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7 Concepts for Acing Law School Adapted from Running

Cristian Gallorini

Summary

  • In both training for a long run and studying, I first identified my deadlines—such as the race or exam day—and worked backward to build a plan.
  • I’ve found significant guidance in what I call silent mentors.
  • The days before a final exam and a long run, I tend to slow down. I aim to arrive on exam day fit and rested and ace the test.
7 Concepts for Acing Law School Adapted from Running
iStock.com/ Orbon Alija

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I’ve learned by studying law in three countries and running from a very young age that succeeding in law school is no different from preparing and running a long run.

It may sound tautological: running a long run and advancing in law school are both long-duration activities. They require perseverance, patience, and tailored training, and they’re both demanding. Yet they get easier with repetition.

Overall, finishing a long run and completing law school aren’t merely a sport or a cycle of studies. They both tend to define your identity.

What follows is my list of blackletter law, comprising seven concepts that show the similarities between running and studying and that have helped me advance in both racing and law school.

1.     Plan and Set Realistic Goals Up Front

The first step in any long run, as well as in law school, is to plan ahead and set realistic goals for the year. In both training for a long run and studying, I first identified my deadlines—such as the race or exam day—and worked backward to build a plan. In running, at the end of the year, I draft my training plan, schedule races, and set my goals and expectations for the upcoming year.

In studying, I adopted two habits in the months before the start of the academic year: reviewing the standard curricula and, my favorite, choosing the electives. Each law school’s mandatory curriculum works like any basic exercise for a runner. Irrespective of whether you aim to be a track, road, or trail runner, there are certain workouts, intervals, and recovery runs that help every runner build cardiorespiratory endurance and total fitness.

Similarly, exams for legal writing and research, contracts, and civil procedure aim to make overall good lawyers, irrespective of the type of law you aim to practice. The electives are instead an occasion to set you apart from others and allow you to find a community within the practice of law. For me, it was international law and arbitration from a very early stage.

2.     Find a Coach or (Silent) Mentor

Just as it’s best practice to have a coach who can set a runner on the right track, it’s best practice to find a mentor who can guide you in your professional development. In running, I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had the same coaches—Andrea, Gianni, and Sara—since I was 15.

They continue to follow me remotely while I’m in Washington, DC, London, or Milan. But I recognize that it may be challenging to find a mentor in the legal community. Not everyone is available to share their secret sauce.

Nonetheless, organizations like the ABA offer programs matching mentors and mentees. Law schools are also great facilitators. I was a research assistant at the University of Miami School of Law’s International Arbitration Institute when the university connected me with lawyers from Japan and Portugal, with whom I still collaborate.

I’ve also found significant guidance in what I call silent mentors. These are experienced lawyers or law professors I’ve taken as role models and learned from by listening to them at conferences, reading their books and articles, and following their activities on LinkedIn. I called them silent because they made an impact on my career without me even speaking with them.

In running, there are several types of silent mentors. There are, for example, Coach Bennet’s guided runs on the Nike Run Club app, preprogrammed courses in Garmin Connect Groups like ArbitRUN (designed for international arbitration practitioners), or Clubs on Strava.

3.     Start the Semester “Easy,” Then Increase Your Time and Intensity, But Don’t Forget to Rest

Running may be one of the most natural activities, much like using your brain critically. However, your body needs to adapt to the new law school lifestyle and the stress associated with it.

At the start of the semester, I took it easy. My main goal was to get in the groove—as at the beginning of any long run—and set out a routine. Then, slowly, I’d treat law school as if I were practicing in a law firm, with a six-day workweek comprising reading, mock tests, repetition, and outlines.

However, it was important for me not to forget to listen to my body and the degree of fatigue and pressure I was putting it under. That’s similar to running, where you must prioritize rest, recovery, and healthy eating.

4.     Turn Leisure Time into an Occasion for Self-Improvement

Another important task I completed in the first part of the semester was identifying my “cross-training.” These are a series of activities that complement your preparation and total fitness.

In the early days of law school, I found my cross-training in academic writing and research and, later, during my LLM program, in getting involved in international arbitration associations and projects. Yet, to avoid feeling fatigued, I found it important to choose activities that complement law school while improving other aspects of my productivity and personal development. Unsurprisingly, those activities were running and spending time with friends and family.

5.     At the Midterm, Prove That Your Training Works, Bring the First Results Home, and Celebrate

I’ve always taken the midterm period as the first occasion to test whether my studying method and daily routine were effective. It was the time to harvest the first results.

In running, I usually do that by choosing shorter races during the first half of the year. Both the midterm exams and the mid-year races give me a fitness check and show whether I’ll have to recalibrate the training or keep doing what I’ve been doing. It’s also a time to celebrate the halfway point both in my preparation as an athlete and a law student and to avoid the arrival fallacy, or the point when you achieve a goal but don’t feel as content as you’d expected.

6.     Toward the Three-Quarter Mark of the Run, Stay Focused

The three-quarters point of the semester and the preparation for a long run are the hardest parts of the year, both mentally and physically. It’s a time when the finish line is closer than the starting point, but the training may start to be tiring and, at times, boring.

In law school, I found it to be the hardest time to stick to my study plan. I don’t have much practical advice for this stage. It mainly requires you to work on your own thoughts to build the confidence required to stay focused. At this stage, I reminded myself that passing the finish lineeven if it may not be the best run of my lifewould have fewer consequences than withdrawing from the race.

This brings me to the practical advice for the three-quarter mark of the semester: focus on the nuances because you’ve already learned the general principles in your courses. As in running, when you’ve learned how to run, it’s time to focus on your technique. In studying, when you grasp the macro-structure of the subject, it’s time to look at the micro aspects of your preparation without losing sight of your overall direction—passing the exam.

7.     Before Exam Day, Slow Down and Remain Relaxed

The days before a final exam, as well as a long run, I tend to slow down. My goal is to arrive on exam day fit and rested and ace the test. I did that by avoiding learning new topics and reducing the number of hours I spent studying. Instead, I worked on my confidence, isolating myself from factors (and people) that may undermine it and finding distractions to help me relax without losing my preparation. Unsurprisingly, before the exam day, I increased my running sessions.

On exam day, the only thing I did was shut down all negative thoughts, apply what I’d learned, and pass the exam. After that, I took several days to recover and celebrate.

You may wonder why I presented this as seven blackletter law sections and not a perfect decalogue. That’s because both running and studying in law school require you to deal with less-than-perfect conditions. The sooner you get comfortable with the imperfect, the better your progress will be in both your legal and your running careers.

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