DANIEL STYLER
<Staff Writer>
Entering law school can be an overwhelming time for even the most level-headed student. During your first year at Osgoode you will be faced with circumstances and engaged in conversations that you never considered as you played Minecraft and ate Doritos in your artificially lit basement apartment this past summer. What the hell is an OCI? Why are people camping out overnight to volunteer at a legal aid clinic? And why does my Property Law professor keep saying “fee simple”?
For this reason, upper year students (colloquially known as “upper tiers”) can be an invaluable resource as you navigate your first year of law school. With this in mind, I have consulted with two of the brightest students I know at Osgoode, [redacted] and Daniel Hamson, to compile a definitive guide to success. By reading this and taking somewhere between 4-5 hours to contemplate what you’ve just read, you’ll already be well on your way to becoming the Class of 2016 Gold Medalist.
First, you need to be competitive. This involves more than merely having a strong desire to be more successful than others; it involves displaying this desire in the most audacious manner imaginable. Rather than viewing your fellow students as classmates and future colleagues, view each one as an individual rung on a ladder to The Top.
For example, if you see a fellow student at an interview for a job that you really want, we would strongly suggest commenting critically on their choice of clothing. The employer will notice the resultant deflation in confidence displayed by your classmate, and you will be in a better position to secure that coveted position.
When people ask you how you did on your Torts mid-term, the only acceptable response is, “A+, of course. And I didn’t even study!” Don’t worry if you actually received a C and have no idea what the “duty of care” is. The perception of success, even if not combined with actual success, is more than enough to have your fellow students questioning their probably completely acceptable studying techniques and wondering why everything comes so easily to you.
Second, don’t be too social. Once employed, you will want to brag about the 2,000 hours you have billed (while a tangential benefit of billing this many hours will be making yourself money by way of a bonus, the primary benefit is making your firm money). Therefore, organizing your social time in six minute packets in a way that helps you remain cognizant of the need to minimize non-law related activities and interactions is a must from Day 1. Here are some tips to reduce your daily social time from a shamefully high, undergraduate level 8.0 non-billable hours into an efficient, Legal Eagle law school caliber 0.3 non-billable hours.
You can ward off those pesky casual conversations by swinging your arms widely (and wildly) and avoiding eye contact when you walk down the hall. This has the added benefit of showing your colleagues who are slothing around in Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP Hall or loafing in the locker room that you are destined to bill more hours than them: you mean business.
Another effective method is telling people that it strikes you as odd that the library is not open 24 hours a day, especially if the conversation is about a completely irrelevant topic (eg. family, sleep, a tragic event suffered by the person you’re speaking to, etc.). People will shy away from further interaction with you, as they will be intimidated by your undying commitment to success.
You should also reveal only those parts of your personality that strictly relate to legal work. When the opportunity arises, never miss a chance to drop a casual reference to your undergrad Latin honors or administrative experience at a Shop (firm) on The Street (Bay Street). This will reduce social interaction by boring your classmates into submission. By sharing your more interesting and unique qualities (the ones that make you who you are), you may draw colleagues and potential employers alike into pointless and time-consuming social interactions that do nothing to bolster your credentials or expand your knowledge.
Lastly, eschewing social events not only reduces needless social interaction, but also invites your colleagues to draw the inference that you are working harder than them. By rattling them with your reputation as a manic workaholic early on, you may just throw them off when you are thundering away on your keyboard in the exam room. Remember, stories of wildly competitive games of flip cup should remain just that – stories. Law school is a nuclear arms race, and you should be America.
This brings us to the third and final topic of today’s lesson: study habits.
We are sorry to inform you that no longer will your notable wealth of raw talent alone guarantee you success in your academic pursuits. You are in law school now and, unfortunately, the lacklustre work ethic that allowed you to rise above the vacant efforts of your mouth-breathing undergraduate peers will not suffice here at Osgoode. So if you, like us, dream of one day sitting in a corner office, drinking the finest malt beers (Yankee Jim comes highly recommended) while staring into your custom-made temperature-controlled snake habitat, you are going to have to work hard. And work hard you will – all day and night.
But, you may ask, will effort alone be enough to pave my way to academic success, especially given the ambition and enthusiasm of my colleagues? Reflecting on this concern, we are reminded of an old Buddhist saying that is particularly apt in this circumstance:
Q: If a law student studies all night long but no one is there to witness it, has the student accomplished anything?
A: No, they haven’t. Studying for absurd lengths of time is meaningless unless all of your peers know about it. Thus, after a particularly gruelling 27 hours straight of cramming the subtleties of Contract Law into your brain (“past consideration is no consideration, GODDAMN IT”), make sure to remark on this exhausting feat when in earshot of your “friends”. This will have the double effect of disheartening others while also demonstrating to those around you that you are a relentless law-bot. Indeed, from now on you must think of yourself as a machine, sent from the future to alter the course of history by destroying law school exams.
And don’t bother taking time away from your busy schedule to consort with friends or family – these people are anachronistic relics in your new life, things to be discarded in a dirty Jarvis Street stairwell during your meteoric rise to the top. Remember, “work-life balance” is just a myth propagated by winners to weed out less ambitious students.
Sweet and innocent bottom tiers, internalize these simple steps and you will not only be successful at Osgoode, but will also understand the true spirit of the law school experience. If any of you burgeoning Legal Eagles want further elaboration on what you’ve read, stop by and visit. You will find us in a boardroom somewhere, sipping on scotch and commenting on the tasteful thickness of our business cards.