The purpose of this post is to attract those who are looking for advice (or more to the point, consolation) for prospective or current law school students who are also mothers. It's a small population, I think, when compared to the majority of law students, and as someone who has survived the first year of this endeavor, I'd like to offer myself as a .... source of encouragement? source of proof that the first two semesters can in fact be survived? Something like that.

I'm a rising 2L. My school is not really traditional, so I can't offer advice on how to get A's at Harvard while my daughters won the national spelling bee and I edited 15 law review articles ... but I can offer advice as to how to manage study vs. family time and still end up the year in the top 10% (of a non Ivy!!!) of your class while your children learn a lot, and learn to see that moms are people too, and that mom's goals are important, and that Mom is smart (as opposed to "dad is smart, and mom is great at getting stains out after soccer practice), and how to deal with existence on the fringes of the social scene (which mostly consists of 22 year olds, so really, my message is -- who cares!!).

So, if you got to this link b/c you are a mom who wants to go to law school, post a comment with any questions, and I'll respond ASAP.

posted by Zuska @ 1:22 AM

6 Comments:

At Saturday, June 11, 2005 9:44:00 PM, Joey said…

I don't have any questions yet. But I just wanted to say that I was delighted to find your blog.

I am starting law school in the Fall, dragging my family half way across the country to do so. It really soothes my worries to hear that you were in the top 10 percent of your class. I'm thirty-something as well... and college seems like forever ago. And people seem hell bent on telling me that I will either fail at law school or fail a a mother. Do you get that much? Or did you? How have you handled it... are you going to do law review?

OK, *grin*, I did have questions.
At Thursday, June 16, 2005 7:13:00 PM, Anonymous said…

I was also a 30-something, who dragged my family from the quiet comfort of the midwest, to the east coast to attend lawschool. College was awhile ago. My classmates were all a good 6-10 years younger than me. I was on a law school journal, did tons of volunteer work, had a part time job and managed to have a high-B average at a top-25 law school. Incidently, my family survived, my daughter made it through her last years of elementary school on the *honor roll* and seems otherwise healthy.

One thing that we did as a family was to designate Friday nights as Family Movie Night/Family Game Night. On Friday nights, I was always theirs, always home, never at school. Even during finals and while studying for the bar. This once per week designated family time was really important to me, and we all looked forward to it. Now that I'm finally done with school and am working, we still have Family Fridays.

Don't let anyone tell you its either one or the other. In retrospect, the healthy family relationship was worth way more than the straight A-s of my undergrad years. And seriously, in 10 years, no one will really care whether you were a B or A studeny--what matters is how you do your job, whatever it is.

Just my two cents.

Lynn
At Tuesday, June 28, 2005 9:57:00 AM, Zuska said…

we have game night! Ours is Tuesdays, b/c we all end up so exhausted by Friday. Friday is ice cream/movie night.

I have been successful at keeping the hours of 5-9 as reserved for the kids. My partner and I have had ups and downs b/c of this, but we've survived for a rather "up" summer. Seeing as though we're the adults, I think we can handle it.
At Saturday, July 23, 2005 9:27:00 PM, Mieke said…

Yeee Ha! Thrilled to have found you. I am 37, mother of two young boys (check out my blog for more) and taking the LSATs in October. I have a great job which pays well when it pays, the thing I love most about it is the flexiblity, but I live in LA and am dependent on the entertainment industry for my income, so if I leave *poof* so does the salary.

How did you do on the LSATs? How hard did you study?

How many schools did you apply to?

How did you strike the balance between mama and student?

Did you get a lot of financial aid?

When did you study?

May I read a copy of your personal essay?

SO many more, but I'll start with that.
At Saturday, July 23, 2005 10:39:00 PM, Zuska said…

Hey Mieke! I did NOT get a lot of financial aide. Part of why I chose the school I did was because I did get a scholarship. It was a merit-based scholarship, and I think that it was based solely on my LSAT score.

I studied VERY hard for the LSAT, mostly b/c my partner is a task master, and b/c my boss went away for the summer (and lovingly paid me full time salary to sit in a deserted office to stare at a phone that range about 3 times a week), so I was able to study slowly at work during the day.

I am divorced, and my kids spend the summers with their father, so every evening (almost), my partner would time me. Once the girls came home, it was harder, and I couldn't do full test settings, and had to do one section at a time.

I got a 164. I think I performed well on the day of hte test, b/c of all my practice tests, I didn't see much of a reason to try to take it again in December, I thought 164 was pretty close to my best.

I applied to 8 schools. I got into 4 of them. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason in where I got in vs. where I did not. I applied to both UC Berkeley and Cornell, which were tied at #10, and i got into Cornell, but not UC. I applied to three schools that landed b/t #20 and #30 according to US News and World Report, and got into some, and not others.

I chose to the schools I applied to and the school I attended mostly based upon geography, which seems silly, but perhaps as a fellow mother, you'll understand more. For me, law school wasn't/isn't just a place to spend 3 years. I moved my KIDS, I forced my partner to find a job in a new city ... so I wanted to move to a place that I could stay.

And in the end, in order to do that, I attended my safety school. Which came with the scholarship.

I also chose the safety school b/c I knew that if I went to Cornell, the competition would be fierce, and i didn't want to commit to so very much of away-from-the-kids time.

I do not have my essay anymore, I do not think. I'll check and see if my partner has it. I thought I saw something like it on his harddrive the other day. The desktop I was working with when I wrote it died before I moved from Berkeley to the east coast, and I don't think we even brought it with us!! If we did, it's in storage.

I had no trouble balancing school and family. I drew lines, and I kept them. I believe that there is a post or two in here about some of my study habits. I was home from school by 5 every day, and I was with the girls until they went to bed. Every Day. Except one day where I had to be at school for a meeting. One day!!

THen when the kids went to bed, I owuld crack the books. 8:30 or 9. I was never in bed before 12:30, and sometimes, not until 2.

Feel free to IM me or something any time if you want to discuss it more thoroughly. Zuska1972 on AIM.
At Sunday, July 24, 2005 12:38:00 AM, Mieke said…

I am doing really well on the practice LSATs except for the logic games, there I get my ass KICKED. My brain just doesn't work like that. The other sections I ace.

WOW. 164. That's terrific. I don't think I'll get close to that. I am starting to study the logic games for two hours twice a week. Then starting in the middle of August I am going to make time to take one timed test a week. We'll see. No matter how much time I give myself I cannot get the games.

Sounds like your schedule was ideal. My problem is that I think I am also going to keep working. Unless we totally pull up stakes and go to a smaller town.

Blah blah blah. It's all too much to think about until I know my score. One step at a time.