This workload will depend greatly on your professors and the school. However, you can expect to read a great amount of cases. Many professors will call on you in class to brief the cases from the assigned reading. Briefing a case means that you will have to summarize the facts of the case, state the legal issue being resolved by the court, summarize the legal holding which resolved the legal issue, and then give a summary of the reasoning behind the legal holding. During your first year briefing can prove to be a very time consuming and difficult task as you adjust to the new learning environment. You may find it very difficult to read every assignment for all your classes; this is especially true when your writing assignments are due.

The first year legal writing course is often a source of aggravation for many students. Often you will have a large legal writing assignment due before your next substantive class and you may not have had time to read the assignment. For the students who were not great writers before law school will especially have a difficult time. Although, legal writing is much different than most other types of composition. Most professors utilize either the IRAC or TRAC model of legal writing. The aformentioned models are acronyms which stand for Issue to be decided (or Topic for TRAC), Rule of law, Application of rule of law to the issue, and Conclusion. Each of your sections dealing with a different legal issue in your paper will need to be written in this manner. It can be difficult to learn how to write in this manner, but a good legal writing instructor will work with you and take the time to teach you how to write in this manner. A good instructor will also work with you to clear up any grammatical issues you may have in your writing.

As you can see there is a lot to learn during your first year of law school and you may find yourself spending as much time in law school as you would in a full time job. i.e. about 40-65 hours per week. Although, actual hours heavily dependend on your schedule, school, and professors.