Law School Ruined Me

Let me preface this post with the fact that a lot of 1Ls are just now having their very first  "what the fuck did I get into" panic attack, and this post is mostly for them. But the advice stands whether you're in 2LHell, 3Lol'ing, or off in the real world as a baby lawyer. You are going to fuck up. Everyone fucks up. You are not special; you cannot avoid this. Even the best of us fuck up.  The bigger responsibility you have is what you do after you fuck up. And the answer is you keep going. Let's say you shit the bed on your readings this week. Going back to try to catch up is just going to put you in a cycle of being behind on future readings, not being able to focus on the new materials in class because you're going to be constantly bombarded with the reminder that you're still behind in readings, and generally put you in a bad place mentally to start preparing for finals. I have seen people forgo beginning to study for finals because they haven't…

As most people know, my husband and I finally flitted away for our took-us-two-years-to-get-here honeymoon a few weeks ago. Unfortunately for us, Irma had different plans, and we were evacuated back to Toronto after only a few days. 
I share this story because when we were back in Canada, my husband turned to me and said "so are you going back to the office tomorrow?" 
Now, the part of me that is a lawyer who bills by the hour and is paid based on how much money she brings into the firm wanted to say "yes of course I'm going into the office" because that would mean more billable hours and more money I could bring home to our family to help us keep building toward the life we'd worked so hard to get to over the last seven years. But the wife in me, the partner in me, and the human being who does not want her entire life's work to be notices of motion and the endless cycle of telephone tag, knew I was going to leave my out of office on my email inbox and…