1L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School by Scott Turrow (1977)

As a future 1L, an anxious prospective law student, and someone who has never had any interest in attending Harvard Law, this book was both enlightening of the law school experience and a generally enjoyable and cathartic read about a first year’s struggle at Harvard Law. Why someone would willingly put themselves in the situation of attending law school at Harvard is beyond me, but Scott Turrow managed to synthesize his feelings and tumultuous emotions during his first year, along with enlightening perspectives and educational explanations of how the mystical and fearful 1L classes, study groups, and life functions.

Many past reviewers have declared that while the book was originally published in the 70s and depicted Turrow’s experience at Harvard Law in the ancient days, many of his experiences portray what law school is still really like. Which, honestly, says a lot about law school and the way educators choose to teach their students and encourage them to “learn to love the law”. Subjectively, I read this book as a precursor of the days awaiting me in law school, but one must take into consideration that Turrow was a white male, presumably smart, who attended law school in the 70s. There are many moments in the story that truly date the narrator, as when he marvels at how many women fill the classrooms at Harvard Law and yet how many of his male classmates still desire to call them “that filly in the front row” or laugh at their ambitions. Also, I’m sure Harvard is still hoity toity as shit, but during so many instances I just wanted to encourage our narrator to fucking chillll. He came into law school after having had his masters in English literature, so I’m not sure where he lost his cool but it was probably during those traumatizing months of studying Contracts and Criminal Law while being harassed by professors for being so incompetent and ill-prepared.

If you are going to law school I encourage you to read this book so you can get in the right mindset. I don’t encourage you to read this before bed though because of the hella nightmares I had being cold-called and asked to state the answer to questions like, “what was the Pepsi/Kendall Jenner debacle really about?” If you’ve already conquered 1L maybe you’d like to read this to relive some fun memories, increase your heart rate again or just enjoy some scahdenfraude. If you don’t give a shit about any of this, this will be a great read to see what other people choose to suffer for power/success/money/something about doing good and serving justice blah blah blah.