[Kevin]

Undergrad -- academically, it was kind of a blur. I showed up and got okay grades, nothing spectacular, but all I really did was show up and turn in whatever homework was assigned.

Law -- academically, it's pretty rigorous. I'm in a part time evening program, and in my day job, I'm a legal assistant. The hardest thing when you're working full time and taking 10 hours of law school classes is time management. Typically, I get to bed around 1AM-3AM, and am up to go to work around 7:30AM. If you're able to survive on a limited amount of sleep, that's great.

The toughest thing has been adjusting to my LRW class this semester. Last semester, it was just Contracts I, Torts, and Legal Analysis. None of those classes had any major papers or assignments due, you just show up, participate in the lectures, and then show up and take the final. LRW requires a pretty substantial amount of research and writing, and they give us short deadlines (I guess to simulate the kind of time constraints that we'll be under in the real world).

Class discussion is an entirely different animal. It does vary from class to class, but a lot of my proffessors rely on one degree or another of the Socratic method -- that means, that you shut your laptop and your book, stand up and recite the case and argue with the professor about it. If you're prepared, it's alright, but the tough part is figuring out where your prof is going to go with the case. Some classes don't require the whole standing up/closing the laptop, while others require that if you are called on, you're standing for the remainder of class with no help allowed from your colleagues.

I understand the day program is pretty competitive for rank. People backstab, provide notes to each other that are wrong, lie, etc. just for class rank. Class rank is a pretty big deal to some folks. I'm an evening student (and #5 in my class since someone ahead of me had to go to war) and it's totally different. It's more of a team effort to get through finals. Everyone has a life, a job, many have kids, etc. From what I understand, the environment is a lot more professional. Not all schools are like that though.

The grading curve is vicious. The average grade is a C. They don't give many grades below C-, but they do give lots of C-'s. In a class of 60, last year, we had on average about 7 people 14 people above B- and only 7 with B+'s and above.

The school does do a pretty good job preparing us for trial practice. They have some firm management courses and things of that nature so that we're pretty well prepared to go out into the world and hang up our shingles.

I'm at the Oklahoma City University School of Law btw.