Questions to Ask Law Students
Questions for prospective applicants talking to current law students about the daily workload, grading, exam preparation, clinics, recruiting outcomes, debt, and whether they would make the same choice again.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What made you choose this school over the others you got in to?
Why ask it
The real reason is often money or geography rather than anything in the brochure, and students say so readily. If the answer is that this was the only acceptance, the rest of their view of the school is still useful but differently framed.
How did you decide law school was worth doing?
Why ask it
Listen for whether there was a decision at all. A large share of students arrive by momentum, having been good at essays and short of alternatives, and the ones who admit it give you the most honest read on everything else.
What does a normal Tuesday look like, from waking up to going to bed?
Why ask it
An hour-by-hour account is much harder to gloss than a question about workload. You find out how much of the day is class, how much is reading, and what has quietly disappeared from their week.
How much of the assigned reading do you actually do?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone rations it by the second semester, using commercial summaries and skimming, and almost nobody volunteers this to applicants. Hearing it early saves you a term of believing you are uniquely behind.
How did your first semester grades compare to what you expected?
Why ask it
Most students arrive having always been near the top and land somewhere in the middle, and that adjustment is the hardest part of the year for many. Someone willing to describe it plainly is worth more than a tour.
How does the curve work here, and how did people take it?
Why ask it
Ask for the median grade and how many students sit below it. The second half of the question is where you learn whether the effect shows up as competitiveness, quiet demoralization, or nothing much.
How did you prepare for exams, and what would you do differently?
Why ask it
The advice that recurs is to write practice answers under time rather than to make longer outlines. If several students independently tell you the same thing they got wrong, that is the most actionable information available to you.
Which part of the first year would you warn me about?
Why ask it
This gives permission to be negative about something specific, which general questions about culture do not. Common answers involve one course, one professor's grading, or the stretch between Thanksgiving and finals.
How much did the legal writing course teach you compared to your other classes?
Why ask it
Writing is the skill first employers actually test, and it is often the course with the least prestige and the largest sections. Students who got real feedback say so with some warmth; students who did not tend to describe it as busywork.
Did you get into a clinic or a summer placement, and how did you get it?
Why ask it
The route matters: an open application, a lottery, a professor's recommendation, or a family contact. If most good placements came through personal connections, that tells you what the school itself supplies.
How did recruiting go for people in your year?
Why ask it
Phrasing it about the year rather than about them removes the sting and usually gets a franker answer. Ask how many interviews a median student got, since that number is what the school's employer list means in practice.
How many people in your class still do not have something lined up?
Why ask it
Students track this among themselves with reasonable accuracy well before any official figure is published. It is also the number most likely to differ from what the career office will tell you.
What do you think the debt will mean for your first five years?
Why ask it
The answer reveals whether they have run the numbers on repayment against a realistic salary, or are relying on a forgiveness program without knowing its conditions. Many have not done either, which is itself worth seeing.
If you had wanted a different kind of job, would this school have helped you get it?
Why ask it
Schools tend to be built around one hiring channel. Asking a student whose plans changed mid-degree is the fastest way to find out what support exists off the main path, because they had to go looking for it.
Who has helped you most here, and how did you meet them?
Why ask it
If every answer names the same two professors, that is a small faculty carrying the mentoring. If people met them through a clinic or a journal, that tells you which activities to prioritize if you enroll.
What do people here do to stay sane, and does it work?
Why ask it
The second half prevents the standard answer about the gym and the running club. What you are looking for is whether anyone has kept a life outside the building, and what it cost them in grades.
Has anything about the way law is taught here frustrated you?
Why ask it
Complaints about being taught doctrine with no practical application, or exams that reward speed over thought, are common and legitimate. A student with no criticism at all after a year has either been lucky or is still recruiting for the school.
What do you know now that would have changed how you applied?
Why ask it
Answers often involve applying earlier, negotiating aid harder, or taking a year off first. This is hindsight from someone one step ahead of you, and it is the most portable thing in the conversation.
Who does badly here, and why?
Why ask it
A blunt question that gets thoughtful answers: people who came for the wrong reasons, people who never found a study group, people who needed structure the school does not provide. Compare that description honestly with yourself.
Would you do it again?
Why ask it
Ask it last and let the silence run. A yes with a qualification attached is the most common honest answer, and the qualification is the part you came for.
Getting honest answers from law students
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Finding students who will tell you the truth
- Talk to at least three, at different stages. One student's view is one professor's grading and one bad section.
- Second and third-year students have seen a full grading cycle and recruiting season. First-years have opinions but no results yet.
- Official tour guides and admissions ambassadors are selected and sometimes paid. Nothing they say is dishonest, but it is filtered, so use them for logistics and find others for judgment.
- Students who transferred in are unusually useful: they can compare two schools from the inside.
- Reach out to recent graduates as well. They know how the degree traveled and how long the job search actually took.
Getting past the recruiting answer
- 1Open with something concrete and low-stakes, like their schedule or a course they are taking, rather than asking whether they like the school.
- 2Ask about their year or their class rather than about them when the subject is grades, offers, or debt. People are more candid about the group.
- 3When you get a general answer, ask for the last specific instance. "When did that last happen?" does most of the work.
- 4Say what you are weighing, whether that is cost, a city, or a practice area. Students give better answers when they know what decision they are helping with.
- 5Ask your one difficult question near the end, once the conversation has warmed up, and then stop pushing.
What to do with what they tell you
- Treat repeated complaints as data and one-off complaints as noise. Three students naming the same course or the same office is a pattern.
- Check anything factual against the school's published disclosures on employment, bar passage, scholarship retention, and attrition. Students are good on experience and unreliable on numbers.
- Separate what is true of law school everywhere from what is true of this school. Heavy reading and a hard first year are universal; a thin career office is not.
- Weigh cost and location heavily. They are the two variables students most often say they underrated.
- Write down what you heard the same day, with who said it and what year they were in. After four campus visits the accounts blur together.