nancyadelman 's review for:

One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School by Scott Turow

4.0

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I was drawn to this book out of a morbid sense of curiosity after completing two years of graduate school myself (though in social work, not law). I wanted to know if a student in a different program, some thirty-plus years earlier would have a similar experience. I was not disappointed. Turow describes how he was drawn to law school after spending some time being an English lecturer, and how some of his classmates and friends came from similar backgrounds and academic levels. He approaches the first year of law school with no small amount of trepidation and quickly becomes overwhelmed with readings in a language he is not acquainted with. He describes the feeling of "becoming unmoored" encountered by not only himself but most of his classmates as they wade into deeper waters of academia while losing touch with the world outside of the law school. Turow sufficiently described his experiences in his first year of law school that I was able to relate to his misery and anxieties. In short, the experiences of law students thirty some years ago at an ivy league institution isn't all that dissimilar from graduate students today.