Does something scare you? Good!

Does something scare you about law school or your future legal career? If so, you’re not alone. “Let’s face it—law school (and being a lawyer) is pretty scary for most people,” writes Alison Monahan, at The Girl’s Guide to Law School.

In a post called “On fear and fearlessness,” Monahan takes exception with a popular question that has been making the rounds: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid to fail?” A better question, she believes, is “What can you do even though you’re afraid?”

A lot of times, she explains, what is best for your education and your career involves taking a risk. If you put off those scary opportunities until someday when you’re not afraid, she writes, that day might never come—and you will have missed out.

At the most recent ABA Women in Law Leadership Academy, Monahan notes, speaker after speaker gave some variation of this answer when asked how it was she’d found success: “I went way outside of my comfort zone and I dealt with the discomfort until I figured out what I was doing.”

So, the next time you’re afraid to attend a networking event or sign up for an interesting but challenging class, Monahan advises, think of the fear not as something that should stop you but as a good sign that you’re moving forward.

“It means you’re taking a risk,” she writes, “which gives you the opportunity to learn and grow.”

Is your laptop a pain in the neck?

If you spend a long time hunched over your laptop—or your iPad or your smartphone—you might want to think about what you can do now to save yourself some real trouble later.

That sobering idea comes from Lee Burgess at Law School Toolbox. In a post called “My journey with ergonomics,” Burgess shares what she learned recently when she went to the chiropractor about a pain in the neck (literally).

At the chiropractor’s urging, Burgess took some time to think about all the hours she spends working, particularly on her laptop. It was a lot—which prompted Burgess to make a few adjustments.

After looking online at various options, she chose a pedestal to raise her Mac laptop and a Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad mouse.

Burgess noticed the difference in her posture almost immediately and recommends that law students think a bit about ergonomics, even if they believe they’re too young to worry about aches and pains.

“You are logging incredible hours at the computer,” Burgess notes, “and you don’t want those hours to add up to an injury.”

Your customized grammar helper

If you use Microsoft Word, chances are, you don’t use its grammar checker.

“About half the suggestions it offers will be just plain wrong,” notes Wayne Schiess at Legalwriting.net Blog. “Most of the rest will be things you know but don’t want to change.”

But if you write off the grammar checker as totally useless, then you’re missing out on a powerful tool, Schiess believes. The key, he says, is to reject the default settings and customize a handful of areas in which you know you need some help. Here are the steps to do that:

• In Word 2010, got to File > Options > Proofing.
• Look for “When correcting grammar and spelling in Word” and check “Check grammar with spelling.”
• Set the Writing Style drop-down to Grammar & Style and click on Settings.
• Then uncheck most of the boxes, and check only a few things that would be especially helpful.

 Need some ideas for which checks might be useful? In his post called “Customize Word’s grammar checker,” Schiess gives his opinion regarding which ones Word does particularly well—and which ones are just annoying.