December 15, 2025: HOW IT FEELS TO FINISH 1L FINALS

 There's something surreal about walking out of your last 1L exam.

You've been stressed out for weeks. Likely running high on caffeine and adrenaline. And suddenly there's a weight lifted off your shoulders.

For a lot of student I work with, the end feels quieter than expected. There's no celebration, just a stillness stemming from the fact that their brain doesn't know what to do with free time.

That stillness matters, because it doesn't just represent the end of finals. It's the beginning of a reset. And if you're in that space right now, take the win. You showed up for yourself and your loved ones, even when you weren't sure it was working.

That counts more than you think. 

What if academic performance isn't actually a motivation problem.

When students fall behind, their first instinct is usually to blame themselves.

"I should have started earlier."
"I should be more disciplined."
"I should want this more."

But what I often see underneath is often something else: perfectionism, fear of failure, or overwhelm that's never been named out loud.

Motivation issues are often avoidance in disguise, and avoidance is usually a survival strategy. The problem isn't that you don't care, it's that caring too much has become exhausting.

Once you see that clearly, you can stop shaming yourself and start moving forward again. 

 During 1L finals, the hardest part isn't just the studying. It's managing what your mind does in between your studying: the self comparisons, the second guessing, the quiet panic that maybe you misunderstood everything throughout the entire semester.

I've worked with students who were doing just fine academically, but mentally, they were stuck in fight or flight.

And that's what we focused on. Not rewriting their notes, but regulating their nervous system enough to use what they already knew.

Success during finals isn't just about who worked the hardest. It's about who can think clearly when it counts.

Goodluck to the 1L's gearing up for their first finals season. 

  What makes law school hard isn't just the workload.

Most people assume law school is tough because there's so much to learn. And yeah, the volume is real. But that's not the part that wears students down.

What makes the experience difficult is the constant self-evaluation. The way every cold calls feels like a test of your intelligence. The way that creating outlines feels like a race to who finishes first. The way silence in class starts to feel like failure.

But it's not just about learning the law. It's about managing the pressure of proving you belong in the room.

Once students start naming that out loud, they stop feeling like it's just them.

And that's when everything starts to shift. 

   You do not need a master plan.

A lot of law students are afraid they’re falling behind because they don’t have a five-year plan.

But the truth is most of the lawyers and professionals I know didn’t follow a straight line.

They found clarity by doing, by taking action. Not by waiting until they were sure.

It’s okay to start with what interests you. It’s okay to try something and realize it’s not the thing. It’s okay to let your path unfold instead of forcing it.

Direction matters more than certainty.

You don’t need a master plan.