were told we would receive our class schedules approximately the first week of August, so naturally I have been checking my school's website daily for approximately the past three weeks.

Anyone who is going to law school knows that you do not get to pick your first year classes in law school. Classes are pre-assigned, and you will essentially take pretty much the same classes anywhere you go. It reminds me of freshman year of high school, where you are simply handed a schedule at orientation and those are the classes you are going to take, whether you like it or not. Some law schools, like mine, have you take a specific set first semester and another second semester, and some have you do all of them as full-year classes. At my school, your first-year classes are set up as follows:

Fall Semester Courses

• Civil Procedure
• Criminal Law
• Torts
• Applied Legal Analysis and Writing
• Legal Research Tools and Strategies

Spring Semester Courses

• Criminal Procedure
• Constitutional Law
• Contracts
• Property
• Applied Legal Analysis and Writing II

So as you can see, I have known what classes I will be taking this fall for awhile, I just did not know when or with what professors. Most schools group first-year students into sections, and everyone in each section has every class together. This helps familiarizes students with one another and simplifies scheduling for the school.

My schedule for the fall semester is as follows:

Monday/Wednesday

8:00-8:50 AM - Legal Research

9:45-11:00 AM - Civil Procedure

2:30-4:25 - Torts

Tuesday/Thursday

1:00-2:15 - Legal Analysis and Writing

2:30-3:45 - Criminal Law

Overall, I am pretty happy with this schedule. The other section has the same schedule, but flipped. Their Mondays are the same as my Tuesdays, and vice versa. I know some people will not like the 8:00 AM class, but I am a morning person so it will be fine. The only thing I do not like is how spaced out my days are on Monday and Wednesday, I would prefer to have all of my classes in a row without breaks. However, there is one thing that I am very excited for with this schedule - NO CLASS ON FRIDAY!

For the last three semesters of undergrad, I had an ideal schedule where I only had class Tuesdays and Thursdays, usually from 8:30 AM until about 3:00 PM with no breaks. These were long days, but then I had plenty of time off to work and do other things. Because of this, it will take some time to get used to my law school schedule, but I am confident I can make this work.

For anyone else in law school, how does this compare to your class schedules?

I look forward to updating you how I handle these classes soon!

- Bailey