Kelly: Law student experience: Today’s students paint new picture

Take a visit to the Law School Admission Council’s website, and in an article titled, “What you can expect from your law school experience,” you have to read no further than the first paragraph to find the sentence, “Law school can be an intense, competitive environment — but the rewards are considerable.”

“Intense” and “competitive” are words that have described the law school experience for decades. Research by Lawrence Krieger tells us that law students start law school with high life satisfaction and strong mental health measures, but within the first year of law school, they experience a significant increase in anxiety and depression. Further research by Abigail Patthoff found that law students are among the most dissatisfied, demoralized and depressed of any graduate student population.

This paints a very dismal picture. But in my experience as a law student adviser, an adjunct law professor and JLAP’s deputy director, law students are actively painting a very different picture of the law student experience — one that I am excited to share with you.

Anamika Krishnan is a foreign-trained attorney and August 2023 graduate of Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, having just obtained an LL.M. in health law, policy and bioethics. Anamika shared with me that many LL.M. students come to the U.S. with impressive legal backgrounds only to feel undervalued upon arrival based on cultural and language barriers. This shift in identity is challenging both emotionally and morally. In addition, LL.M. students often come from cultures where it is not seen as appropriate to ask for help.

Anamika set out to change this during her time in law school. She asked herself, “How do we build a community here where it is OK to ask for help without the fear of being judged or feeling ashamed?” As the LL.M. student representative on the Dean’s Student Advisory Board, she advocated for LL.M. students to have access to resources such as diverse food options, scholarship opportunities and academic opportunities. Anamika regularly shared JLAP resources with her peers and encouraged them to reach out for help.

Julia Zuchkov graduated from IU McKinney in May of 2023 with her J.D. While a student, she founded the First Generation Law Student Society. Julia was looking for a place to donate her old LSAT books and went on to create an LSAT book drive for those in need, acknowledging that the financial burden to get to law school is heavy right from the start. From there, the First Generation Law Student Society was born.

Julia explained the feeling of “the hidden curriculum” in law school as a first-generation student herself. Ideas like how to outline, when to apply for jobs, the importance of doing a clerkship and the value of networking go unexplained to many first-generation law students.

Wellness is an integral piece of the First Generation Law Student Society because, Julia explained, when you’re a first-generation law student, you feel all the same stressors as your peers, but there’s an added layer because you don’t know that this is “normal.” You then start to wonder, “Am I in the right place?” Julia and her peers set out to assure first-generation law students that they are exactly where they’re meant to be. At a wellness event hosted by the student organization, students created an online database of resources, JLAP among them.

T. Sterling Satterfield, a 3L at IU McKinney and the treasurer of IU McKinney’s Black Law Students Association, is prioritizing wellness among his peers and fellow BLSA members. This work matters to Sterling because he notes research by Thomas Vance for the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, which shows that the Black community experiences an increased rate of mental health concerns but is far less likely to receive help for those concerns, citing stigma as one of the most common reasons.

Talking about mental health is one of the best ways to combat stigma. This month, BLSA will be hosting an event with JLAP to discuss the importance of wellness, featuring one of JLAP’s newest case managers, Nicole Burts. Sterling said JLAP provides an avenue to more easily navigate mental health services. He said, “JLAP meets us where we are.”

Valeria Riverón Bernal (2L), Wenxi Lu (3L) and Olivia Hunter (2L), students at the IU Maurer School of Law, are part of the inaugural class of JLAP wellness ambassadors, a peer mentoring program JLAP started this year that trains student mentors to provide support to fellow students in need. When asked why she chose to participate in the JLAP Wellness Ambassador Program, Valeria said, “Change starts from within, and someone has to take the first step to ensure that the profession can be uplifting and welcoming.” When asked the same question, Wenxi said, “As a law student with multiple underrepresented identities, I know many law students from underrepresented groups suffer from imposter syndrome like I have in the past. I would love to help my peers navigate through the hardships I encountered.”

When asked why she chose to be a JLAP wellness ambassador, Olivia shared her journey to achieving four years in recovery. “Knowing the rate of alcoholism and substance use disorder was so high in our profession, I was shocked to get to law school and be the only one I knew talking about being in recovery. Being a wellness ambassador is not about convincing someone to quit drinking or get sober. The point is to show my peers that you can be sober and have a great life. I hope that if someone comes to that decision, they remember that they know someone else in law school who is living a great sober life.”

Anamika, Julia, Sterling, Valeria, Wenxi, Olivia and many other students just like them are changing the law student experience before our very eyes. Law school doesn’t have to be the same “competitive” and “intense” place many of us know it to be. Instead, law students today are demanding that law school be a place of camaraderie, wellness and support. JLAP is honored to be a part of this shift. The law students of today are shaping the legal profession of tomorrow, and we owe them immense gratitude.•

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Brittany Kelly, J.D., MSW, LSW, is deputy director of the Indiana Judges & Lawyers Assistance Program. She is an adjunct faculty member for the IU McKinney School of Law, where she teaches health and human rights, and she is an active member of the Indianapolis Bar Association. Opinions expressed are those of the author.