How to Have a Social Life in Law School: 3 Tips

For law students, having a social life is actually important. Maintaining a good school/life balance is important to learn, as you'll need to maintain a good work/life balance as a lawyer, or else.

You need to keep up with friends and family. After all, who's going to bring you soup and a kick in the butt when you're sick or down in the dumps? But actually maintaining a social life during law school is much trickier than you may have anticipated.

Below, you find three tips on how to make the most of your social life while you're in school.

1. Manage Your Social Time to the Hour

You are going to be a lawyer (and thus the center of your own world), so all your non-lawyer friends and family need to start learning to bend to your schedule (emphasis on the "non-lawyer" -- you better start being really, really nice to lawyer friends and family). This really does mean you need to schedule time that works for you and you need to stick to your schedule.

You can squeeze in a few hours a week of socializing if you manage your time well. It may feel bad if a friend is 15 minutes late to a one hour coffee get together as that means you only have 45 minutes, but your time is limited and valuable. When you have to cut friend time short, make sure they know it's only because of school, which is temporary (albeit a few years). Your classmates should have similar schedules, so you may have to be a bit more flexible with them, but your workload excuses will go much farther with them.

Pro tip: Be sure to include travel time.

2. Networking is Your Social Life Now

Yes, networking is awful. But if you want to spend some time with friends, whether or not they're law school classmates, go to networking events together. Having a friend or two with you at a networking event can help ease anxiety surrounding the act of networking, but be careful to not actually do any networking. Potential employers (a.k.a. event sponsors and attendees) may be even more interested in speaking with you if you bring friends to their networking events. All too often when people go to these events in groups, no one in the group actually networks with anyone else at the event, thereby defeating the purpose.

3. Stress Relief While Socializing is Critical

Any non-networking social activities should be centered around stress relief. You're going to need it. However, this is highly personal. For some, sitting down with family for a meal is their ideal way to blow off some steam, while for others, it involves shooting hoops, sailing on the open waters, maybe just some shopping, or shots. The most important thing to remember is to not lose track of time and that you have to study later, or the next day.

Related Resources:

• 5 People You May Meet in 1L Hell (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)
• 3 Tips to Help Your Relationship Survive Law School (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)
• Top 5 Reasons Not to Go to Law School (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)