Some of my fellow bloggers have commented about how this semester is one they plan on enjoying and how they are not working as hard. This tends to be a common sentiment among law school students past. I believe there is a saying about this phenomenon: 1L year you’re scared to death, 2L year you’re worked to death, and 3L year you’re bored to death. However, I wanted to give another side to that experience; one that is becoming more prevalent.
The legal employment pattern used to be that you would work for a firm the summer after 2L year, hopefully get an offer, and then it was just a matter of passing your classes. Due to deferrals, shrinking summer associate class sizes, and the economy in general, a lot of 3Ls enter their last semester without a job lined up. Instead of being bored to death, I find a lot of my classmates wondering what they are going to do next year. On top of their regular classes and extracurriculars, they call, email, network, and take internships because in a few months, they have to start paying off their debts. This can be even more daunting with the possibility of our debt and no high paying job being cause for us to not pass the character and fitness test. While many didn’t expect this, it’s not as if life is awful. It’s just that many 3Ls can’t afford senioritis right now.
