Seeing law school advice going around, so I’ll share mine: Remember why you came to law school. When you’re not sure whether you should do something, ask yourself whether it serves that purpose. If it doesn’t, don’t do the thing.

I don’t mean you need to come into law school like “I want to be an attorney focused on mergers and acquisitions involving companies valued at greater than.....” That will probably change. For me, I ended up, career-wise, doing the one of the things I insisted I’d never do.

But you know *why* you went. Because you need to do something with your life and this seemed like a good way to buy time? Because you want to fight injustice? Because you find tax riveting? These are all real reasons that might have led you here.

For me, the most overextended and stressed I felt in law school was when I lost sight of the reason I was there and instead got caught up in doing what other people told me was prestigious & would “look good on my resume” without knowing what I wanted to use my resume to get to.

Looking back, as someone who knew broadly I wanted to litigate for people who couldn’t afford attorneys, I should have kept moot court (or replaced it with trial team) and clinic. Everything else— student boards, journal(!!!), etc. should have gone if it wasn’t bringing me joy.

I ended up with a resume full of shiny stuff that very often cost me my peace and my health and which no one really cared about very much when I started interviewing for the jobs I actually wanted. Highly do not recommend.

In law school (and so far, in my experience of practice) there is not enough time to do everything. So anything you do is taking from something else— studying, making money, spending time with loved ones, figuring out the specifics of what you want to do, sleeping, breathing.

Surround yourself with people who understand what your whys are and remind you to keep them in view. Don’t be charmed by people who try to drag you off the path by telling you something is important (or worse, *essential*) when that doesn’t ring true for you.